BERMONDSEY ABBEY
The absolute oblivion into which this once noble House has fallen, so
that there is no longer, among the people living on its very site, any
memory or tradition of its existence, is not without a parallel in the
case of other London Houses. Yet it is remarkable for the reason that
its site and its gardens remained open and unbuilt over until a hundred
years ago, while, almost within the memory of man, many ruins and
portions of the former buildings still remained.
The internal history of the Abbey is naturally without interest. The
list of Priors and Abbots has been preserved: there were sixty-nine
from the Foundation of the House in 1082 until the Dissolution in 1538.
The duration of each Prior’s rule was therefore an average of six years
and a half; but many of them died very shortly after their election, a
proof that the election went, as a rule, by seniority; or, at least,
that the brethren chose for their chief one who was well stricken in
years and of long experience.
The House was at first, and for three hundred years, an alien Priory
dependent on that of Cluny. It was founded by a citizen of London named
Aylwin or Æthelwine Child, in the year 1082. The Cluniacs were brought
into this country by William, Earl of Warren, who, with Gunhilda his
wife, stayed at Cluny, and was greatly impressed with the sanctity and
the devotion of the brethren. He persuaded the Abbot to allow some of
the monks to come to England, and in 1077 established a Cluniac House
at Lewes. Another followed at Wenlock, and, in 1082, this House of
Bermondsey.
Among the benefactors of the House were William Rufus; Mary, sister
to the Queen of Henry the First; that King himself; King Stephen; the
Earls of Gloucester and Stafford; and many others. In 1390, under
Richard the Second, Bermondsey ceased to be an alien Priory, and was
made denizen. This was not without a remonstrance from Cluny. Fifty
years later three Cluniac monks were sent over to set forth the claims
of the Mother House. The brethren stated their case, but could not
get any attention paid to their arguments. One of them died in this
country, the other two went home having accomplished nothing. A piteous
letter to the Abbot of St. Albans explains their position:—
“For the rest, be it known to you, my Lord, that after having spent
four months and a half on our journey, and following our Right with
the most serene Lord the King and his Privy Council, we have obtained
nothing: nay, we are sent back very disconsolate, deprived of our
Manors, our Pensions alienated, and what is still worse, we are denied
the obedience of all our Monasteries which are 38 in number: nor did
our Legal Deeds, nor the Testimonies of your Chronicles avail us
anything, and at length, after all our pleading and expenses, we return
home moneyless, for in truth, after paying for what we have eaten and
drunk, we have but five crowns left, to go back about 260 leagues.
But what then? We will sell what we have; we will go on; and God will
provide. Nothing else occurs to write to your Paternity: but that as
we entered England with joy, so we depart thence with sorrow; having
buried one of our Companions—viz. the Archdeacon, the youngest of our
company. May he rest in Peace! Amen.”
[Illustration: THE ARMS AND SEALS OF THE PRIOR AND CONVENT OF S^T.
SAVIOUR AT BERMONDSEY
_W. B. Grove._]
Meetings of the Council were held at Bermondsey from time to time:
in the reign of Henry the Third many of the nobility who had taken
the Cross met here in deliberation. In 1213 the then Prior, Richard,
founded the almonry in Southwark, which afterwards developed into St.
Thomas’s Hospital.
In 1276 there was a dispute between the Bishop of Winchester, who
claimed an annual procuration, an entertainment of one day during his
Visitation, and the House.
In 1309, by a breach in the River Wall, the lands of the House were so
much damaged that the brethren were exempted from the purveyance of hay
and corn.
In 1324 Edward the Second issued letters patent for the arrest of the
prior, John de Causancia, and certain monks for harbouring rebels.
These were probably the adherents of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, who,
after his defeat at Boroughbridge, took sanctuary in the Abbey. In
1337 the Bishop of Ely excommunicated certain persons for stealing
a hawk belonging to him from the cloisters of the Abbey. Many other
associations gather round this House. Marmion, Lord of Fontenay, was a
benefactor to Bermondsey; the monks sold their lands in Southwark in
the reign of Richard the Second to Robert of Paris, from whom the place
was called Paris Gardens; Cardinal Beaufort visited the Abbey, and was
received in procession by the monks. The Prior Henry, afterwards Abbot
of Glastonbury, took an active part in the release of King Richard.
In 1323 the greater church of St. Saviour of Bermondsey and the great
altar were dedicated in honour of St. Saviour and the Blessed Virgin
and All Saints. On the same day were dedicated three other altars in
the church—one of the Cross, one in honour of the Virgin and St. Thomas
the Martyr, and one in honour of St. Andrew and St. James and all the
Apostles.
Among those buried here were Leofstan, Portreeve of London in 1115;
William of Mortain, or Mortaigne, Earl of Cornwall; Mary, daughter of
Malcolm the Third of Scotland, and sister to Queen Maud, who died April
18, 1115. The following is the inscription on her tomb:—
“Nobilis hic tumulata jacet Comitissa Maria:
Actebus hæc nituit: larga benigna fuit.
Regum sanguis erat: morum probitate vigebat,
Compatiens in opi: vivit in arce Poli.”
Also Matilda, daughter of Guy, Earl of Warwick, who died in 1368;
Margaret de la Pole; Anne, widow of Lord Audley, and the murdered Duke
of Gloucester, before the removal of his body to Westminster.
But the most illustrious residents of the House were the two Queens who
died within its walls.
The first of them was Katherine of Valois, widow of Henry the Fifth,
who married secretly Owen Tudor, and was the grandmother of Henry the
Seventh. The marriage was not found out for some years. The Queen
must have been most faithfully and loyally served, because children
cannot be born without observation. Owen Tudor must have conducted
matters with a discretion beyond all praise. No doubt the ordinary
members of the household knew nothing, and suspected nothing, because
several years passed before any suspicion was awakened. Three sons and
one daughter, in all, were born. The eldest, Edmund of Hadham, was so
called because he was born there; the second, Jasper, was of Hatfield;
the third, Owen, of Westminster; the youngest, Margaret, died in
infancy.
Suspicions were aroused about the time of the birth of Owen, which
took place apparently before it was expected, and without all the
precautions necessary, in the King’s House at Westminster. The infant
was taken as soon as born to the monastery of St. Peter’s secretly. It
is not likely that the Abbot received the child without full knowledge
of his parents. He did take the child, however; and here little Owen
remained, growing up in a monastery, and taking vows in due time. Here
he lived and here he died, a Benedictine of Westminster.
It would seem as if Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, heard some whisper
or rumour concerning this birth, or was told something about the
true nature of the Queen’s illness, for he issued a very singular
proclamation, warning the world, generally, against marrying
Queen-dowagers, as if these ladies grew on every hedge. When, however,
a year or so afterwards, the fourth child, Margaret, was born, Humphrey
learned the whole truth: the degradation, as he thought it, of the
Queen, who had stooped to such an alliance with a man of humble
rank, and the audacity of the Welshman. He took steps promptly. He
sent Katherine with some of her ladies to Bermondsey Abbey, there
to remain in honourable confinement: he arrested Owen Tudor, also a
priest—probably the priest who had performed the marriage—and his
servant, and sent all three to Newgate.
All three succeeded in breaking prison and escaping. At this point
the story gets mixed. The King himself, we are told, then a lad of
fifteen, sent to Owen commanding his attendance before the Council.
Why did they not arrest him again? Owen, however, refused to trust
himself to the Council—was not Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, one of
them? He asked for a safe-conduct. They promised him one by a verbal
message. Where was he, then, that all these messages should be sent
backwards and forwards? I think he must have been in Sanctuary. He
refused a verbal message, and demanded a written safe-conduct. This
was granted him, and he returned to London. But he mistrusted even the
written promise; he would not face the Council; he took refuge in the
Sanctuary of Westminster, where they were afraid to seize him. And here
for a while he remained. It is said that they tried to draw him out by
sending old friends, who invited him to the taverns outside the Abbey
Precinct. But Owen would not be so drawn. He knew that Duke Humphrey
would make an end of him if he could. He therefore remained where he
was. I think that he must have had some secret understanding with the
King; for one day, learning that Henry himself was with the Council, he
suddenly presented himself and pleaded his own cause. The mild young
King, tender on account of his mother, would not allow the case to be
pursued, but bade him go free.
He departed, and made all haste to get out of such unwholesome air; he
made for Wales. Here the hostility of Duke Humphrey pursued him still;
he was once more arrested, taken to Wallingford, and placed in the
Castle there a prisoner. From Wallingford he was transferred again to
Newgate, he and his priest and his servant. Once more they all three
broke prison, “foully” wounding a warder in the achievement of liberty,
and got back to Wales, choosing for their residence the mountainous
parts, into which the English garrisons never penetrated.
When the King came of age, Owen Tudor was allowed to return, and was
presented with a pension of £40 a year. It is remarkable, however,
that he received no promotion or rank; that he was never knighted; and
that the title of Esquire was the only one by which he was known. It
certainly seems as if the claim of Owen Tudor to be called a gentleman
was not recognised by the King or the heralds. Perhaps Welsh gentility
was as little understood by these Normans as Irish royalty—yet, so far
as length of pedigree goes, both Welsh and Irish were very superior to
Normans.
The two sons, Edmund and Jasper, were placed under the charge of
Katherine de la Pole, Abbess of Barking, and sister of the Earl of
Suffolk. When the King came of age, he remembered his half-brothers;
Edmund was made Earl of Richmond, Jasper, Earl of Pembroke; both
ranked before all other English Earls. Edmund was afterwards married
to Margaret Beaufort, who, as Countess of Richmond, was the foundress
of Christ’s and St. John’s Colleges, Cambridge. Her son, as everybody
knows, was Henry the Seventh.
As for Owen Tudor, that gallant adventurer, who began so well on the
field of battle, ended as well, fighting, as he should, for his stepson
and King, under the badge of the Red Rose. When the Civil Wars began,
he joined the King’s forces, though he was then nearer seventy than
sixty. He fought at Wakefield; he pursued the Yorkists to Mortimer’s
Cross, where another fight took place. The Lancastrians were defeated.
Owen was taken prisoner, and was cruelly beheaded on the field. It was
right and just that he should so fight and should so die. He survived
his Queen twenty-four years.
Katherine lived no more than a year after her imprisonment. She made a
will shortly before her death, in which there is not one word about her
second husband or her children by Owen Tudor. She says in the preamble:
“I trustfully,” addressing her son the King, “and am quite sure, that
among all creatures earthly ye best may and will best tender and favour
my will, in ordaining for my soul and body, in seeing that my debts be
paid and my servants guerdoned, and in tender and favourable fulfilment
of mine intent.”
The second Queen, who died at Bermondsey Abbey, was Elizabeth
Woodville. Her imprisonment in the Abbey was regarded with great
surprise. It was in the year 1486, when the insurrection broke out
in Ireland in favour of the pretended Earl of Warwick, son of the
Duke of Clarence: a council was held, after which, without any cause
assigned, or the bringing of any charge, the widowed Queen was carried
to Bermondsey, where she remained for the rest of her life. The reason
commonly accepted was that she knew Edward Plantagenet, and so could
prompt and instruct the Pretender in his personation of the prince.
Bacon says, “That which is most probable out of the precedent and
subsequent acts is that it was the Queen Dowager from whom this action
had had the principal source and motive; certain it is she was a busy,
negotiating woman, and in her withdrawing chamber had the fortunate
conspiracy of the King against Richard the Third been hatched, which
the King knew and remembered but too well; and she was at the time
extremely discontent with the King, thinking her daughter, as the King
handled the matter, not advanced but depressed.”
[Illustration: BERMONDSEY ABBEY]
It is not easy to find much sympathy with this unfortunate woman, yet
there are few scenes in history more full of pathos and mournfulness
than that in which her boy Richard was torn from her arms; and she
knew—all knew—even the Archbishops, when they gave their consent,
knew—that the boy was to be done to death. When one talks of Queens
and their misfortunes, it may be remembered that few Queens have
suffered more than Elizabeth Woodville. In misfortune she sits apart
from other Queens, her only companions being Mary Queen of Scots and
Marie Antoinette. Her record is full of woe. But in that long war it
seems impossible to find one single character, man or woman—unless it
is King Henry—who is true and loyal. All—all are perjured, treacherous,
cruel, self-seeking. All are as proud as Lucifer. Murder is the friend
and companion of the noblest lord, perjury walks on the other side
of him, treachery stalks behind him, all are his henchmen. Elizabeth
met perjury and treachery with intrigue and plot and counter-plot;
she was the daughter of her time. She was accused of being privy to
the plots of Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck; she was more Yorkist
than her husband; she hated the Red Rose long after the Red and the
White were united in her daughter and Henry the Seventh. That she was
suspected of these intrigues shows the character she bore. We must make
allowance; she was always in a false position; Edward ought not to have
married her; she was hated by her own party; she was compelled, in
the interests of her children, to be always on the defensive; and in
her conduct of defence she was the daughter of her age. These things,
however, deprive her, somewhat, of the pity which we ought to feel for
so many misfortunes.
She, too, had to retire to the seclusion of Bermondsey, where she
could sit and watch the ships go up and down, and so feel that the
world, with which she had no more concern, still continued. It has been
suggested that she retired voluntarily to the Abbey. Such a retreat was
not in the character of Elizabeth Woodville, so long as there was a
daughter or a kinsman left to fight for. Like Katherine of Valois, she
made an end not without dignity. Witness the following clauses in her
will:—
“Item, I bequeath my body to be buried with the body of my lord at
Windsor, according to the will of my said lord and mine, without pomps
entering or costly expenses done thereabout. Item, whereas I have no
worldly goods to do the Queen’s Grace, my dearest daughter a pleasure
with, neither to reward any of my children, according to my heart and
mind, I beseech Almighty God to bless her Grace, with all her noble
issue: and with as good a heart and mind as is to me possible, I give
her Grace my blessing, and all aforesaid, my children. Item, I will
that such small stuff and goods that I have be disposed truly in the
contentation of my debts and for the health of my soul as far as they
will extend. Item, if any of my blood will any of the said stuff or
goods to me pertaining, I will that they have the preferment before
any other.”
[Illustration: _Drawn by C. J. M. Whichello._ _Engraved by B. Howlett._
A GENERAL VIEW OF THE REMAINS OF BERMONDSEY ABBEY, SURREY
As it appeared in the year 1805, with the adjacent country. Taken from
the steeple of the Church of St. Mary Magdalen.]
The position of Bermondsey Abbey would at first appear to have been
exactly similar to that of Westminster: both Abbeys stood upon islets
slightly raised above high-water mark; all round the islet of each
stretched marshes, with other tiny islets here and there, as at
Chelsea and Battersea. But there was this difference. In front of
Thorney was a ford; at the back of Thorney was a ford; beyond the ford
on the south was the high road to Dover; beyond the ford on the north
was the high road to the heart of the country. Bermondsey was near
the river, but the river here was broad and deep even at low tide;
Bermondsey was not situated on the high road of commerce; the high road
to Dover was near the Abbey, certainly, but not running right through
it, so to speak, as the road ran at Westminster. The Abbey lay quiet
and remote, even from Southwark; and after the building of the river
wall on the south, whenever that was done, the marshes became low-lying
meadows, dotted with ponds and with trees, where cows lay asleep in
the sun. The Abbey stood alone, removed from houses, among gardens
and orchards; it might almost have been in the country, so quiet and
peaceful were the surroundings. But from the river there was heard the
yeo-heave-ho of the sailors; the masts and sails could be seen above
the river wall; there was heard every day the hymn of praise with which
the sailors celebrated their safe arrival in port; and the sound of
the multitudinous bells of London was wafted across the river to this
peaceful spot.
The Abbey possessed a miraculous Rood, to which people paid pilgrimage.
It was one of the many shrines round London which were convenient for
a day’s pleasant journey into the country. In the Paston Letters,
John Paston writes, “I pray you visit the Rood of Saint Saviour in
Bermondsey while ye abide in London, and let my sister Margery go with
you to pray to them that she shall have a good husband or she come home
again.”
This holy Rood was found in the Thames in 1117, and began almost
immediately to work miracles. In 1118 William, Earl of Morton, was
“miraculously liberated from the Tower of London through the power of
this holy Cross.”
Twenty-two years later, the same William, Earl of Morton, entered the
Abbey and took the vows. The Rood was taken down on the same day that
the Rood of Grace of Kent was destroyed by the Bishop of Rochester at
Paul’s Cross.
One of the last acts of Henry the Seventh was to found an “anniversary”
in this House to pray for the good and prosperous estate of the King
during his life, for the prosperity of the realm, for the soul of his
late Queen Elizabeth—not Elizabeth Woodville, of whom no mention is
made, for the soul of Edmund, Earl of Richmond, the King’s father, and
of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, his mother; and for the souls of his
children.
At the Dissolution, the revenues of the House were valued at £548: 2:
5-1/2. The Abbot, who was made Bishop of St. Asaph, received a pension
of 500 marks, or £333: 6: 8 a year. Fifteen years later, in 1553, there
were still seven or eight annuitants surviving, viz. one at 15 marks a
year; three at 9; two at 8; and smaller annuities amounting to 11 marks
a year.
The House and Manor were granted to Sir Robert Southwell, Master of
the Rolls. He sold it to Sir Thomas Pope, founder of Trinity College,
Oxford. Sir Thomas pulled down many of the monastic buildings, and
erected a stately house with the materials. The house with the gardens
he sold to Sir Robert Southwell, from whom he had bought it; the Manor
he sold to Robert Trapps, citizen and goldsmith.
In 1583 the Earl of Sussex, Lord Chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth, died
in the House.
The parish church of St. Mary Magdalen was built by the monks for their
tenants. The Earl of Sussex had to rebuild it when it was reported to
be falling into a ruinous condition.
Among the various benefits conferred upon the country by the monastic
houses, that of hospitality was by no means the least. But it is
evident that hospitality could only be practised when the House stood
near to a highway. As Bermondsey Abbey was removed from any roads or
highways, the monks could only carry out their duties towards the poor
by placing their almonry on the High Street of Southwark. But the Abbey
possessed a school of great repute. Leland, in his _Cantu Cygni_,
written a few years before the Dissolution, says:
“And hail thou, too, O House of Charity, the nurse
Of many students helped by Gifford’s purse.
Thou happy, snowy swan, hast thy serene abode,
Where Burmsey of her well-known isles is proud—
Well-known, indeed, for there is seen the shrine
Where her priests labour in the work Divine.”