Chapter III: From 1492 to 1498

Next in chronological sequence to the references in his diary to Islip’s earlier years is the brief entry that “on October 2, 1492 the King crossed the sea and came to the town called _Le Slewse_ and afterwards went as far as _Bulleyn_, and there was killed Lord John Savage, Knight, by the French, and various others, and in the month of December the King returned.”

We may note first of all a point of some small historical interest. The date of the King’s return to England is given as December 17th by Hall, Stow, and other chroniclers, but the _Chronicle of Calais_ gives November 17th, a date with which Professor Pollard seems to concur, for he says that there is nothing to account for Henry’s delay at Calais for a whole month.[2] Islip of course does not account for it, but he must be allowed to settle the month, for he had particular reason to remember it, apart from the fact that he was a diarist contemporary with the event he was recording. Henry’s expedition was important enough in itself to call for chronicle, for it resulted in the long-delayed peace with France; but Islip recorded nothing that did not touch the monastery directly or indirectly, and this was a matter of direct importance to it as will presently appear.

In 1487 Henry VII. in a letter to the Pope related how a rumour of his defeat and the dispersal of his army had been circulated in London and Westminster. “When this was heard by some of those who by reason of their crimes enjoy the privileges and immunities of Westminster, being of opinion that after the commission of any nefarious crime soever they could have the free privilege of returning to that sanctuary ... took up arms for the purpose of plundering the houses of those whom they knew to be in the field with us and mustered in a body for the commission of crime. Amongst their number was one John Swit who said: ‘And what matter the censures of Church or Pontiff? Do you not perceive that interdicts of this sort are of no weight whatever, since you see with your own eyes that those very men who obtained such in their own favour are routed and that the whole anathema has recoiled upon their own heads?’ On pronouncing these words he instantly fell dead upon the ground and his face and body immediately became blacker than soot itself.... Verily we give thanks to Almighty God Who of His ineffable mercy has exhibited in our Kingdom so great a miracle concerning the Xtian faith.”

Miracle or not--and some of its more repulsive details have been omitted--it will be seen that Henry had no love for the sanctuary men who typified the very reverse of that law and order which he was endeavouring to establish. The Abbot was ultimately responsible for the safe keeping of the sanctuary men, as well as for the convicts committed to his prison, and was doubtless duly censured by the King. Indeed he would have had to obtain a royal pardon. Unfortunately at the end of September, just as Henry was starting on his expedition, twelve convicts escaped from the Abbot’s prison.

Henry was actually on the road but Prior Essex and others set out in hot haste to catch him. They came up with him at Canterbury and asked for his pardon. Henry, however, would not grant it, and told them he should defer the matter until he returned from France and came to Westminster.

It can easily be imagined with what trepidation the Convent awaited the King’s return, for they had reason to expect the severest penalties. Their fears were not unjustified, for on February 9th, 1493, the matter came before the King’s Bench and the Abbot was adjudged to pay the King no less than twelve hundred pounds. Such a sum could not immediately be forthcoming, and the Abbot accordingly entered into a bond for the payment.

Eventually, however, by the intervention of Sir Reginald Bray the King reduced the penalty to a thousand marks, the last instalments of which, amounting in all to £166 13s. 4d., were paid off by Islip as Abbot’s Receiver in the year 1497. That Islip was correct in his note of the month of the King’s return may therefore well be credited.

Islip goes on to record that in this same year, 1492, there died at Bermondsey the lady Elizabeth, sometime queen and wife of Edward IV. Again the matter is not one solely of external interest. On two occasions Elizabeth had sought sanctuary at Westminster. The first was in 1470 when with her daughters and Lady Scrope she had fled to the precinct on the reverse of Edward IV. in that year. Here her son, Edward V., was born. Her food was sent from Abbot Milling’s household and the Abbot himself was godfather to the ill-fated child at his baptism by the Sub-prior. When Edward returned in triumph to London she left to join him, only to return some twelve years later with the young Duke of York.

On this second occasion she received the personal hospitality of Abbot Estney. Islip was but a novice at the time but he could not have helped knowing of the important events which were happening within the monastery itself. Moreover Elizabeth’s name was already honoured in the community as the donor of the new chapel of St. Erasmus erected in 1478, probably at the west door of the old Lady Chapel.

When in 1486 she was restored to her full rights as queen-dowager she could think of no more pleasant place to live than in the monastery which had formerly sheltered her, and the Abbot’s house called Cheyneygates (the present Deanery) was leased to her for forty years. She lived there, however, but a few months, for in 1487 her lands were again forfeited and she retired to end her days in the abbey of Bermondsey.

In the summer of the year 1491, probably in the month of June, Prior Robert Essex died, and in July the Westminster students were summoned from Oxford to assist in the election of his successor. Among them was Roger Blake, and upon him fell the choice of the Convent. He survived his appointment, however, only a few weeks, and by Michaelmas George Fascet was appointed in his place.

Blake as a student at Oxford had of course held no appointment within the community, so that his election as Prior made no change in the roll of its officers. Fascet on the other hand held the two important positions of Treasurer and Monk-Bailiff as well as being Warden of the Manors. These offices thus became vacant and in addition other changes were taking place. William Mane who had held office along with Fascet both as Treasurer and Warden of the Manors had been appointed Almoner. For a short time he carried on the duties of Monk-Bailiff in place of Fascet, but the total burden must have proved too heavy to bear, and accordingly on October 12th, 1492, John Islip was chosen to hold with him the joint office of Warden of the Manors and along with Richard Newbery to succeed him and Fascet as Treasurers. At the same time Islip took Mane’s place as Monk-Bailiff and Warden of the Churches.

Islip was only twenty-eight years of age and there were twenty-three monks senior to him in a community that numbered about fifty. It argues well alike for his personal popularity and for the esteem in which his administrative abilities must have been held by both Abbot and Convent that the choice for such high offices should have fallen upon him.

Two attractive prospects were opened to him on his accession. As Monk-Bailiff he had separate apartments where his business could be transacted and where on occasion he could entertain friends. Accordingly we find in his diary for Sunday, February 10th, 1493, an entry which may be translated: _I was at the High Mass but I did not sit in the Refectory because John Butler of Warwickshire and Thomas Candysse dined with me in the Bailiff’s guest-room._

Still more alluring perhaps to one in whom the life of the cloister can never have stamped out the love of the open country was the necessary duty from time to time as Treasurer of making a tour of the various properties of the monastery. It is not surprising that this should have been found necessary in his first year of office. Acquaintance with these properties was certainly to be desired and there can have been no conflict between the call of duty which would take him again into the ways of men and the cloistered conscience which would shut him from them.

St. Benedict himself indeed sanctioned occasional absence from the cloister so long as the Abbot’s leave was first obtained. The novice vowed faithfulness to the monastery of his profession but not complete or permanent seclusion within its walls, and if it be urged that such protracted absence as this of the new Treasurer would never have been contemplated by St. Benedict it might with equal truth be argued that St. Benedict could hardly be expected to foresee the acquirement of the scattered properties which made such absence necessary. In any case the Benedictine ideal of the monastery was the ideal of the self-contained family and would not be infringed in spirit at least by the necessary absence on family business of one member of it.

Accordingly after dinner on Sunday, June 30th, 1493, Islip set out on a tour which was to last nearly a month. On the first day he rode as far as Aldenham and held a court there on the Monday morning. Rising betimes on Tuesday he rode as far as Berkhampstead to mass, dined with Master John Shorne and went on to Langton for the night, where he held a court the next day. Thursday was a day of relaxation and he records that the whole of it was spent in the forest hunting in company with Master Lanxston and Master Gifford. Langton to Turweston and Banbury, Banbury to Warwick and Knowle, Coventry, Leicester, Oakham, Oundle, Huntingdon, so does he proceed, rising early and covering many miles before hearing his daily mass and breaking his fast. Offord, Langford, Ashwell, Malden, Feering, Kelvedon, Benfleet, Romford, such are some further stages of his journey. Only once did he spend more than one night in the same place, so that the tour if pleasant was by no means dilatory. He reached home again on July 24th.

He does not record what servants attended him, but the whole cost of his journey was two hundred and fifty-one marks, an average of ten marks a day, so that it is probable that such retinue accompanied him as befitted the dignity of his office and the safety of his person. That some such protection was necessary in those unsettled times will presently appear.

For the most part his tour was devoid of trouble incidental to the business aspect of it. Only at South Benfleet had he reason to suspect that anything was wrong. His suspicions were evidently corroborated after his return to Westminster, for on August 11th he returned to South Benfleet and seized the goods of William Gose who was his “farmer” or agent for the manor and parsonage there. A careful inventory and valuation was made of them, and they were reckoned to be worth just over forty-two pounds. Gose was evidently dismissed from office, for a little later Islip records the handing over of the stores of the manor to Thomas Petigrewe.

The dangers of the road have just been hinted at and he was a wise man who kept to the King’s highway. That Islip had them in mind may be assumed from a long entry in his diary somewhat previous to his tour. It was a story which he had heard at the Abbot’s table one Sunday from Richard Dolonde the Abbot’s guest. A certain priest with three servants had wandered from the high road and come to Egerston at about eight o’clock in the evening. When the priest’s groom went into the stable of the inn to fetch straw for his horses he found beneath the straw two men lying dead. He came and told his master what he had found, and the latter called the hostess and told her that he could not stay there that night. She asked him the cause and said “The supper is prepared, the meat killed and all things are ready, and now you will not wait, I marvel strongly.” Then the priest pretended different reasons for his going and at last told her the true one, saying “I do not dare to stay the night here for that two men lie dead in your stable.” She answered “This is the truth, don’t doubt it. It so happened yesterday towards nightfall two knights were here and their servants fought among themselves so that these two men were killed, then the others in fear asked my husband and me to hide their bodies and bury them this night. This we intend to do, so don’t fear.” The priest believed indeed that what the woman said was true and so stayed. But about nine o’clock the priest was lying on his bed, being unwilling to get into it because of his fear, when the landlord came and knocked at the chamber door and said “Sir, I have brought you apples and pears and a draught of good wine.” Then the priest replied “I am in bed, I do not wish to drink to-night.” But the other said “Open the door that I may speak with you.” Then the priest said “No.” The other replied “Then I will break it.” So he broke the door and came to the priest with eleven other men well-armed and said “Seek pardon of your Creator for you shall die and all your servants,” who when he heard this asked that he might hear the confessions of his servants. So he heard them and when confession was done the priest came with his servants and but one dagger and rushed on the men and killed nine of them. The other three were taken and hanged, and the wife was burned and so the priest escaped with his servants, “thanking God to Whom was the honour and the glory, Amen.”

It may be with such dangers in mind that Islip spent three pence on arrows for his servant, Robert Seston. The latter received five shillings a quarter for his wages but was provided with clothing, shoes, and doubtless food also, at his master’s expense. In addition he might look forward to a tip of twenty pence on Christmas day as well as on the anniversaries of Queen Eleanor and King Richard II. As Monk-Bailiff Islip had his own cook and outfit of kitchen utensils, while two grooms were in his permanent employment to look after the needs of the seven or eight horses living in his stables.

It might well be thought that the offices to which Islip had been appointed in the year 1492 would have provided him with but little leisure from their exercise to assume new duties. In the year 1496, however, William Brewode retired from the onerous position of Cellarer and Islip was elected in his place. The reason for this retirement does not appear. Brewode was only fifty years of age and there was no suggestion that he was unfit any longer to hold an office which he had honourably filled for twelve years and which four years later he was to fill again for a brief space before becoming Warden of the Lady Chapel. It may be that Islip was already so clearly marked out for promotion to the highest places of all that it was thought well for him to have experience of the widest possible character. This, however, is the merest speculation, and the reason for the change must be left in obscurity. In the same year Islip appears in the _rôle_ of Abbot’s Receiver, a position he may have occupied for the four previous years though no record of it has survived.

In the two years that followed no incident seems to have occurred of sufficient importance to call for special mention either in his own life or that of the monastery until the beginning of the year 1498, when a few entries recall a story of some historical interest in which Islip was directly involved.

As far back as the year 1415 Henry V. had directed in his Will that his body was to be buried in the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster, among the sepulchres of the Kings on the spot where the relics of the saints were commonly kept. The beautiful chantry chapel which was afterwards built in his honour attests the care with which his direction was carried out.

About the middle of the fifteenth century, before the chapel was entirely completed, Henry VI. paid many visits to the Abbey church to see his father’s tomb and select the site for his own, moved thereto by the same love for St. Edward that had fixed his father’s choice. Many spots were suggested. Here he could lie, in the grave where Queen Eleanor’s bones had so long rested. It would be no trouble to move her tomb. Or there in the Lady Chapel was a suitable place. True the tomb of his mother Katharine must be moved further westwards, but then the opportunity could be used to see that it was more “honourably apparelled.” Or why not move Henry V. a little to one side and so make room for the son by the father? “Nay, let hym alone, he lieth lyke a nobyll prince, I wolle not troble hym.” In the same spirit did he reject one suggestion after another, finally choosing a site on the north side of the Confessor’s Shrine, and John of Thirsk the Abbey mason was called upon to mark out the place with his pick.

When, however, some twenty years later Henry died in the Tower his body was taken first to the Abbey of Chertsey. In consequence of the story of miracles wrought at his tomb Richard III. caused the coffin to be removed to Windsor. In the ordinary course of events the story should end there. But a second chapter begins with the devotion to Henry’s memory which began to spring up in the country, more especially in the east and north, within less than ten years from his death. Images of him were set up in churches and lights burnt before them. New gilds were founded in his honour and old gilds in one or two instances added his name to their dedications. He had already been canonised in the popular imagination before Henry VII. determined to secure that canonisation by authority and build a shrine-chapel at Windsor where his body already rested.

The claims of Windsor were immediately contested by the Abbeys of Chertsey and Westminster. On February 20th, 1498, the Abbot and Convent of Westminster petitioned the King _pro corpore beati viri Henrici Sexti_. The matter was referred to the Lord Chancellor and the Privy Council, sitting in the Star Chamber and at Greenwich.

Proceedings began on February 26th and the Abbot of Chertsey was heard first. He advanced the subtle plea that the royal corpse had been forcibly exhumed and taken away without the consent of his convent by Richard who was King in fact but not in right, leaving it to be inferred that such removal was therefore unlawful. The Dean and Chapter of Windsor followed. They had been wise enough to take advantage of the traditional enmity between the Abbey of Westminster and the College of St. Stephen in the royal palace. They found ready councillors in the Dean and Canons of the latter foundation and learned probably from them the form of the plea which it was intended to put forward on behalf of the Abbey. They first of all contended that so far from the removal being against the will of the Chertsey monks the Abbot himself had actually assisted at the exhumation with his own hands. Moreover the King had chosen his own place of sepulture at Windsor. They added that if no choice at all could be proved then possession ought to decide the matter.

The Abbot of Westminster was represented by the Prior, George Fascet, and Islip as Monk-Bailiff. Islip was no stranger to the law, for in 1492 his name appears on the admission register of Gray’s Inn and in 1512 he was regarded as among its most distinguished members.

The Westminster plea was first of all Henry’s own choice. A mass of testimony was offered from the sworn statements of twelve different witnesses who had been present at one or other of Henry’s visits to the Abbey church. This was a strong case in itself as it does not appear that Windsor had any such evidence to offer. Secondly it was pleaded that Westminster had for a long time been and still was the burial-place of Kings, and thirdly that since the Palace of Westminster was bound by both practical and sentimental ties to the Abbey Henry was to be considered a parishioner.

The case was adjourned till March 2nd and Islip records the many incidental expenses to which he had been put for counsel’s opinion, travelling costs and the like.

Judgment was given on March 5th in favour of Westminster, on the ground of Henry’s own choice and because it was the burial-place of kings. Needless to say the fact that the Yorkist Kings Edward IV. and Richard III. were interred elsewhere was ignored.

It is from this judgment that we must date the first conception of the new Lady Chapel, commonly known as the Chapel of Henry VII. Its foundation-stone was not to be laid for four and a half years and in the meanwhile its primary purpose was to disappear. In the meanwhile also fresh changes came into the life of the monastery, and the rest of the story may well take its place in connection with them.