Gentleman's Recreation, which was partly compiled by the Lady Juliana Berners, Prioress of Sopwell Nunnery, was also printed here in 1486: this work consists of three treatises; one on Hawking; another on Hunting, and Fishing; and the third, on Coat Armour. The printer was a Monk of this Abbey, and is called, by Chauncy, John Insomuch. Newcome has confounded him with John Hertford, who was established here about half a century afterwards: the latter printed The Lyfe and Passion of Seint Alban,' as it had been translated from the French and Latin, by John Lydgate, the celebrated Monk of Bury. Wallingford died in August, 1484, and was interred in a small Chapel, which he had built for the purpose near the High Altar; but this has been destroyed, together with his tomb.*

During the times of the three Abbots last mentioned, Henry the Sixth, and Edward the Fourth, were frequently entertained at St. Alban's; but after their deaths, the favor of the Sovereign was in a great measure withdrawn. In the short reign of Richard the Third, the Abbey received some slight manifestation of Royal kindness; but his successor, Henry the Seventh, appears to have kept the temporalities in his own hands till the year 1492, when he permitted Thomas Ramryge, corruptly spelt Ramridge, to be appointed Abbot. How long he continued in this office is uncertain, as scarcely any of the records of his government are known to exist. That he was living till the twenty-second of Henry the Seventh, (anno 1507,) is evinced by a rental of lands and tenements purchased by him in that year:† Newcome imagines that he survived till 1523," when Wolsey, then Bishop of Winchester, Archbishop of York, Chancellor of England, the Pope's Legate, and a Cardinal, thought proper to resign his bishopric, and take this Abbey in commendam." He was interred within a most elegantly carved monument, or Chapel, which he had built for the purpose in the choir.

Wolsey

* See Newcome's St. Alban's, p. 399. The Chapel and tomb cost 1001. on the latter was a marble effigies of the Abbot.

+ Newcome's St. Alban's, Appendix, No. X.

Wolsey is supposed to have applied the revenues of the Abbey in aid of the charges incurred in founding his two new Colleges at Oxford and Ipswich; but when he was convicted on the statute of Premunire, in October, 1529, all his property was declared forfeited to the King, Henry the Eighth. On his obtaining a pardon in the succeeding year, he was permitted, among other titles, to retain that of Abbot of St. Alban; but Henry reserved all the revenues to himself. Wolsey dying in the November following, (anno 1530,)` Robert Catton was made Abbot; and, although he has been charged with exercising the functions of his government merely at the will of the King's agents, there seems sufficient reason to doubt the entire validity of the accusation. He is admitted to have continued Abbot till the year 1538; and in the December of that year, Leigh and Petre, two of the Commissioners appointed to visit the Abbey, transmitted a letter to the Lord Cromwell, in which occur the following passages,

"Please it your Lordship to be advertised. At our comyng to St. Albons on Thursday last, we beganne a visiatcion among the Monkes, the Abbot being then in London. And because we wolde the more fully knowe the hole state of all thing, tarred the longer in the examination of them. And upon Friday last we sent a monition for the Abbot to appear before us, who came hither on Saturday before none: whosome we have likewise as fully examined upon all things as we might. And although, as well by the examination of the Monkes, as by confession of the Abbot himself, there doth appear confessed and fully proved, intire cause of deprivation against the Abbot, not only for breaking the King's injunctions, but also for manifest dilapidations, making of giftes, negligent administration, and sundry other causes; yet by what meanes we know not, in all communications or motions made concerning any surrender, he shewith hymself so stiff, that as he saith, he would rather choyse to begge his bredde all the days of his life, than consent to any surrender. We have everich of us severally, and also alltogether, communed with him, and also used all such motions as we thought must most further that purpose; but he continueth always one man, and waxeth hourly more obstiVOL. VII. DEC. 1805. nate,

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nate, and less conformable: whether he so doo upon trust and coufidence of any friendship, we know not. The premisses we thought our bounden duty to signifie unto your lordshippe, most humbly beseeching the same, that we may know the King's highness further pleasure by you; whether we shall continew in the proofs of deprivation against him, and so deprive him according to the Order of Justice without longer delaye: which don, the house will be in such debt, that we think no man will take the office of Abbot here upon him; except any doo it only for that purpose to surrender the same unto the Kinge's hands. And by these means we think this thing may most easily be, and with more spede be brought to the Kinge's highness purpose."*

Now the whole tenor of this letter evinces, that the Abbot referred to by the Commissioners, was determined not to become a willing accessary to the surrender of his possessions; and as Richard de Stevenache, or Boreman, who succeeded Catton, is recorded to have been made Abbot, "with no other view than to make a surrender in form,” there is a strong probability that Catton was still Abbot when the letter was written; and that, to use the words of the record, he was deprived “according to the Order of Justice, without longer delaye." Boreman, the new Abbot, who had previously been Prior of Norwich, surrendered on the fifth of December, 1539; and for his ready compliance, had an annual pension granted him of 2661. 13s. 4d. The Prior was also pensioned in the sum of 331. 6s. 8d. and smaller sums were granted to the remaining Monks, of whom there were then only thirtyeight. The entire revenues of the Abbey were estimated, according to Dugdale, at 21021. 7s. 14d. yearly: according to Speed, they amounted to the annual sum of 2510l. 6s. 12d.

The possessions of the dissolved Monastery were very quickly dispersed among the interested courtiers who had favored the King's views. The monastic buildings, with all the ground lying round the Abbey Church, and the Parish Church of St. Andrew, which

* The original of this Letter is in the British Museum: Cott. MSS.

Cleop. E. 4.