A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE decidedly in favour of the new learning, all for the king and the council, and two or three also * (including the sub-prior) who were with the abbot in holding to the old way. The rest had no strong opinions at all, and the dis- cussions in the shaving house and elsewhere, though free, were apparently not violent. At the death of More and Fisher, and again at the dissolution of the smaller monasteries, the abbot imposed certain penitential exercises 2 upon the whole convent, which were per- formed, though not with good will ; when murmuring arose they ceased. Meanwhile the abbot was growing more and more troubled as he saw the course events were talcing ; more and more conscience- stricken at his own cowardice in accepting the oath of supremacy, which better and braver men had refused. He did not hide his troubles from his brethren ; but they were for the most part irresponsive to his appeals. He confided to the sub-prior that his conscience grudged him daily for taking the oath ; he said to more than one of his neighbours and friends that he felt it was their own shameful lives that were bringing so many troubles upon the religious. 3 In Lent he fell ill of the ' stranguilion,' and in his extreme bodily pain he said that he wished he had died with More and Fisher and the other good men who would not take the oath. And when his mind wandered a little in his illness the words that came to his lips most naturally were quotations from the fathers which seemed to prove the pope's supremacy.* Yet, charac- William Sherborne, and had advised Croxton to report the words of another monk to the visitors. 1 Dan Laurence Blunham, Dan Richard Hop- worth. 2 They were bidden to say the Psalm Deus vener- unt gentes, with the versicle Exurgat Deus, every Friday after the Litany, prostrate before the altar. Later they were to sing Salvator mundi, salva nos omnes at every mass. 3 There is much in the abbot's words and actions at this time that recalls the record of the last days of the London Charterhouse ; and yet he could scarcely have heard that story in much detail. It is also significant — though indeed it is only what might have been expected — that the best of the religious at that time, those who were most faithful and devoted to their rule, were also the most ready to confess that it was their ' shameful lives ' which brought such trouble on the church. 4 ' Tu quis es ? Primatu Abel, gubernatione Noe, auctoritate Moyses, judicatu Samuel, potes- tate Petrus, unctione Christus. Alia; ecclesia; habent supra se pastores, tu pastor pastorum es.' From a letter of St. Bernard to Pope Eugenius III. The sub-prior said the abbot was ' somewhat acrazed ' at this time. teristically, at Easter he put the sub-prior on his obedience ' to bid the beads ' before the sermon for the king as supreme head of the Church. The death he desired was indeed nearer than he thought. It was during Lent that one of the assistant priests of Woburn chapel (which served as the parish church) came upon some bulls which had not been delivered up to Dr. Petre, and went straight up to London with them. This man had been engaged by the abbot in the pre- vious summer 5 ; he was originally a friar, 6 who had been dispensed from his obed- ience by the pope, and was now a violent par- tisan of the new learning ; he had already been rebuked by the abbot for his railing against the pope, and against images. With the bulls he took a letter from Dan Robert Salford, one of the monks who shared his views. On his return he told the abbot what his errand had been, and was dismissed in consequence ; but the precaution came too late. Early in May Dr. Legh and John Williams arrived, bringing grave charges against the abbot and convent ; on the 8th the house was surrendered. 7 John Williams, who had taken the deed of surrender up to London, 8 together with a letter from the abbot (in which he and his brethren pro- tested their innocence and cast themselves on the king's mercy), 9 returned again at once accompanied by Dr. Petre ; and on 1 1 and 12 May depositions were taken, and with articles of accusation appended were sub- mitted to the council. 10 Four monks were examined besides the abbot and sub-prior ; also Sir John Mylward, warden of the hospital at Toddington, and
- From his own deposition. As to the bulls, the
abbot said it was merely by an oversight of the bursar that they were not delivered up. This is probably true ; as he was willing to confess every- thing else, there seems no reason why he should deny this. B From the petition of the sub-prior (i. and P. Hen. VIII. x. 1239 [1536]). ' Ibid. xiii. pt. I, 955. 8 Ibid. 9 This letter is dated 1536 by Wright, Suppres- sion of Monasteries,^. 145, but allusion in it to Legh and Williams and the accusations of treason make it clear that its proper place is here, as it is placed in the L. and P. Hen. Fill. xiii. pt. 1, No. 956. 10 The articles appended to the depositions by the commissioners included the names of Sir Francis Bryan, his ' doctor of physicke,' Mylward of Tod- dington, and two doctors (one of Cambridge), besides the abbot, the bursar, and Dan Hop- worth. A very different selection was finally made. 368
