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[Illustration: “WHAT HAVE WE HERE? S. JOSEPH HELP US!”

_Page 3._]


THE LAST ABBOT OF GLASTONBURY.

A Tale of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

by the

REV. A. D. CRAKE, B.A.,

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society; Vicar of Havenstreet, I.W.;

Author of
Fairleigh Hall, The Chronicles of Æscendune, The Camp on the
Severn, etc., etc.







Oxford and London:
A. R. Mowbray & Co.




HISTORICAL PREFACE.


The Author humbly ventures to offer the ninth of his series of original
tales, illustrating Church History, to the public; encouraged by the
favourable reception the previous volumes have found.

In the tales, “Æmilius,” “Evanus,” and “The Camp on the Severn,” he has
endeavoured to describe the epoch of the Pagan persecutions, under the
Roman Empire; in the “Three Chronicles of Æscendune,” successive epochs
of Early English history; in the “Andredsweald,” the Norman Conquest;
in “Fairleigh Hall,” the Great Rebellion; and in the _present_ volume,
one of the earliest of the series of events ordinarily grouped
under the general phrase “The Reformation,” the destruction of the
Monasteries.

It is many years since the writer was first attracted and yet saddened
by the tragical story of the fate of the last Abbot of Glastonbury, and
amongst the tales by which he was wont to enliven the Sunday evenings
in a large School, this narrative found a foremost place, and excited
very general interest.

A generation ago, few English Churchmen cared to say a good word for
the unhappy monks, who suffered so cruel a persecution at the hands of
Henry the Eighth and his vicar-general, Thomas Cromwell. Many, indeed,
confessed a sentimental regret when they visited the ruins of such
glorious fanes as Tintern, Reading, or Furness, and reflected that but
for the vandalism of the period, such buildings might yet vie with the
cathedrals, with which they were coeval, and if not retained for their
original uses, might yet be devoted to the service of religion and
humanity, in various ways; but the fear of being supposed to betray
a leaning to the doctrines once taught within these ruined walls, has
prevented many a writer from doing justice to the sufferers under
atrocious tyranny.

Yet did an act of parliament now pass the legislature giving the
various episcopal palaces, deaneries, rectories, and vicarages in
England, with all their furniture, to the Crown, and were the present
occupants ruthlessly ejected, and hung, drawn, and quartered in case of
resistance, active or passive, the injustice would not be greater, the
outrage on the rights of property more flagrant, than in the case of
the monasteries.

The late Rev. W. Gresley, in his tale, “The Forest of Arden,” was (so
far as the writer remembers) the first writer of historical fiction,
amongst modern Churchmen, who attempted to render justice to our
forefathers, who, born and bred under the papal supremacy, could not
disguise their convictions, or transfer their allegiance to a lustful
tyrant.

But even he spake with “bated breath” when compared with Dean Hook,
who, later on, thus writes in his lives of the Archbishops of
Canterbury:--

    “To an Englishman, taught to regard his house as his castle,
    these acts of invasion on property appear to be monstrous; our
    blood boils within us when we learn that by blending the Acts
    of Supremacy with the Treason Acts the Protestant enthusiasts
    under Cromwell condemned to death not fewer than 59 persons,
    who, however mistaken they were in their opinions, were as
    honest as Latimer, and more firm than Cranmer.

    “Of the murders of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas Moore, the
    former the greatest patron of learning, the latter ranking with
    the most learned men the age produced, both of them men of
    undoubted piety, the reader must not expect in these pages a
    justification or even an attempt at palliation; we should be as
    ready to accord the crown of martyrdom to the Abbots of Reading
    and _Glastonbury_ and to the Prior of S. John’s, Colchester,
    when rather than betray their trust they died, as we are to
    place it on the heads of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer. Although
    the latter had the better cause, yet we must all admit that
    atrocious as were the proceedings under Mary and Bonner, the
    persecutions under Henry and Cromwell fill the mind with
    greater horror.”

But it may be asked, were not the atrocious crimes laid to the
charge of the monks in the celebrated “Black Book,” the “Compendium
compertorum,” a sufficient justification? Did not the very parliament
at the recital cry “Down with them.”

The opinion of such parliaments as those which passed the absurd and
bloody treason acts dictated by Henry, or which condemned so many
innocent victims by Acts