for some time after this, and it is evident that they aimed at presenting to the livings in their gift priests of the same school of thought. Thus we find Thomas Drayton, rector of Drayton Beauchamp, in a list of exceptions to the general pardon issued to Lollards in the Tower of London in March 1414, as well as Thomas Cheyne, younger son of Roger Cheyne [1] ; John Agret, parson of Latimer, is mentioned in another list of twenty-four pardons of the same year, as well as three tradesmen of Little Missenden and High Wycombe.[2] A few months later twelve more pardons include the names of two Buckinghamshire men, from Amersham and High Wycombe, [3] who, like those just men- tioned, had been arrested at the great gathering of Lollards in St. Giles' Fields in January 1414. Some of their friends were less fortunate : there is a notice on the Patent Roll of this year of the execution of three men from Amersham and one from Little Missenden, whose widows were to receive some allowance from the King's bounty.[4] It is of some interest to note the names of these towns : Amersham, High Wycombe, Chesham, and Little Missenden were gathering places a century later for those holding heretical views, and for some of their lineal descendants later still.
With the exception of the Cheynes and the priests above mentioned, most of the Buckinghamshire Lollards of this period seem to have been tradesmen. Two more priests, however, were summoned before the Convocation of 1428 on a charge of heresy, and were induced to abjure their errors. Robert, rector of Hedgerley, was found to be unsound in his views as to the Holy Eucharist, though he denied all the other points brought against him : he finally abjured before his own diocesan.[5] Richard Monk, vicar of Chesham, who had already been convented before the bishop of Lincoln on the same charge, now abjured, and promised on the holy gospels that he would preach no more heresy [6] ; but there is reason to believe that he did not keep this promise.
Meanwhile, in spite of the undercurrent of Lollard sympathies, the ordinary course of church life went on as usual. In the fourteenth century here, as elsewhere, monastic churches were rebuilt and beauti- fied, [7] chapels were erected where they were not needed, chantries were endowed and vicarages ordained. Four churches were appropriated to religious houses during the fourteenth century, [8] four more in the fifteenth, and two even in the sixteenth century. [9] Others, still con- tinuing appropriate, changed hands. Thus Edlesborough passed from
- ↑ Rymer, Fædera, ix. 120.
- ↑ Ibid. iv. 276.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 100.
- ↑ Pat. 1 Henry V. pt. 5, m. 24.
- ↑ Wilkins, Concilia, iii. 493-4.
- ↑ Ibid. 498-500.
- ↑ The multiplication of indulgences during the fourteenth century is very closely connected with the rebuilding of so many churches.
- ↑ Pitstone with Nettleden chapel to Ashridge ; Dorney to Burnham ; Iver to Windsor ; and Moulsoe to Goring.
- ↑ Little Marlow to the priory of Little Marlow ; Soulbury and Whitchurch to Woburn ; East Claydon to Bisham. Great Marlow was restored to Tewkesbury in 1494, and West Wycombe granted to Bisham as late as 1520 (Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Atwater, 66d).
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