The Burning Time
Page 18
Edward Powell, the third in this trio of priests, was born in Wales in about 1478 and educated at Oxford University where he became a fellow of Oriel College and was awarded his doctorate in theology in 1506. He also spent some time studying in Paris. Ordained priest in 1499, he fulfilled various administrative roles at Oriel, including collector of rents, junior treasurer, chaplain and dean, finally being made commissary to the chancellor of the university in 1508. Two years later he was implicated in an embezzlement scheme involving the university proctors and the Keepers of the University Chests, but the scandal inflicted no lasting damage. Powell was an example of the kind of early sixteenth-century clergyman who managed to hold many offices at once (or ‘in plurality’): he was also Rector of Bleadon in Somerset (from 1503), canon of Lincoln (from the same year), canon of Salisbury (from 1507) and provost of St Edmund’s College, Salisbury, from 1509 to 1534. He was also Vicar of Powerstock in Dorset from 1522 to 1526, Vicar of Melksham in Wiltshire from 1526 to 1534, and Rector of Radipole in Dorset, again from 1526. So numerous and geographically distant were his livings that in November 1514 he had to be granted a papal dispensation to allow him to hold three incompatible benefices.
After Henry VIII’s accession in 1509 Powell was a frequent preacher at court, and in the 1520s he became known for his work in combating Lutheranism, particularly through the publication of a treatise against Luther, in which he defended the seven sacraments and the holiness of the Pope. Like Abel, Powell became involved in Queen Katherine’s defence over the question of the proposed divorce, being included among the theologians and canon lawyers appointed to present her case before the papal legates in 1533. In that same year he was one of three priests hired by traditionalists in Bristol to preach against the reformist sermons being delivered there by Hugh Latimer, and in one of his sermons Powell condemned rulers who corrupted their subjects ‘with open sinning and ill example of living’ – such ‘ill example’ including the putting away of a first wife and taking of another, without the assent or dispensation of the Church. In 1534 he preached again in Bristol, this time in defence of pilgrimages. While previously Powell’s trenchant condemnation of Lutheranism had gained him plaudits, the changed circumstances now meant his outspoken support for the old ways – let alone his hardly veiled criticism of the King – could only land him in trouble.
Powell, like Fetherston, was deprived of all his (many) benefices for refusal to take the required oaths and was committed to the Tower on 10 June 1534. He spent a brief period in Dorchester jail, in appalling conditions, but was returned to the Tower in 1535. All three men now remained in the Tower until their execution. Thomas Abel left a memorial of himself there, in the form of self-naming graffiti: he etched into a wall his ‘rebus’, signing himself ‘Thomas’ above a picture of a bell containing the letter ‘A’. In March 1537, the physical conditions of his confinement seem to have brought Abel to a pitch of desperation, for he wrote to Cromwell in the following terms:
My Lord, I beseech our Saviour Jesus Christ to give your Lordship, after this life, life everlasting in Heaven. Amen. I beseech you to move the King’s grace to give me licence to go to church and say Mass here within the Tower, and to lie in some house upon the Green. I have now been in close prison three years and a quarter come Easter, and your Lordship knows that never man in this realm was so unjustly condemned as I am, for I was never, since I came hither, asked or examined of any offence that should be laid to my charge; also Master Barker, my fellow, was commanded hither with me, and both of us for one thing and deed, and he was examined and delivered and I was never spoken to, and yet condemned and lie here still in close prison. What was put in my condemnation is untrue, as I have written to your Lordship largely once before this. I judge and suppose, in your Lordship, such pity and compassion that you would of your own accord have besought the King to give me the liberty I desire, even had I been guilty, after so long imprisonment. I doubt not but that you will do so now, knowing, as you do, that I am innocent and have so great wrong. Therefore I do not rehearse the diseases I have, nor my increasing misery, need, and poverty. I commit to you this little petition of going to church and lying out of close prison.
There is no record of ‘this little petition’ having received any answer. Three years later, in the aftermath of Cromwell’s downfall, and still with no real explanation being offered to the victims, Abel, Fetherston and Powell were condemned for treason, without trial, by Parliament.
To underline the King’s even-handedness in dealing with his rebellious subjects, whether heretics or traitors, the three Protestants to be burnt – Barnes, Jerome and Garrett – were dragged to Smithfield each tied to a hurdle (or ‘sledge’) shared with one of the Catholics to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Barnes was tied to Powell, one result of which was an anonymous satirical pamphlet, published a few years after their deaths and entitled The Metynge of Doctor Barons and Doctor Powell at Paradise Gate. Ambassador Marillac wrote of this whole sorry episode to the French king, Francis I, on 6 July:
It was wonderful to see adherents to the two opposing parties dying at the same time, and it gave offence to both. And it was no less strange to hear than horrible to see, for the obstinacy and constancy respectively of both parties, and the perversion of justice of which both parties complained, in that they had never been called to judgment, nor knew why they were condemned.
The day after this bloodletting in Smithfield, the heresy quest in the wake of the Act of Six Articles, which had led to so many arrests and given Londoners a chance to settle scores by denouncing one another, was called off, by royal command. The King had realized that such strong-arm tactics to enforce orthodoxy were resulting in considerable social unrest – and he had, in any event, made his point.
Chapter Five
DISSOLUTION AND DISCIPLINE
From all sedition and privy conspiracy, from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities, from all false doctrine and heresy, from hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word and commandment: Good Lord, deliver us.
From Archbishop Cranmer’s Exhortation and Litany of 1544,
the first officially sanctioned liturgy in English, and the
only one to be published during the reign of Henry VIII
DURING THE SHORT PERIOD between the burning of Lambert in November 1538 and the six executions in July 1540, much had changed in Smithfield.
To all the faithful in Christ to whom this present charter shall come, Robert by divine permission abbot of the monastery of Waltham in the county of Essex, and prior in commendam of the monastery or priory of St Bartholomew in Smithfield and the convent of the same place, sends greeting. Know ye that we the aforesaid abbot and convent for sure reasons and considerations at present particularly moving us, by our unanimous agreement and consent, and of our spontaneous will, have given granted and by this our present charter confirmed to our most excellent prince and lord, Lord Henry VIII, by God’s grace King of England and France, Defender of the Faith, Lord of Ireland, and supreme head on earth of the English Church, all our aforesaid monastery and priory of St Bartholomew and the whole site of our late priory and all our demesnes, manors, churches, chapels, rectories, and vicarages and chantries … as well spiritual as temporal, as well in the counties of Middlesex, Hertford, Essex and in the City of London as anywhere else in the kingdom which belong to the monastery … and also all and every kind of our church ornaments, jewels and goods which we have in right of the said monastery; to have hold and enjoy all the aforesaid demesnes and manors to our lord the King, his heirs and successors for ever. And we the said abbot and convent and our successors will warrant against all peoples for the lord the King and his successors all the monastery and the demesnes and manors (etc.) with their appurtenances. In testimony of which we have set our common seal to this our present charter.
Dated at our chapter-house the 25th day of October in the 31st year of the reign of our said lord the present king Henry the Eighth.
Over his seven years at the helm of St Bartholomew’s, Prior Fuller seems to have worked to prepare the priory, its inhabitants and dependants, for an eventual dissolution. He maintained close connections with Parliament, as an abbot who was also a lord and a bishop (this is what is meant by a ‘mitred abbot’), and with the King. He was present, for instance, at the baptism of Prince Edward, the future Edward VI (the son of King Henry and his third wife, Jane Seymour), at Hampton Court on 15 October 1537. And he had long been an acquaintance of Thomas Cromwell, so knew about the likelihood of dissolution – though in the last months before it actually took place, he may have imagined that his own two monasteries would be spared, as the process seemed to have slowed down and almost to have ended. But ever the pragmatic administrator, Fuller had got on with the preparations for change. There are several instances of his making appointments, or formalizing existing informal appointments – such as that of Stephen Fyndley as ‘clerk of the church of the monastery’ and ‘parish clerk of the chapel of All Saints within the church’ in 1536 – in order to ensure that the individuals concerned would be eligible to receive a pension after the priory was suppressed. Only eight months before the surrender, he appointed yeoman John Chesewyk and his wife Alyce to the office of launder or washer of all the linen clothes belonging to the church and monastery. Again, the deed of Chesewyk’s appointment assured him of a yearly payment when he presented it to the Court of Augmentations after the dissolution.
From the evidence of wills which have survived, the identities of a number of people living in the close (the area immediately surrounding the priory) shortly before its dissolution can be established. One of these was Richard Bellamy, ‘gentleman’ and friend of John Deane. Bellamy’s will, both dated and proved in January 1539 (and witnessed by Deane, then the priest of the parish chapel, as well as by Dr Richard Bartlett and John Burgoyne, fellow dwellers in the close), gives an indication of the kind of ceremonial expected by a parishioner when he died and of the esteem in which the monastery and its canons were held (notwithstanding all the negative propaganda accompanying the dissolution of the monasteries):
I Richard Bellamy within the precinct of the Close of the monastery of Saint Bartholomew in West Smithfield of London, gentleman, being sick in body and whole in mind … to be buried in the body of the church of the said monastery of Saint Bartholomew’s between the font set there and the holy image of our Lord Jesus Christ, second person of the Trinity, near unto the place where my children do lie … I will that the said canons do bring my body from the house where I shall die if it be within the precinct of the said Close unto the church of the said monastery and there to sing placebo and dirige and mass of Requiem on the morrow after … I will my body honestly to be buried without pomp or pride.
Richard Bartlett, one of the witnesses to Bellamy’s will, was a physician of considerable eminence, whose services were highly valued by Henry VIII, for when, in the year 1531, the Princess Mary was parted from her devoted mother and her health gave way in consequence, Dr Bartlett was paid the handsome fee of £20 by the King for attending on her. John Burgoyne, another witness to the will, had been appointed by Abbot Fuller in 1533, along with his eldest son Thomas, to be auditor of accounts of rents of the monastery collected in London. Thomas Burgoyne subsequently became auditor to the Court of Augmentations.
As for Prior Fuller, he appeared to have done very well out of the suppression, being amply rewarded for his cooperation by a grant for life of practically all the land and property of the monastery beyond Smithfield itself, comprising holdings in Middlesex (including Little and Great Stanmore), Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire as well as in other parts of London. On 6 May 1540, the day on which he was granted the possessions of St Bartholomew’s, he was also granted a large pension and much of the property of the former Waltham Abbey, which he had surrendered to the King on 23 March. E. A. Webb comments: ‘Thus with the surrender of his monasteries did the prior and abbot also surrender his vows of poverty!’ But he was to enjoy the fruits of his labours for only a few months, for by October of that year he too was dead (having had the good fortune to die of natural causes).
One of those affected by the dissolution of Waltham Abbey was the composer Thomas Tallis, who had been a very senior member of the extensive musical foundation there since the latter part of 1538. It is likely that he had come to the attention of Abbot Fuller when he was employed as either a singer or the organist at the church of St Mary-at-Hill in the City of London, as the London residence of the abbots of Waltham stood on the south side of that church. At the time of the dissolution of the abbey, Tallis had not been there long enough to be eligible to receive a pension and instead was paid off with 20 shillings in outstanding wages and a further 20 shillings as a ‘reward’.
For those, like John Deane and John Burgoyne, still living in the monastic close at St Bartholomew’s, the physical impact of the dissolution must have been enormous. They would have seen the church furniture being removed and sold, while six of the priory’s bells were taken down and transported along the street to the neighbouring church of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate. The monastic plate and jewels were handed over to the Master of the King’s Jewel House and – most overwhelming of all to those for whom it had been the dominant feature of the neighbourhood – the imposing nave of the Priory Church was demolished. By 1544 nothing of it remained (apart from one arched portal at the south-west corner, which is still there and known as the Smithfield Gate, the lone indication of the original size of the great church), all the lead, stone and timber having been carted away and sold for the Crown’s profit.
Many of the officials of the Court of Augmentations moved into buildings formerly belonging to the priory, so that Bartholomew Close became a veritable enclave of state officials. And the most obvious beneficiary of the dissolution of St Bartholomew’s Priory was the Chancellor of the Augmentations himself, Sir Richard Rich, who, as early as February 1540, converted what had been the prior’s house into the town residence of himself and his family. He also benefited financially from his former patron Cromwell’s fall, being made chief steward (with fees amounting to £20 a year) of various manors which had previously belonged to Cromwell. Sir Richard ended the year 1540 as a man of substantial means and a considerable landowner; in addition to the property he had acquired at St Bartholomew’s, he and his wife Elizabeth had been granted in January, for a fee of £484 6s 10d, the rectory and church of Felsted in Essex, formerly belonging to Syon Monastery in Middlesex, as well as all the land in Fyfield, Essex, and neighbouring villages formerly belonging to Clerkenwell Monastery. His position as Chancellor of Augmentations had meant that there was no one better placed to know what property had become available and to make a bid to purchase it, at favourable terms, before anyone else.
The year 1540 saw a new figure at the helm of the diocese of London, Edmund Bonner being consecrated bishop, in succession to John Stokesley, on 4 April. His episcopacy did not get off to an easy start. It cannot have helped that Bonner seems to have had the kind of facial appearance that easily lent itself to caricature. Cleanshaven, plump and slightly baby-faced with full sensual lips, in the only images that have come down to us, which depict him with either a cartoonish hat or a roll of hair around his tonsured head, he looks somewhat ridiculous, a figure of fun rather than the redoubtable character he certainly was. Like Gardiner, he had been a youthful admirer of Erasmus and had previously – at a time when the King had seemed to favour reform in practice as well as in ecclesiastical structures – been seen by the reformers as friendly to their cause, but changed times called for a different response. And quite apart f
rom the need to follow official policy, he had his own doubts about the results of reform – particularly concerning the liberty of lay people to read the Bible for themselves, since the King had been persuaded by Cromwell in 1538 to take what could be considered the dangerous step of allowing a copy of the so-called Great Bible (a translation prepared by Miles Coverdale and based on the work of John Wycliffe, and produced in a large size for ease of reading) to be placed in every church in the land. At one time Bonner had himself been a proponent of providing English translations of the Bible, but he had become disenchanted when he saw how access to the scriptures was leading to an undermining of authority, and to arguments among people with no theological training. A month after his enthronement at St Paul’s on 16 April 1541, he issued a warning to those who wished to take advantage of the opportunity to read the Great Bible for themselves, instructing them to read it ‘with humility and reverence and not to congregate in multitudes or disturb services or sermons’.
It was during the reign of Mary Tudor that this bishop acquired the sobriquet of ‘bloody Bonner’ but the seeds of his reputation as a merciless persecutor of heretics were planted in these early years of his episcopacy, as he set out to fulfil the dictates of the Act of Six Articles with a zeal that startled even the King. His handling of the case of Richard Mekins, one of the youngest – and most terrified – victims of the Smithfield fires, would always be remembered as particularly brutal. Mekins, while still only a teenager (he was described in Hall’s Chronicle as a ‘child’ of no more than fifteen) and without father or mother, was accused of being a ‘sacramentary’ and a follower of Robert Barnes – even though Barnes himself had never been a sacramentarian. The jury was reluctant to convict, knowing that the only possible outcome of a guilty verdict was death by burning. Quite apart from wanting to spare young Mekins from this fate, there was some uncertainty over whether the boy had called the sacrament a ‘ceremony’ or a ‘signification’; the witnesses were inconsistent in their evidence while Mekins himself was incapable of knowing the difference, having only been repeating what he had heard others talking about. But Bonner, who was himself responding to perceived pressure and experiencing the need to demonstrate both his orthodoxy and his authority – and indeed the authority of the Church as a whole – was determined. Furious, he demanded the jury do as they were told; when they still hesitated, more compliant jurors were drafted in and poor Mekins – who was so frightened by now that he would have confessed to whatever he was asked and, from Hall’s account, was desperately trying to think of anything to say that would appease Bonner – went to the stake on 30 July 1541, exactly a year after the deaths of Barnes and his companions. Even the ‘anonymous Tractarian’ (that is, a supporter of the catholicizing tendency in Anglicanism in the nineteenth century) who wrote a eulogistic account of Bonner’s life in 1842 found it hard to justify his hero’s behaviour over this episode, particularly as it is recorded of Bonner that he ‘cursed and swore at’ the jury which, in the words of his anonymous hagiographer, was ‘very wrong, even though Bonner was a bishop’. The writer further comments that ‘Bonner did not, I can only say, act like any modern Bishop’.