(Vol. iii., p. 375.)
While I thank MR. PETER CUNNINGHAM for his ready compliance with my
request, I am sorry to say that I cannot concur in the reliance which he
expresses on the authority of Sir George Buc. The passage quoted from
that writer contains so palpable a blunder in that part of the history
of the Temple of which we have authentic records, that I look with much
suspicion on that portion of the relation, with regard to which no
documentary evidence has been found.
He makes "Hugh Spencer, Earle of Glocester," the next successor of the
Earl of Lancaster in the possession of the Temple after the suppression,
and places "Andomare de Valence" in the house _after_ the execution of
Spencer for treason: an account which receives a somewhat significant
contradiction in the fact, that Valence died in 1323, and Spencer was
beheaded in 1326.
With reference to Buc's assertion, that "the other third part, called
the Outward Temple, Doctor Stapleton, Bishop of Exceter, had gotten in
the raign of the former king, Edward the Second, and conuerted it to a
house for him and his successors, Bishops of Exceter," I can only say
that no such grant has ever been discovered, and that every fact on
which we have any information in relation to the Templars' possessions
in London, contradicts the presumption that any part of them was
disposed of to the bishop. He was raised to his see in 1307. The
Templars were suppressed in 1309. Their lands and tenements in London
were then placed in the hands of custodes appointed by the king, who in
1311 transferred them into the custody of the sheriffs of London, with
directions to account for the rents into the Exchequer. In both of these
documents, and in the grants to the Earls of Lancaster and Pembroke, ALL
the property that belonged to the Templars in London and its suburbs is
expressly included; without excepting any part of it as having been
previously granted to the bishop; which, had any such been made, would
inevitably have been specially noticed. And I have already shown in my
former communication (p. 325.) that the grant by the Hospitallers
themselves to Hugh le Despenser in 1324 is of the _whole_ of their house
called the New Temple, and that the bishop's mansion is therein stated
to be its western boundary.
All these particulars confirm me in my opinion, that the bishop's house
never formed any part of the New Temple.