20 January 1536: Thomas Cromwell’s dissolvers of monasteries, Richard Layton and Thomas Legh, report allegations of whoring and theft by William Thirsk, Abbot of Fountains
John William Clay, Ed. 1912. Yorkshire Monasteries. London: Yorkshire Archaeological Society. Get it:
.Unedited excerpt
The excerpt in the book is shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.
[Richard Layton and Thomas Legh to Thomas Cromwell.] Please it your mastership to understand, that the abbot of Fountains hath so greatly dilapidated his house, wasted their woods [timber], notoriously keeping six whores, defamed here a toto populo, one day denying these articles with many more, the next day following the same confessing, thus manifestly incurring perjury; six days before our access to his monastery he committed theft and sacrilege, confessing the same. At midnight caused his chaplain to steal the sexton’s keys, and took out a jewel, a cross of gold with stones. One Warren, a goldsmith of the Cheap [Cheapside, London] was with him in his chamber at that hour, and there they stole out a great emerald with a ruby; the said Warren made the abbot believe the ruby to be but a garnet, and so for that he paid nothing, for the emerald but £20. He sold him also then plate without weight or ounces; how much therefore the abbot therefore therein was deceived he cannot tell, for the truth is he a very fool and a miserable idiot. We pronounced him perjured, and willed him to show us a cause why he ought not of right and justice to be deprived, and reheresied and read unto him his own rule, which deprived him for the premises, with other many his transgressions more, which were to long to write. He could not deny but by those his own rules he ought to be deprived, if there had been no other law made or written for deprivation; and for a conclusion he hath resigned privily into our hands, no man thereof yet knowing. We have accepted and admitted his resignation [deed dated 19 January], et declavimus monasterium jam esse vacans, and suffereth him to minister in all things (for the avoidance of suspicion) even as he did before, till we know your further pleasure.
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Comment
The letter then details the replacement its authors have in mind, who is willing to pay a substantial bribe for the privilege:
There is a monk of the house called Marmaduke [Bradley], to whom Mr Timmes lent a prebend in Ripon church, now abiding upon the same prebend, the wisest monk within England of that cote and well learned, 20 years officer and ruler of all that house, a wealthy fellow, which will give you six hundred marks to make him abbot there, and pay you immediately after the election, without delay or respite, at one payment, and as I suppose without much borrowing. The first fruits to the king is a thousand pounds, which he with his policy will pay within three years, and owe no man therefore one groat, as he saith, and his reason therein is very apparent.
William Thirsk was implicated in Bigod’s rebellion in early 1537, and hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn and his head displayed on the London walls on Whit Friday (25 May) of that year (Wriothesley 1875). Bradley surrendered the monastery in 1539 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
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- Anti-clericalism (7) W/G ·
- Bigod's rebellion (1537) (1), an armed rising by Roman Catholics in Cumberland and Westmorland in frustration at the failure by Henry VIII to implement promises made following the Pilgrimage of Grace W/G ·
- Bribery (6) W/G ·
- Catholic Church (57) W/G ·
- Cheapside (1) W/G ·
- Church of England (94) W/G ·
- Cistercians (6) W/G ·
- City of London (11) W/G ·
- Cromwell, Thomas (by 1485-1540) (4), advocate of the English Reformation, chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 until his beheading W/G ·
- Dissolution of the monasteries (9), the set of administrative and legal processes 1536-41 by which Henry VIII disbanded Catholic monasteries, priories, convents, and friaries, seized their wealth, disposed of their assets, and provided for their former personnel and functions W/G ·
- English Reformation (12) W/G ·
- 📌Fountains Abbey (5) W/G ·
- Francis Bigod (2) W/G ·
- Hanged, drawn and quartered (3) W/G ·
- Hanging (24) W/G ·
- Henry VIII (1491-1547) (16), ruled 1509 until his death, initiator of the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from papal authority and introducing the theory of the divine right of kings, dissolved convents and monasteries, invested heavily in the navy W/G ·
- Layton, Richard (1500?–1544) (2), churchman, jurist and diplomat, dean of York and a principal agent of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell in the Dissolution of the Monasteries W/G ·
- Legh, Thomas (?1511-1545) (1), jurist and diplomat, key agent of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell in the Dissolution of the Monasteries W/G ·
- London (84) W/G ·
- Monastery (3) W/G ·
- Pilgrimage of Grace (3), revolt in Yorkshire in October 1536 against Henry VIII's break with the Catholic Church and in protest at other political, social and economic grievances, spread to other parts of the north including Cumberland, Northumberland, Durham and north Lancashire - "the most serious of all Tudor period rebellions" W/G ·
- Prostitution (15) W/G ·
- 📌Ripon Cathedral (4) W/G ·
- 📌Ripon (17) W/G ·
- Sexual intercourse (6) W/G ·
- Theft (11) W/G ·
- Treason (4) W/G ·
- Tyburn (2) W/G ·
- West Riding of Yorkshire (151) W/G ·
- Whitby Abbey (3) W/G ·
- 📌Whitby (22), town, port and parish on the east coast of North Yorkshire/the North Riding at the mouth of the River Esk W/G ·
Comment
Comment
The letter then details the replacement its authors have in mind, who is willing to pay a substantial bribe for the privilege:
There is a monk of the house called Marmaduke [Bradley], to whom Mr Timmes lent a prebend in Ripon church, now abiding upon the same prebend, the wisest monk within England of that cote and well learned, 20 years officer and ruler of all that house, a wealthy fellow, which will give you six hundred marks to make him abbot there, and pay you immediately after the election, without delay or respite, at one payment, and as I suppose without much borrowing. The first fruits to the king is a thousand pounds, which he with his policy will pay within three years, and owe no man therefore one groat, as he saith, and his reason therein is very apparent.
William Thirsk was implicated in Bigod’s rebellion in early 1537, and hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn and his head displayed on the London walls on Whit Friday (25 May) of that year (Wriothesley 1875). Bradley surrendered the monastery in 1539 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
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29 August 1570: On arriving in Yorkshire, Archbishop Grindal declares war on bloody-minded folk-Catholicism
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This is a Jesuit hagiography, and I don’t know to what extent the source reflects the substance of Dolben’s remarks. Wikipedia takes a more benevolent view of him:
In the aftermath of the Popish Plot, Dolben tried many of the accused, including Sir Thomas Gascoigne, 2nd Baronet and Sir Miles Stapleton; due to his impartial trait of pointing out inconsistencies in the prosecution’s evidence, both were acquitted.[4] At the trial of Mary Pressicks, who was accused of saying that “We shall never be at peace until we are all of the Roman Catholic religion”, Dolben saved her life by ruling that the words, even if she did speak them, could not amount to treason.[5] As a result of this and his opposition to Charles II’s removal of the City Corporation’s writs, he was “according to the vicious practise of the time” dismissed on 18 April 1683. Again working as a barrister, Dolben prosecuted Algernon Sidney in November 1683 before being reinstated as a Justice of the King’s Bench on 18 March 1689. Records from 29 April show him “inveighing mightily against the corruption of juries [during the Glorious Revolution]”,[1] and he continued sitting as a Justice until his death from an apoplectic fit on 25 January 1694,[6] and was buried in Temple Church.
Vulgar almanacs glory in death sentences and executions, but I suppose one (1) is called for.
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