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 Augmentations, followed in due course. Cobham got his house, although not immediately, at nine years' purchase; and between 1540 and 1550 some sixteen other parcels of the estate, many of them very substantial, were similarly alienated. Finally, on 12 March 1550, during the liberal distribution of crown lands for which the authority of Henry VIII was alleged by his executors in the Privy Council, a comprehensive grant was made of all that still remained unalienated in the precinct to Sir Thomas Cawarden, the Master of the Revels, whose office had for some years past been established within its walls. Apparently Cawarden paid nothing for it, but on the other hand the King owed him a good deal for moneys spent in the service of the Revels.

The Blackfriars long remained an anomaly in the local government of London. Like all monastic establishments, the friars had maintained extensive privileges within their own precinct. Nightly their porter had shut their four gates upon the city. They had done their own paving. The Lord Mayor had claimed a jurisdiction, but if this was admitted, it was only in cases of felony. The ordinary functions of civil magistracy had been exercised, when called for, by Sir William Kingston and other important tenants. Naturally there had been friction from time to time with the Corporation, and on the surrender the latter, like the tenants, hoped that their opportunity was come. They addressed a petition to Henry, in which they expressed their gratification that he had 'extirped and extinct the orders of Freers to the great exaltacion of Crystes doctryne and the abolucion of Antecriste theyr first founder and begynner', and asked for a grant of the church and the whole precinct of the Blackfriars, together with those of the three other London friaries, to be used for the special benefit of non-parishioners and of those infected by pestilence. Henry, however, had not gone to the trouble of obtaining a surrender merely to inflate the powers and the revenues of a municipality. He is reported to have replied that 'he was as well hable to keep the liberties as the Friers were', and to have handed the keys to Sir John Portinari, one of his gentlemen pensioners, who dwelt in the precinct. The Blackfriars, therefore,