sentences:  As abbot of Netley and later of Beaulieu he had the right to a seat in the House of Lords.Little is known of Stevens' early life, but at some time in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century he became a monk at the small and poor Cistercian monastery of Netley Abbey in Hampshire.There he took holy orders and rose through the ranks so that by 1529 he was elected abbot of Netley, succeeding John Corne.