In the story of what follows we are continually hampered by the singularly defective nature of the various records relating to the closing years of Crumwell’s administration. We are therefore frequently left to supply links by conjectures, but conjectures in which, from the known facts and such documentary evidence as remains, there is sufficient assurance of being in the main correct.
Already, in 1538, rumour had spoken of the coming dissolution; and the fact that all over the country even the greatest houses of religion, one after another, were falling into the king’s hands by surrender, voluntary or enforced, tended to give colour to the current tales. Henry’s agents, it is true, had endeavoured to dissemble any royal intention of a general suppression of the monastic body. They not only denied boldly and unblushingly that the king had any such design, but urged upon Crumwell the advisability of putting a stop to the persistent reports on this subject. The far-seeing minister, fully alive to the danger, drafted a letter to reassure the religious superiors, and dispatched it probably in the first instance to Glastonbury.
“Albeit,” this letter runs, “I doubt not but (having not long since received the King’s highness’s letters wherein his majesty signified to you that using yourselves like his good and faithful subjects, his grace would not in any wise interrupt you in your state and kind of living; and that his pleasure therefore was that in case any man should declare anything to the contrary you should cause him to be apprehended and kept in sure custody till further knowledge of his grace’s pleasure), you would so firmly repose yourself in the tenour of the said letters as no man’s words, nor any voluntary surrender made by any governor or company of any religious house since that time, shall put you in any doubt or fear of suppression or change of your kind of life and policy.” The king, however, feels that there are people who “upon any voluntary and frank surrender, would persuade and blow abroad a general and violent suppression;” and, because some houses have lately been surrendered, the king commands me to say “that unless there had been overtures made by the said houses that have resigned, his grace would never have received the same, and his majesty intendeth not in any wise to trouble you or to desire for the suppression of any house that standeth, except they shall either desire of themselves with one whole consent to resign and forsake the same, or else misuse themselves contrary to their allegiance.” In this last case, the document concludes, they shall lose “more than their houses and possessions, that is the loss also of their lives.” Wherefore take care of your houses and beware of spoiling them, like some have done “who imagined they were going to be dissolved.”
This letter could scarcely have done much to reassure Abbot Whiting as to the king’s real intentions, in view of the obvious facts which each day made them clearer. By the beginning of 1539, Glastonbury was the only religious house left standing in the whole county of Somerset. Rumours must have reached the abbey of the fall of Bath and Keynsham, shortly after the Christmas of the previous year, and of strange methods to which Crumwell’s agents had resorted in order to gain possession of Hinton Charterhouse and Benedictine Athelney. At the former, the determination of the monks to hold to their house was apparently in the end broken down by a resort to a rigid examination of the religious on the dangerous royal-supremacy question, which resulted in one of their number being put in prison for “affirming the Bishop of Rome to be Vicar of Christ, and that he ought to be taken for head of the church.” This of itself must have prepared the mind of Abbot Whiting for the final issue which would have to be faced.
The short respite granted before conclusions were tried with him, could have been to all at Glastonbury little less than a long-drawn suspense, during which the abbot possessed his soul in peace, attending cheerfully to the daily calls of duty. They were left in no doubt as to the real meaning of a dissolution and had witnessed the immediate results which followed upon it. The rude dismantling of churches and cloisters, the rapid sales of vestments and other effects, the pulling down of the lead from roofs and gutters, and the breaking up of bells had gone on all around them; whilst homeless monks and the poor who had from time immemorial found relief in their necessities at religious houses now swept away must have all crowded to Glastonbury during the last few months of its existence. For eleven weeks the royal wreckers, like a swarm of locusts, wandered over Somerset, “defacing, destroying and prostrating the churches, cloisters, belfreys, and other buildings of the late monasteries;” and the roads were worn with carts carrying away the lead melted from the roofs, barrels of broken bell-metal, and other plunder.
It was not till the autumn of the year 1539, that any final steps began to be taken with regard to Glastonbury and its venerable abbot. Among Crumwell’s “remembrances,” still extant in his own handwriting, of things to do, or matters to speak about to the king, in the beginning of September this year occurs the following: “Item, for proceeding against the abbots of Reading, Glaston and the other, in their own countries.” From this it is clear that some time between the passing of the act giving to the crown the possession of all dissolved or surrendered monasteries, which came into force in April, 1539, and the September of this year, these abbots must have been sounded, and it had been found that compliance in regard of a surrender was not to be expected. By the sixteenth of the latter month Crumwell’s design had been communicated to his familiar Layton, and had elicited from him a reply in which he abjectly asks pardon for having praised the abbot at the time of the visitation. “The Abbot of Glastonbury,” he adds, “appeareth neither then nor now to have known God, nor his prince, nor any part of a good Christian man’s religion.”
Three days later, on Friday, 19 September, the royal commissioners, Layton, Pollard and Moyle, suddenly arrived at Glastonbury about ten o’clock in the morning. The abbot had not been warned of their intended visit, and was then at his grange of Sharpham, about a mile from the monastery. Thither they hurried “without delay,” and after telling him their purpose examined him at once “upon certain articles, and for that his answer was not then to our purpose,” they say; “we advised him to call to his remembrance that which he had forgotten, and so declare the truth.” Then they at once took him back to the abbey, and when night came on proceeded to search the abbot’s papers and ransack his apartments “for letters and books, and found in his study, secretly laid, as well a written book of arguments against the divorce of the king’s majesty and the lady dowager, which we take to be a great matter, as also divers pardons, copies of bulls, and the counterfeit life of Thomas Becket in print; but we could not,” they write, “find any letter that was material.”
Furnished, however, with these pieces of evidence as to the tendency of Whiting’s mind, the inquisitors proceeded further to examine him concerning the “articles received from your lordship” (Crumwell). In his answers appeared, they considered, “his cankered and traitorous mind against the king’s majesty and his succession.” To these replies he signed his name, “and so with as fair words as” they could, “being but a very weak man and sickly,” they forthwith sent him up to London to the Tower, that Crumwell might examine him for himself.
The rest of the letter is significant for the eventual purpose they knew their master would regard as of primary importance:
“As yet we have neither discharged servant nor monk; but now, the abbot being gone, we will, with as much celerity as we may, proceed to the dispatching of them. We have in money £300 and above; but the certainty of plate and other stuff there as yet we know not, for we have not had opportunity for the same; whereof we shall ascertain your lordship so shortly as we may. This is also to advertise your lordship that we have found a fair chalice of gold, and divers other parcels of plate, which the abbot had hid secretly from all such commissioners as have been there in times past; and as yet he knoweth not that we have found the same; whereby we think that he thought to make his hand by his untruth to his king’s majesty.”
A week later, on September 28th, they again write to Crumwell that they “have daily found and tried out both money and plate,” hidden in secret places in the abbey, and conveyed for safety to the country. They could not tell him how much they had so far discovered, but it was sufficient, they thought, to have “begun a new abbey,” and they concluded by asking what the king wished to have done in respect of the two monks who were the treasurers of the church, and the two lay clerks of the sacristy, who were chiefly to be held responsible in the matter.
On the 2nd October the inquisitors write again to their master to say that they have come to the knowledge of “divers and sundry treasons” committed by Abbot Whiting, “the certainty whereof shall appear unto your lordship in a book herein enclosed, with the accusers’ names put to the same, which we think to be very high and rank treasons.” The original letter, preserved in the Record Office, clearly shows by the creases in the soiled yellow paper that some small book or folded papers have been enclosed. Whatever it was, it is no longer forthcoming. Just at the critical moment we are again deprived, therefore, of a most interesting and important source of information. In view, however, of the common sufferings of these abbots, who were dealt with together, the common fate which befell them, and the common cause assigned by contemporary writers for their death, viz., their attainder “of high treason for denying the king to be supreme head of the Church,” as Hall, the contemporary London lawyer (who reports what must have been current in the capital), phrases it – there can be no doubt that these depositions were much of the same nature as those made against Thomas Marshall, Abbot of Colchester, to which subsequent reference will be made. It is certain that with Abbot Whiting in the Tower and Crumwell’s commissioners engaged in “dispatching” the monks “with as much celerity” as possible, Glastonbury was already regarded as part of the royal possessions. Even before any condemnation the matter is taken as settled, and on October the 24th, 1539, Pollard handed over to the royal treasurer the riches still left at the abbey as among the possessions of “attainted persons and places.”
Whilst Layton and his fellows were rummaging at Glastonbury, Abbot Whiting was safely lodged in the Tower of London. There he was subjected to searching examinations. A note in Crumwell’s own hand, entered in his “remembrances,” says:
“Item. Certain persons to be sent to the Tower for the further examination of the Abbot of Glaston.”
At this time it was supposed that Parliament, which ought to have met on November 1st of this year, would be called upon to consider the charges against the abbot. At least Marillac, the French ambassador, who ^hows that he was always well informed on public matters writes to his master that this is to be done. Even when the assembly was delayed till the arrival of the king’s new wife, Ann of Cleves, the ambassador repeats that the decision of Whitings case will now be put off. He adds that “they have found a manuscript in favour of queen Catherine, and against the marriage of queen Anne, who was afterwards beheaded,” which is objected against the abbot. Poor Catherine had been at rest in her grave for four years, and her rival in the affections of Henry had died on the scaffold nearly as many years, before Layton and his fellow-inquisitors found the written book of arguments in Whitings study, and “took it to be a great matter” against him. It is hardly likely that, even if more loyal to Catherine’s memory than there is any possible reason to suppose. Whiting would stick at a point where More and Fisher could yield, and would not have given his adhesion to the succession as settled by Parliament. But as in their case, it was the thorny questions which surrounded the divorce, the subject all perilous of “treason,” which brought him at last, as it brought them first, to the scaffold.
It is more than strange that the ordinary procedure was not carried out in this case. According to cill law. Abbot Whiting and the Abbots of Reading and Colchester should have been arraigned before Parliament, as they were members of the House of Peers, but no such bill of attainder was ever presented, and in fact the execution had taken place before the Parliament came together.
The truth is, that Abbot Whiting and the others were condemned to death as the result of secret inquisitions in the Tower. Crumwell, acting as “prosecutor, judge and jury,” had really arranged for their execution before they left their prison. What happened in the case of Abbot Whiting at Wells, and in that of Abbot Cook at Reading, was but a ghastly mockery of justice, enacted merely to cover the illegal and iniquitous proceedings which had condemned them untried. This Crumwell has written down with his own hand. He notes in his “remembrances” –
Item. Councillors to give evidence against the abbot of Glaston, Richard Pollard, Lewis Forstell and Thomas Moyle. Item. To see that the evidence be well sorted and the indictments well drawn against the said abbots and their accomplices. Item. How the king’s learned counsel shall be with me all this day, for the full conclusion of the indictments.
And then, to sum up all –
Item. The Abbot of Glaston to be tried at Glaston, and also executed there.
As Crumwell was so solicitous about the fate of the abbots as to devote the whole of one of his precious days to the final settlement of their case, in later times no less great was the solicitude of his panegyrist, Burnet, to “discover the impudence of Sanders” in saying they suffered for denying the king’s supremacy, and to prove that they did not. Even at a time when records were not so accessible as they now are, ColHer, Burnet’s contemporary, could see clearly enough where lay the truth. “What the particulars were (of the abbots’ attainder) our learned Church historian (Burnet) confesses he can’t tell; for the record of their attainders is lost.’ But, as he goes on, ‘some of our own writers (Hall, Grafton) deserve a severe censure, who write it was for denying, etc., the king’s supremacy. Whereas, if they had not undertaken to write the history without any information at all, they must have seen that the whole clergy, and especially the abbots, had over and over again acknowledged the king’s supremacy.’ But how does it appear our historians are mistaken? Has this gentleman seen the Abbot of Colchester’s indictment or perused his record of attainder.” He confesses no. How then is his censure ‘made good? He offers no argument beyond conjecture. He concludes the Abbot of ColChester had formerly acknowledged the king’s supremacy, and from thence infers he could not suffer now for denying it. But do not people’s opinions alter sometimes, and conscience and courage improve? Did not Bishop Fisher and Cardinal Pool, at least as this author represents them, acknowledge the king’s supremacy at first? And yet it is certain they afterwards showed themselves of another mind to a very remarkable degree. . . . Farther, does not himself ‘tell us that many of the Carthusians were executed for their open denying the king’s supremacy, and why then might not some of the abbots have the same belief and fortitude with others of their fraternity.'” (Eccesiastical History 2:173) The real way of reaching them was through conscience, a way which, as we have seen, had just before been tried in the case of the Abbot Whiting’s near neighbours, the Carthusians of Hinton. “To reach the abbots, therefore,” continues Collier,” that other way, the oath of supremacy was offered them, and upon their refusal they were condemned for high treason. But amidst these cares Crumwell never forgot the king’s business, the ” great matter,” the end which this iniquity was to compass. With the prize now fairly. within his grasp, he notes:
The plate of Glastonbury, 11,000 ounces and over, besides golden. The furniture of the house of Glaston. In ready money from Glaston,; 1,100 and over. The rich copes from Glaston. The whole year’s revenue of Glaston. The debts of Glaston,; 2,000 and above.
Layton has borne witness to the state of spirituals in Glastonbury; Crumwell gives final testimony to the abbot’s good administration of temporals. The house by this time had, according to Crumwell’s construction, come to the king’s highness by attainder of treason. It remained now to inaugurate the line of policy on which Elizabeth improved later, and after, in the secret tribunal of the Tower, condemning the abbot without trial for cause of conscience in a sentence that involved forfeiture of life and goods, to put him to death, so Lord Russell says, as if for common felony, the “robbing of Glastonbury Church.”
And now it only remains to follow the venerable man on his pilgrimage to the scene of his martyrdom.
As we have seen under Crumwell’s hand, Abbot Whiting’s fate was already settled before he left the Tower. In the interrogatories, preliminary but decisive, which he had there undergone, the abbot had come face to face with the inevitable issue. He knew to what end the way through the Tower had, from the time of More and Fisher to his own hour, led those who had no other satisfaction to give the king’ than that which he could offer.
It is not impossible, however, that hopes may have been held out to him that in his extreme old age and weakness of body he might be spared extremities; this supposition seems to receive some countenance from the narrative given below. But Henry and Crumwell had determined that Abbot Whiting should suffer before all the world the last indignity. And they designed for him the horrible death of a traitor in the sight of his own subjects who had known and loved him for many years, on the scene of his own former greatness.
The following extract from an unknown but contemporary writer, in giving the only details of the journey homeward that are known to exist, manifests the abbot’s characteristic simplicity and perfect possession of soul in patience, together with a real sense of what the end would certainly be.
Going homewards to Glastonbury, the abbot had one Pollard appointed to wait upon him, who was an especial favourer of Crumwell, whom the abbot neither desired to accompany him, neither yet dared to refuse him. At the next bait, when the abbot went to wash, he desired Mr. Pollard to come wash with him, who by no means would be entreated thereunto. The abbot seeing such civility, mistrusted so much the more such courtesy was not void of some subtility, and said unto him: “Mr. Pollard, if you be to me a companion, I pray you wash with me and sit down; but if you be my keeper and I your prisoner, tell me plainly, that I may prepare my mind to to go to another room better fitting my fortunes. And if you be neither, I shall be content to ride without your company.” Whereupon Pollard protested that he did forbear to do what the abbot desired him only in respect of the reverence he bore his age and virtues, and that he was appointed by those in authority to bear him company of worship’s sake, and therefore might not forsake him till he did see him safe at Glastonbury.
Notwithstanding all this, the abbot doubted somewhat, and told one (Thomas) Horne, whom he had brought up from a child, that he misdoubted (him) somewhat, Judas having betrayed his master. And yet though (Horne) were both privy and plotter of his master’s fall, yet did he sweare most intolerably he knew of no harm towards him, neither should any be done to him as long as he was in his company; wishing besides that the devil might have him if he were otherwise than he told him. But before he came to Glastonbury, Horne forsook, and joined himself unto his enemies.