Page:VCH Bedfordshire 1.djvu/457

 RELIGIOUS HOUSES Grey. 1 The name of Sir Gerard Bray- brook 2 occurs frequently in some later charters. The last patron of all was Lord Mordaunt of Turvey, one of whose ancestors had witnessed a foundation charter of the and to seal a writing in Latin of which they did not understand a word, but were told it was merely the lease of an impropriate bene- fice. 'All say they durst not say him nay,' he adds ; ' and the prioress saith plainly that priory. The house was probably never very she would never consent thereto.' rich, though no exact statement of its in- In the case of Chicksand, which is charged come can be made earlier than the dissolu- with similar misdoings in the same letter, the tion. very form and content of the accusation During the time of Bishop Sutton, in challenge criticism at once. But if the charges a nun of Harrold was found guilty of laid against Harrold are denied, it can only be on the simple ground that Layton is a dis- a breach of her vow of chastity ; 3 and 131 1 Bishop Dalderby issued a commission for the visitation and correction of this house amongst others. 1 No account of this visita- tion is preserved, nor are any others recorded ; only in 1369 6 Bishop Gynwell appointed Dame Katherine of Tutbury (afterwards prioress) to administer the revenues of the priory during vacancy, and to reform ex- cesses. It may be that during her term of office the house was well governed, and had a better reputation ; but this is of course mere conjecture. The name of this prioress and her successor, Emma Drakelowe, are found in many of the charters relating to tenements and leases in the chartulary. Nothing further is known of the state of the priory, internal or external, until it was visited by Dr. Layton in 1535, 6 with other houses in Bedfordshire. If the accusations contained in his letter to Cromwell were true, the priory had certainly ceased to be in any real sense a religious house. He declared that he found there a prioress and four or five nuns, of whom one had 'two fair children' and another 'one child and no more ' ; and also describes how Lord Mordaunt had induced the prioress and her ' foolish young flock ' to break open the coffer containing the charters of the priory, nuns of trespassing on his lands, assarting his woods, etc., while he was disseised of them for the king's service {Cur. Reg. R. 27, 4 John, n. 2). In 1226 Ralf Morin claimed the church of Eythorne, Kent, against the Archbishop of Can- terbury, who vouched to warrant the prioress of Harrold, who claimed that she and her nuns held the church by gift of Ralf's father Ralf. Ralf re- plied that they were only entitled to a pension of £2 a year from the church under a charter of the archbishop (Bracton's Note Book, iii. 543). • Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii. 329. » Lansd. MS. 391, f. 44. 3 Line. Epis. Reg., Memo. Sutton, I92d. The partner of her guilt was condemned to be beaten through the market-place of Harrold ; and when he refused to submit, excommunicated. 4 Ibid. Memo. Dalderby, 202d. 6 Ibid. Memo. Gynwell, 83. 8 Wright, Suppression of Monasteries, 91 (Letter xlii.) credited witness. There is no actual evidence for or against his statements. But unhappily there is nothing at all improbable in the story of Lord Mordaunt and the charters. The patron of a house so small and so poor would be in a position to take a very high hand with the little convent, especially as one or two of the nuns would very likely be members of his own family. However this may be, the house was certainly dissolved under the Act of 1536, and a pension of £j assigned to the prioress, Elinor Warren. 7 The priory was endowed by Sampson le Fort with the churches of St. Peter, Harrold, and Brayfield, Northants, with their appur- tenances, and a few acres of land besides. 8 The church of Stevington 9 was added soon after, and that of Shakerstone (Leicester) in the fifteenth century. 10 No statement can be made as to the value of its lands in the thir- teenth century, as it is not mentioned at all in the Taxatio of Pope Nicholas, nor in the Feudal Aids. The total income of the priory in 1535 was £40 i8j. 2d. ; n the first valua- tion after the dissolution, in 1536, amounted to £57 ioj., including the four rectories mentioned above, with small parcel of land, rents and tenements in the counties of Bed- ford, Huntingdon and Buckingham. 12 Prioresses of Harrold Agnes : Basile l 1 died de la 1245 Legh, elected 1245, 1252 I L. and P. Hen. VIII. xiii. (i), 1520. s Lansd. MS. 391, ff. 4-6. » Ibid. f. 12. i" Ibid.f. 18b. II Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), iv. 204. 12 Dugdale, Mon. vi. 331. <a Occurs Lansd. MS. 391, f. 37 ; and Epis. Line. Reg. Rolls of Grossetete (at the election of the next prioress), 1245. » Line. Epis. Reg., Rolls of Grossetete ; her name occurs under the date II November 1245 in Lansd. MS. 391, f. 37 5 and in Willis's Hist, of Bucks, p. 159 (1252). 389