ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
Thus the year which had seen so many religious changes permitted or encouraged by authority ended with a period of persecution of those who went too far. Most of the victims, however, were foreigners, and their cases are of little importance in London ecclesiastical history compared with another contemporary event—the suppression of the London religious houses. The royal policy during the years 1537-9 was to induce as many as possible of the heads of such houses to surrender them to the king. In London no difficulty appears to have arisen in carrying out this policy. It is probable from the small numbers who signed the deeds of surrender—in several cases considerably fewer than those who acknowledged the king's supremacy in 1534—that means had been taken to reduce the number of inmates; and men who could be trusted to be amenable to the king's desires had been placed at the head of several of the more important houses: for instance, Hilsey was prior of the Black Friars. There does not seem to have been any attempt on the part of the citizens to protest against the Dissolution; [1] the only definite evidence that some of them regretted it is to be found in the works of Stow, who was only a boy in 1538. In August the lord mayor, Sir Richard Gresham, wrote to the king concerning the three hospitals of St. Mary, St. Bartholomew, and St. Thomas, and the abbey of St. Mary Graces on Tower Hill, 'founded of good devotion by ancient fathers,' and endowed with great possessions for the relief of the poor, 'and not to the maintenance of canons, priests, and monks to live in pleasure, nothing regarding the miserable people lying in every street.' He asked the king to order that the mayor and aldermen should from henceforth manage those houses and their revenues for the benefit of the poor. It is thus clear that the City authorities were aware of the approaching surrenders some months before they actually took place.[2] The first was that of St. Thomas of Acon, in October; the White, Austin, Black, Grey, and Crossed Friars surrendered in November; and the nunnery of St. Helen, the abbey of St. Mary Graces, the Minories, and St. Mary Spital before the end of March 1539. The Act securing to the king the property not only of all monasteries which had surrendered since 1536, but of all which in future should 'happen to be dissolved, suppressed, ... given up, or by any other means come' into his hands, was passed the following summer; in the autumn and winter came the surrender of the priories of St. Mary Overy and St. Bartholomew, the hospital of St. Thomas in Southwark, and the great abbey of Westminster. Thus by February 1540 there remained only the collegiate churches and chapels and a few hospitals, such as St. Mary of Bethlehem, the Savoy, and St. Katharine's.[3]
No notice seems to have been taken of Gresham's letter, and early in 1539 the Common Council decided to send a formal petition to the king, asking not only for the three hospitals and the abbey on Tower Hill for the poor, but also for the preservation of the four great churches of the friars for the purposes of worship, on account of the infection and other inconveniences likely to arise 'by reason of the great multitude of people' daily resorting to the small parish churches, much to the annoyance of the parishioners.
- ↑ Stokesley seems to have foreseen with equanimity the approaching fall of the great abbots; Hall, Chron. 27 Hen. VIII.
- ↑ Strype, Mem. i (i), 409; cf. L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiii (2), 13, 72.
- ↑ See the section on 'Religious Houses' passim; L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiii (2), 13; Wriothesley and Hall, Chron. passim.
