sentences:  The dissolution of the monastery in 1539 was fatal to the progress of the town, and it rapidly sank into the position of an unimportant village.The abbey lands were granted by Edward VI to Edward Clinton, 1st Earl of Lincoln, from whose family they passed in 1671 to the Orby family.In 1642, near the start of the English Civil War, the remains of the abbey were fortified and garrisoned by Royalists under Governor Thomas Stiles.