Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/341

1535.] 'greatly dilapidated his house, [and] wasted the woods, notoriously keeping six women. [He is] defamed here,' they say, 'a toto populo, one day denying these articles, with many more, the next day confessing the same, thus manifestly incurring perjury.' Six days before the visitors' access to his monastery 'he committed theft and sacrilege, confessing the same. At midnight he caused his chaplain to seize the sexton's keys, and took out a jewel, a cross of gold with stones. One Warren, a goldsmith in the Chepe, was with him in his chamber at that hour, and there they stole out a great emerald, with a ruby. The said Warren made the abbot believe the ruby to be but a garnet, so that for this he paid nothing. For the emerald he paid but twenty pounds. He sold him also the plate without weight or ounces; how much the abbot was deceived therein he cannot tell, for he is a very fool and miserable idiot.'

Under an impression that frauds of this description were becoming frequent, the Government had instructed the commissioners to take inventories of the plate and jewels; and where they saw occasion for suspicion, to bring away whatever seemed superfluous, after leaving a supply sufficient for the services of the house and chapel. The misdemeanour of the Abbot of Fountains was not the only justification of these directions. Sometimes the plate was secreted. The Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, was accused of having