A Monument, a Museum, or a Church?

For Crisis Magazine, Tom Jay writes about a visit to Westminster Abbey (it costs about $25.00 to enter this place of prayer):

It’s odd that a church where royal weddings and coronations take place does not receive any funding from the royal family or the Church of England. This fact only reinforces the impression that the English monarchy is a royal drain on the nation’s finances. What does England get in return? It’s possible that what Westminster Abbey gets in return is tourist dollars that help keep this beautiful monument maintained and open to the public. For, in the end, Westminster Abbey still stands as a magnificent achievement of gothic architecture. To continue drawing tourists, perhaps it’s necessary to highlight the link between Westminster and the Royals. No doubt this is what draws many Americans who have little interest in history, let alone an appreciation for the beauty and ingenuity of medieval religious architecture. Looked at from this perspective it might even be considered laudable that the Dean, while facing unavoidable economic realities, also insists that Westminster is “first and foremost a working church” as the brochure puts it. It is Henry VIII, not the Dean, who is responsible for the confusion that clouds Westminster Abbey today.

As a Catholic, my visit left me grateful for the imperviousness of Spain and Italy to the influences of the Reformation that swept through northern Europe and England. One needs no reminding in the great Catholic churches of Europe that these are truly sacred spaces dedicated to the glory of God alone, the only crown of note being the one affixed to the head of the King of Kings.

Read the rest there. When we visited the Abbey we also felt many misgivings. There was so much blocked off that we felt we'd been cheated the cost of admission. The Catholic priest we were with did receive a discount as a member of the clergy. But is sad to think of a place that was once filled with prayer--the seven hours of prayer by Benedictine monks--filled with milling tourists listening to audio descriptions of what they are seeing. What would John Feckenham, the last Abbot of Westminster Abbey, think if he saw it today?

Photo credit: The Benedictine Chapter House.

Last Abbots and Suppressed Monasteries

The Recusants and Renegades blog highlights the career and survival of the last prior of St. Mary Overy in Southwark:

I've decided to write something here about my (probable) ancestor Bartholomew Fowle, who was the prior of St Mary Overy, Southwark, at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, even though he was not strictly speaking a recusant – a term that would only really come into use during the reign of Elizabeth I. However, like countless other faithful Catholics, Bartholomew’s world was turned upside down by the seismic upheavals of the Reformation. Moreover, telling Bartholomew’s story seems like a natural sequel to the last post about my 12 x great grandfather Magnus Fowle and his recusant connections. As with my that post, I’ll be drawing on my own original genealogical research, some of which I’ve already published on my family history blog Past Lives.

The lives and afterlives of these canons, friars, and monks were completely disrupted by Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, but did receive pensions:

The priory of St Mary Overy was ‘surrendered’ to Thomas Cromwell’s agents on 27th October 1539. Cromwell himself signed the pension list, which granted £8 each per annum to two of the canons and £6 to nine others. There were eleven annuitants in all, besides the prior, with their pensions totalling £70 in all. At least one source claims that Bartholomew Fowle quibbled over his original grant of £80 per annum and managed to have it increased to £100. In addition, Bartholomew was provided with a house ‘within the close where Dr Michell was dwelling’. Robert Michell was the last prior but one before Bartholomew, and had probably resigned due to ill health or old age. (A certain William Michell, almost certainly a relative, had witnessed the will of Thomas Fowle of Lamberhurst in 1525.)

The blog's author, Martin Robb, notes traces of his probable ancestor's life after the surrender of the Abbey:

There is evidence that Bartholomew Fowle remained in London after his enforced retirement, and also that he continued to serve as a priest. For example, in 1543 Dame Joan Milbourne, the widow of a former lord mayor of London, bequeathed money in herwill to a number of priests to come to her burial at the church of St Edmund, Lombard Street, and to pray for her. She left the sum of £6 13s 6d ‘to my very good friend Bartholomew Linsted some time prior of St Mary Overies, to pray for my soul’. From this, we can conclude two things: firstly, that Bartholomew Fowle was well connected with the gentry of London, and secondly that, despite the religious changes of Henry’s reign, Catholic practices such as prayers for the dead remained popular.

The date of Bartholomew’s death is unknown, and I’ve failed to find any trace of a will, but a number of sources confirm that he was still receiving his pension in 1553. In other words, he lived for at least another fifteen years or so after his expulsion from St Mary Overy. This means that, like my ancestor and his relative Gabriel Fowle, Bartholomew may have lived long enough to have his hopes revived by the brief restoration of Catholicism under Queen Mary.

Prior Fowle may have seen Catholicism's brief restoration but perhaps not its fall again during Elizabeth I's reign. On May 20, 1560, John Feckenham, the last Abbot of Westminster, was sent to the Tower of London by Matthew Parker, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He had been “railing against the [religious] changes that have been made.” He had been at Evesham when that abbey was surrendered in 1540 and then been named Abbot at Westminster Abbey during Mary I's reign. More about him here.

The Last Abbot of Westminster Goes to the Tower

In 1560, John Feckenham, the last Abbot of Westminster, was sent to the Tower of London on May 20th by Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury. Since the reign of Elizabeth I had begun, he had been “railing against the changes that have been made.” Feckenham had been in the Tower before because of his defense of Catholicism. Cranmer sent him there during Edward VI’s reign, although he was freed briefly to debate John Jewel and John Hooper. During the reign of Henry VIII, he had been at Evesham, a Benedictine house suppressed in 1540; he served as chaplain to bishops Bell and Bonner of Worcester and London, respectively until his imprisonment. 

When Mary I succeeded her brother in 1553, he was released from the Tower. During her reign, Feckenham preached in London, served as Dean of St. Paul’s, assisted with the establishment of St. John’s and Trinity colleges in Oxford, and was the Queen’s confessor. He counseled Lady Jane Grey before her execution, hoping to convert her and he interceded for Elizabeth after the Wyatt Rebellion, preventing her execution and gaining her freedom. Feckenham engaged Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer in debate, but would not participate in their trial and execution. 

He received a D.D. at Oxford in 1556 and was appointed Abbot at Westminster, one of the few monasteries re-established during Mary’s reign, restoring the shrine of St. Edward the Confessor. 

When Elizabeth I came to the throne, she offered Feckenham security in his office if he took the Oath of Supremacy and conformed to the new Church of England (the Book of Common Prayer and Thirty-Nine Articles). Since he would not he was expelled from the abbey and for 14 years either held in the Tower or under house arrest as the “guest” of a Church of England bishop who would try to convert him without success. Feckenham prepared John Story (see the upcoming post on June 1) for his execution in 1571 in the Tower and was released on bail in July, 1574.

He was known to be gentle, courteous, and charitable, but proved himself, in the eyes of his bishop-jailers to be an absolutely obstinate papist (Catholic). In 1577, Feckenham was returned to the custody of the Bishop of Ely and was imprisoned in Wisbech Castle in 1580. He finally died there after 24 years of imprisonment on October 16, 1585. 

Feckenham’s life certainly demonstrates his loyalty to the Catholic Church, his endurance and his efforts to minister to the people of England. As the last mitered Abbot to sit in the House of Lords, he argued against the religious settlement Parliament crafted at the beginning of Elizabeth I’s reign, and yet he was always known for his kindly temperament. Although he and Lady Jane Grey could not agree on religious matters, she was thankful for his support even at her execution and Elizabeth probably thought she was being as generous and tolerant as possible when offering him a sinecure at the cost of his conscience.

David Knowles writes about him in his Saints and Scholars, "His mind moved in terms of practical concessions and adjustments; he had neither [Reginald] Pole's forward-looking zeal for reform, not the unworldly, single-minded missionary devotion of a Campion . . . Seen in the whole picture of his life, however, and as a man of his generation, he appears an admirable and sympathetic figure if not wholly an heroic one." More about the Last Abbot of Westminster here.

Ampleforth Beer, There and Back Again

The Northern Echo has this story about Ampleforth Abbey shipping its beer to France, and how that is a "homecoming" of sorts for the beer:

IN A turn of events which has taken 220 year to come full circle; English monks are to sell beer to the French based on a secret recipe they fled France with way back in 1793.

The secret recipe for “la biere anglaise” has been hopping the channel with Benedictine monks for more than 400 years.

The closely guarded monastic recipe went with them after they were driven from England to France during the Reformation in 1608 before returning to England when they fled Revolutionary France in 1793.

While living on the continent, the beer provided the monks with a living but production ceased on their return to England and wasn't brewed again until last year.

Since Ampleforth Abbey Beer went on sale 12 months ago, the ale has received an enthusiastic reception.

Deliciously Yorkshire named it “Yorkshire’s Best Drink”. Now - in a case of history repeating itself - the French are about to discover the drink again.

Ampleforth Abbey, near Helmsley, has just received a large order for thousands of bottles of its beer from one of France’s leading beer distributors, International Breweries and Beers (IBB).

As soon as I read that second paragraph I began to wonder--"they were driven from England to France during the Reformation in 1608"? The Dissolution of the Monasteries, as we know, occurred during the reign of Henry VIII, not the reign of James I of England. I think what's missing from the timeline is that in 1607, the last link to the Benedictine Abbey at Westminster, re-established by Queen Mary I and then dissolved again by Elizabeth I, the monk Robert Sigebert Buckley, "professed a group of English monks in France, and so passed onto them the rights and privileges of the ancient English Benedictine Congregation", as the Ampleforth Abbey website history page explains. There are more resources about Father Buckley here, including information about the last Catholic Abbot of Westminster, John Feckenham. Among the monks who joined the continued English Benedictine line were the martyr St. Alban Roe and Father Augustine Baker.

Like the English Benedictines of Cambrai who were imprisoned with the Carmelites of Compiegne, the English Benedictines in France at Dieulouard fled back to England during the French Revolution. Although the monks had brewed the beer and sold it in France to make a living, they just started production again in Ampleforth last May. I think that we in the U.S.A. would have to make pilgrimage to Ampleforth to enjoy this beer, which is double-fermented and sparkles like champagne! Cheers!

Image credit to wikipedia commons under a license.

Sir John Cheke, Classical Scholar

Sir John Cheke died on September 13, 1557. He had been a great scholar at University of Cambridge, reformer of the mode of pronouncing Greek, and the tutor to Prince Edward, later Edward VI.

According to this site, he also took part in the change in succession from Princess Mary to Lady Jane Grey, and that clearly got him into some trouble when Mary I came to the throne:

His zeal for the protestant religion induced him to concur, on the death of Edward VI, in the settlement of the crown on the Lady Jane Grey, and he acted as secretary of state during her brief reign. Immediately after Queen Mary's accession he was committed to the Tower on an accusation of treason, 27 July 1553. He was discharged from custody on 13 Sept. 1554, and about the same time obtained a pardon and the royal license to travel abroad. After residing for some time at Basle he went to Italy, and at Padua he met some of his countrymen, to whom he read and interpreted some of the orations of Demosthenes. Subsequently he settled at Strasburg, where he read a Greek lecture for his subsistence.

At the beginning of 1556 he resolved to go to Brussels, where his wife was, chiefly in consequence of a treacherous invitation from Lord Paget and Sir John Mason. As, however, he was a firm believer in astrology, he first consulted the stars to ascertain whether he might safely undertake the journey, and fell into a fatal snare on his return between Brussels and Antwerp, for, by order of Philip II, he and Sir Peter Carew, with whom he was travelling, were suddenly seized by the provost-marshal on 15 May, unhorsed, blindfolded, bound, thrown into a wagon, conveyed to the nearest harbour, put on board a ship, under hatches, and brought to the Tower of London, where they were placed in close confinement. The alleged ground of his committal was, that having obtained license to travel, he had not returned to England by the time specified in his license.

In the Tower he was visited by two of the queen's chaplains, who tried in vain to induce him to alter his religious opinions. The desire of gaining over so eminent a man caused the queen to send to him Dr. Feckenham, dean of St. Paul's, a divine of moderate and obliging temper. Cheke had been acquainted with him in the late king's reign, and had tried to convert him to protestantism when he was a prisoner in the Tower. Cheke's courage began to fail at the prospect of the stake, and he was at his own request carried before Cardinal Pole, who gravely advised him to return to the unity of the church. Cheke dared hold out no longer, and Feckenham had the credit of effecting his conversion. He made in writing a profession of his belief in the real presence, and sent the paper by the dean of St. Paul's to the cardinal, with a letter dated from the Tower on 15 July, praying that he might be spared the shame of making an open recantation.

This request being refused, he addressed to the queen on the same day a letter in which he declared his readiness to obey all laws and orders concerning religion. After this, in order to declare his repentance for his rejection of the pope, he made a formal submission before the cardinal, as the pope's legate, and after being absolved he was received back into the Roman church. He was kept in prison for upwards of two months before he was allowed to make his public recantation. This was done on 4 Oct. in the most public manner before the queen, and for the sake of greater formality the reading of the palinode was preceded by an oration addressed to her majesty by Feckenham. Cheke was also obliged to read a longer form of recantation in presence of the whole court, and to promise to perform whatever penances might be enjoined upon him by the legate. After having submitted to all these humiliations he was released from the Tower, and regained his lands, which, however, he was forced to exchange with the queen for others.

Pining away with shame and regret for his abjuration of protestantism, he died on 13 Sept. 1557 in Wood Street, London, in the house of his friend Peter Osborne, remembrancer of the exchequer.