his kinsmen; and it is stated that in all these nefarious transactions, "one Mr. Stockwith" was his great co-partner and ally, "who doth sclawnd the Convent, and saith our House is noght els nisi spelunca latronum.” The petitioners further complain that their "husbandry is neglected, our land is not tylde, muke is not led, our corn lieth in the barn, some is threshte and is not grinded, mych is yet to threshe, and taketh hurt wythe vermyn." The petitioners conclude this statement of their grievances in these words: Now worshypful fader, for the love of God, help us at this great nede, and send us such comfortable councell; and our Lord rewarde you in hevyn, and ever more kepe you and all your devoute brethren. Amen."

This MS. if it is to be relied on, shews the misery and confusion as well as the waste of property which attended the dissolution of the religious houses. The Prior having been up to London, and perceiving that the destruction was inevitable, neglects his sacred trust, and endeavours to enrich himself out of the wreck; while, the poor brethren try in vain by petition to restrain his peculations. I should, however, rather suppose that the MS. is one of those suspicious documents which were fabricated about this time. Cromwell and his inferior agents, one of whom, Dr. Layton, is alluded to by name, were eager to get complaints against the Superiors, as a better pretext for attacking the establishment. Many such are on record; and shocking instances of intimidation, as well as flattering overtures, are found in the evidences of that date.*

Prymne

* Against the monks themselves, the most abominable falsehoods were propagated by the Visitors, and they were accused of every thing bad in the black catalogue of crime. That a body of men, consisting at least of thirty thousand souls, should be found all virtuous, was not to be expected; but charges such as these deserve the scorn and contempt of every reasonable and impartial man. In Speed's Chronicles of England, D'Emillianne's History of the Monastic Orders, and some other authors, a string of aspersions and calumnics is exhibited against the monks and nuns as a body, charging them with offences grossly indecent, and with deeds which are repugnant to the order and law of nature. With this false and distorted picture Fuller, also, in part agrees: but he does not go to the same length in its most objectionable lineaments. Bishop Burnet takes up the same uncharitable account of them, and gives as his authority a part of the report of the visitation concerning one hundred and forty-four houses, which it is said contained abominations equal to any that were

Prymne tells us in his Diary, A. D. 1697, that he had visited this place several times, and that it had left a lively image on his youthful mind. "It was," says says he, "a great and most stately building, of many stories high; all of huge squared stone, and wholly built upon vaults and arches, under which he passed a great way. All was huge stone staircases, huge pillars, long entries, with doors on each side leading into opposite rooms. I remember the dining room also: it was at the end of one of the entries: in it were long oak tables; it was lighted by great church windows, much beautified with painted glass. The outside of the house was ornamented by semiarches, jetting from the wall, borne by chancelled columns, and the top was covered with lead. The doors were huge and strong, and ascended by a great number of steps; and places were made through the turrets to defend the house. The whole was encompassed by a huge ditch or moat. There was also the finest gardens and orchards I ever saw; but now I believe there are none of these things; for about ten years since, all or most part being in a ruinous state, the house was pulled down, and a less one erected on its site."

The moat still remains almost entire, and incloses a space of not less than about eight acres. Within a few years the steeple of the Chapel was standing, and was used as a dove-cote. It was demolished, with some other remains, by one of those casual proprietors, who managed to obtain possession of a part of this property for a few years. Another of the same genus who succeeded

in Sodom. "In some," he says, "the Visitors found the instruments of coining; but for the lewdness of the confessors of nunneries, and the great corruption of that state, whole Houses being found with child, or principally so; for the dissoluteness of Abbots, and other monks and friars, not only with harlots but married women, and for their unnatural lusts and other brutal propensities, these are not fit to be spoken of, much less enlarged on in a work of this nature."

But as this only rests on the report of the Visitors, if that report be unworthy of credit it falls at once to the ground, as the historian only repeats the falsehoods which had been already propagated. "The Visitors," says the learned antiquarian Hearne, "stuck at nothing that they thought would expose monks, and would serve as an argument to the King for dissolving the Abbeys, and seizing on their lands and revenues, and afterwards employing them to such purposes as himself, by the advice of those Visitors and other enemies to the monks should judge proper. Letters from Bodleian Library, Vol. 1. 237.

succeeded, dug up a great many of the foundations, which were very extensive. The original building was of brick, coyned with great ashlar stones, many of which are still to be seen in the farming buildings which have been erected of late years; and part of the great window sills, and other large carved stones, may be found in many of the cheese presses, horsing blocks, and door stones in the parish. The cellars of the present house, the kitchen doorway, the pantry and dairy, are part of the original building. There is a stone pillar of immense thickness in one of the cellars, which probably supported some of those lofty arches which Prymne has mentioned. · The following ground plan was taken by the author of this work in the year 1837.

I cannot now behold the desolation which has overtaken this once splendid foundation without feelings of extreme regret*, not only as an antiquarian and topographer, that so little remains of its former architectural splendour, but also as a lover of learning and munificence, that such waste was made of ́the ample revenues of this and similar establishments, by the rapacity of a King and Parliament, be it remembered, of the Catholic communion in all things except the supremacy, and afterwards confirmed by the Catholic Queen Mary and her Parliament.

Previous to the general dissolution of religious houses by King Henry the Eighth, several bulls had been obtained from the Pope to sanction these acts of rapacity, according to the wishes and influence of the persons who applied for them. To say nothing of the bulls obtained for this purpose by William of Wickham, and Archbishop Chicheley, and Smith Bishop of Lincoln, for they honestly paid for what they took, Margaret Countess of Richmond obtained the Pope's licence to suppress the Abbey of Creyke, Norfolk, and some others. Cardinal Wolsey obtained the Pope's bull to dissolve as many monasteries, where there were not more than six monks, to the value of eight thousand ducats per annum; and after that another bull to suppress all in which there were less than twelve monks, and to annex them to the greater monasteries. After this, when King Henry had thrown

"On the necessity of the reformation of these houses there can be but one opinion among Protestants; but the overthrow of every monastic institution, the barbarous cruelty inflicted upon the professors of religion,and the destruction of every valuable monument of art,every splendid relic of literature, cannot but impress with a disgust and abhorrence which even the great benefits we have received from the change can scarcely allay. Moreover, after passing the act, the King promised in a speech to the Members of the Upper House, that he would order them to the glory of God and profit of the commonwealth . . . . . . . . Surely,' says he, if I contrary to your expectations should suffer the ministry of the Church to decay, or learning, which is a great jewel, to be minished, or the poor and miserable to be unrelieved, you might well say, that I being put in such a special trust as I am in this case, were no trusty friend to you, nor charitable to my Emne-christen; neither a lover of the public wealth, nor yet one that feared God, to whom account must be rendered of all our doings. Doubt not, I pray you, that your expectations shall be served more godly and goodly than you will wish or desire, as hereafter you shall plainly perceive'!!!"History of Sacrilege. Ask Spelman how these promises were fulfilled.

thrown off the Pope's supremacy and was excommunicated, he was but too ready to exercise the same despotic power in plundering and suppressing what was left, a practice to which the Pope had aforetime given too much sanction, and to which the King's own wants but too much inclined him.

Thus it was that the splendid halls and spacious cloisters at Low Melwood were granted to Mr. John Candish, who, having married into the family of Sheffield, resided at that time on their property at West Butterwick. "He turned the same," says Leland, "into a goodly manor house;" but as the land granted therewith formed a very small part of the revenues, being not more than about two hundred acres, such a dwelling, as it passed from one person to another and became "ruinous and decayed," was found to be a great incumbrance on so small an estate; it was therefore pulled down, and a smaller one erected out of the materials, more suitable to the circumstances of the present owner. Low Melwood, in 1652, became the property of Mr. John Dillingham, from whom it descended to his grandaughters and co-heiresses, Francisca Maria and Mary. Francisca Maria, the wife of William Knight, resided at the house until the day of her death, when her moiety became the property of the family of Pindar, whether by purchase or otherwise I cannot tell; and the late Mr. Thomas Pindar left it along with his other estates to the present owner Earl Beauchamp. The other part descended to Dillingham's other daughter Mary, the wife of George Gibson, of Doncaster; then to her eldest son John, who devised it to his brother George, who sold it to Henry Broadhead, Esq. who devised it by will to his nephew Theodore Henry Brickman, who afterwards assumed the name of Broadhead; and his son sold it to a person of the name of Cooper, who having to raise the purchase-money by mortgage of the property, soon afterwards gave it up to Mr. Maltby, of Coats, the mortgagee, who left it by will to two of his friends, Mr. Lister and Mr. Skill. Mr. Lister purchased the share of Mr. Skill, and at this time resides in the house at Low Melwood.

These splendid religious institutions were certainly the means of keeping the lamp of knowledge from being totally extinguished by the darkness and turbulence of the times; and the Carthusian monks more especially devoted

their