The result of all is this: This lord was most honourably descended, and his nobility augmented; not first founded by king Henry VIII. as his words did intimate. Let, therefore, passionate princes speak what they please, their patient subjects will believe but their just proportion. And although the fox's ears must be reputed horns, whilst the lion in presence is pleased so to term them; yet they never alter their nature, and quickly recover the name after the lion's departure. This I thought fit to write in vindication of the lord Darcy, who though he owed his life to the law, it is cruelty he should lose both it and the just honour of his

extraction.

As for the present Coigners lord Darcy, he is not only descended from the aforesaid lord Thomas, but also from the heir-general of the second stem of the lord Darcyes of Knaith, and was by king Charles accordingly restored to take his place in Parliament.

XIV. THE ANCIENT ENGLISH NOBILITY GREAT LOSERS BY THE DISSOLUTION OF ABBEYS.

1-4. Ancient Nobility Losers. Good Rents ill paid. Services wholly lost, with the Commodity of Corrodies.

ALTHOUGH many modern families have been great gainers by the destruction of monasteries, yet the ancient nobility, when casting up their audits, found themselves much impaired thereby both in power and profit, commodity and command: I mean such, whose ancestors had been founders of abbeys, or great benefactors unto them. These reserved to themselves and their heirs many annual rents and services, reliefs, escuage, as also that such abbots and their successors should do fealty and homage to their heirs for such lands as they held of them in knight's service.

Now, although order was taken at the Dissolution to preserve such rents to the founders' heirs, payable unto them by the king's officers out of the exchequer; yet such sums after long attendance were recovered with so much difficulty that they were lost in effect. Thus, when the few sheaves of the subject are promiscuously made up in the king's mow, it is hard to find them there, and harder to fetch them thence.

As for the foresaid services reserved (either at money or money's worth) to them and their heirs, they were totally and finally extinguished for formerly such abbeys used, 1. To send men on their own charges in voyages to war, to aid and attend such of their founders' and benefactors' heirs, of whom they held land in knights'

service. 2. They bountifully contributed a portion to the marriage of their eldest daughters. 3. They bare the costs and charges to accoutre their eldest sons in a genteel military equipage when knighted by the king. But, now the tree being plucked up by the roots, no such fruit could afterwards be expected.

Nor must we forget the benefit of corrodies, so called a conradendo," from eating together :" for, the heirs of the foresaid founders, not by courtesy, but composition for their former favours, had a privilege to send a set number of their poor servants to abbeys to diet therein. Thus many aged servants, past working not feeding, (costly to keep, and cruel to cast off,) were sent by their masters to such abbeys, where they had plentiful food during their lives. Now, though some of those corrodies, where the property was altered into a set sum of money, were solvable out of the exchequer after the dissolution of abbeys; yet such which continued in kind were totally extinct, and no such diet hereafter given, where both table and house were overturned.

XV. THE PREMISSES PROVED BY INSTANCE IN THE FAMILY OF THE BERKELEYS.

1, 2. Robert Derby, last Abbot of Croxton.

THE noble family of the Berkeleys may well give an abbot's mitre for the crest of their arms, because so "loving their nation, and building them so many synagogues." Hence it was, that, partly in right of their ancestors, partly by their matches with the co-heirs of the lord Mowbray and Seagrave, in the vacancies they had a right of nomination of an abbot in the following foundations:

1. St. Augustine's in Bristol. Founder: Robert Fitz-Harding, whose posterity assumed the name of Berkeley. Black Canons of the Order of St. Victor. Value: £767. 158. 3d.

2. Burton Lazers in Leicestershire. Founder: The lord Mowbray, in the reign of king Henry I. Leprous People professing the Order of St. Augustine. Value: £265. 10s. 2d. Oob. 1q.

3. Byland, or Bella-Launda, in Yorkshire. Founder: Robert de Mowbray, and Gonnora, his mother. Order: Cistercian Monks. Value: £295. 58. 4d.

4. Chaucomb in Northamptonshire. Founder: Hugh de Anaf, knight, in the time of the Conqueror; whose son Robert took the name of Chaucomb, and Annabilia, his daughter, was married to

Gilbert lord Seagrave.

Value: £93. 6s. 3d. 1ob.

Order: Black Canons, Augustinians.

5. Combe in Warwickshire.* Order: Cistercian monks. Value: £343. Os. 5d.

6. Croxton in Leicestershire.+ Order: Premonstratensian monks. Value: £458. 19s. 11d. 1ob. 1q.

7. Epworth in the Isle of Axholme in Lincolnshire. Founder: Thomas Mowbray, earl of Nottingham, in the reign of king Richard II. to which the Mowbrays were grand benefactors. Order: Carthusians. Value: £290. 148.

8. Fountains.‡

08. 7d. 1ob.

Order: White Friars. Value: £1173.

9. Kirkby in Leicestershire. Founder: Roger de Beller, who held this manor of the lord Mowbray. Order: Canons Regular of St. Augustine. Value: £178. 78. 10d. Oob. 1q.

10. Newburgh in Yorkshire. Founder: Roger de Mowbray, anno 1127.

10d. 1ob.

Order: Black Canons. Value: £451. 138.

What shall I speak of the small houses of Longbridge and Tintern in Gloucestershire, (not mentioned in Speed,) the hospitals of St. Catherine and Mary Maudlin's near Bristol, the well-endowed school of Wotton-Underedge in Gloucestershire, besides forty chantries founded by the Berkeleys? Yea, I have read in a manuscript belonging unto them, no less judiciously than industriously composed by Mr. John Smith, (who did and received many good offices to and from that family, as is mutually confessed,) that the fore-named abbeys and others held of the lord Berkeley, at the Dissolution, no fewer than eighty knights' fees, and paid services unto them accordingly; all which are now lost to the value of ten thousand pounds within the compass of few years.

Nor will it be amiss to insert, that Robert Derby, the last abbot of Croxton, was presented thereunto, April 22nd, the 26th of king Henry VIII. by Thomas (the sixth of that name) lord Berkeley, (the place being void by the death of one Attercliffe,) belonging to his presentation by inheritance; and, in the record, he commandeth the prior and convent to receive and obey him as abbot.

Whereof Mowbrays were founders.

Founded by the Kriols, but devolved to Though founded by Thurstan, archbishop of York, yet much ang

the Seagraves.
mented by the Mowbrays.

XVI. INGRATITUDE TO THEIR FOUNDERS, A GRAND FAULT IN MANY ABBEYS.

1. If unthankful, all bad.

INGRATITUDE is the abridgment of all baseness, a fault never found unattended with other viciousness. This is justly charged on the account of many abbeys; whose stately structures grew so proud as to forget" the rock whence they were hewn, and the hole of the pit whence they were digged;" unthankful to such founders who under God had bestowed their maintenance upon them.

2-4. Great Bounty ill-requited. Summum Jus.

One instance of many: Vast was the liberality of the lords Berkeleys to St. Austin's in Bristol, leaving themselves in that their large estate not one rectory to which they might present a chaplain ; all the benefices in their numerous manors being appropriated to this and other monasteries. Now see the requital :—

Maurice, (the first of that name,) lord Berkeley, having occasion to make the ditch about his castle the broader, for the better fortifying thereof took in some few feet of ground out of Berkeley church-yard; which church, with the tithes thereof, his ancestors had conferred on the aforesaid monastery. The abbot, beholding this as a great trespass, or rather, as a little sacrilege, so prosecuted the aforesaid lord with church-censures, that he made him in a manner cast the dirt of the ditch in his own face, enforcing him to a public confession of his fault, and to give five shillings rent for ever, with some tithes and pasture for as many oxen as would till a plough-land, by the words of his will, pro emendatione culpæ meæ de fossato quod feci de cœmeterio de Berkeley circa castellum meum.

I know it will be pleaded for the abbot, that there is as much -right in an inch as in an ell; that he was a fiduciary, intrusted to defend the rights of his convent; that founders' heirs are not privileged to do injuries; yea, they of all persons most improper to take back what their ancestors have given. However, the lord's encroachment on the church-yard, being in a manner done in his own defence, the thing in itself so small, and the merit of his ancestors so great to that abbey, might have met with that meekness which should be in the breasts of all spiritual persons, to abate his rigorous prosecution against him.

5. Another Instance of Ingratitude.

Thomas, the first lord Berkeley of that name, found little better usage from the abbot of St. Austin's. Though he had formerly,

beside confirmation of many lands, conferred on that convent pasture for twenty-four oxen; discharging also their lands (lying within certain of his manors) from all services and earthly demands, only to remember him and his in their prayers; yet did that abbot and convent implead him before the pope's delegates for tithes of pannage of his woods, for tithes of his fishing and of his mills. The lord removed the suit to common law, as challenging the sole power to regulate modum decimandi. And now, when all was ready for a trial before the judge itinerant at Gloucester, it was compounded by friends on such terms as the abbot in effect gained his desire.

6-9. A Cause of their Ruin. An over-wise Conceit easily confuted. Strong Faith to believe so much of King Henry's Charity.

Indeed, so odious and obvious was the unthankfulness of some convents, that it is reputed by some the most meritorious cause of their Dissolution; and their doing things without and against the will of their founders, is instanced in the statute* as a main motive to take them away.

Some, who pretend to a Prometheus-wit, fondly conceive that the founders of abbeys might politicly have prevented their Dissolution, had they inserted a provision in their foundations,-that in case abbey-lands should be alienated to other uses against or beside the owner's intents, then such lands should revert to the true heirs of the said founders, if then in being.

But such consider not, that such a reservation would have savoured more of wildness than wisdom in that age. As well might one have sought to secure himself with a shelter against the falling of the skies, as equally probable as the diverting of abbey-lands to other intentions. Besides, such a jealous clause might be interpreted heretical to put into people's fancies a feasibility of such alterations. Yea, I have heard it questioned by the learned in the law, whether such a conditional settlement with such a clause, were legal or no many maintaining, that such donations must be absolute. But suppose such a clause in their foundations, it had not much befriended that at this time, seeing cables are as easily cut off as twine-threads, by power of parliament, when disposed to make such a Dissolution.

Now some conceived it just abbey-lands should have been restored to the heirs of their founders; but, seeing the most and greatest abbeys were built and endowed before the Conquest, it was hard to find out their heirs, if extant. Besides, this would minister matter of much litigiousness, equally to share them amongst their many benefac

For the Dissolution of Chantries and Colleges, 37 of Henry VIII. cap. 4.