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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of William de Colchester, by Ernest Harold Pearce
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: William de Colchester
+       Abbot of Westminster
+
+Author: Ernest Harold Pearce
+
+Release Date: August 3, 2011 [EBook #36968]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM DE COLCHESTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Louise Pryor, David Garcia and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ABBOT COLCHESTER.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM DE COLCHESTER
+
+ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER
+
+BY E. H. PEARCE
+
+CANON OF WESTMINSTER
+
+
+  SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
+
+  LONDON: Northumberland Avenue, W.C.
+  New York: E. S. GORHAM
+  1915
+
+
+
+
+TO J. D. AND H. R. D. WITH AFFECTION
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                        PAGE
+
+        I. A Window in the Nave                            9
+       II. A Novice from Essex                            14
+      III. A Man of Affairs                               21
+       IV. A Proctor at Rome                              30
+        V. An Archdeacon                                  41
+       VI. Abbot of Westminster                           52
+      VII. The Abbot at Home                              60
+     VIII. The Abbot Abroad                               73
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+
+Having had the honour of an invitation to deliver in May last a "Friday
+Evening Discourse" at the Royal Institution on the Archives of Westminster
+Abbey, I thought it best to confine what I could say within an hour to
+the career of a single man, preferably one whose record had not hitherto
+been written. I have here expanded the lecture to some extent, and have
+added references. I am indebted to Mr. David Weller, the Dean's Virger,
+for some excellent pictures.
+
+                                                               E. H. P.
+
+  3, Little Cloisters,
+  _September, 1915._
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                     TO FACE PAGE
+
+           Abbot Colchester                         _Frontispiece_
+           The Kitchener's Account for Pancakes           28
+           Chambers in Little Cloisters                   48
+           The Personal Effects of Abbot Litlington       54
+           Abbot Colchester's Seal                        74
+           Coronation of Henry V.                         80
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM DE COLCHESTER
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+A WINDOW IN THE NAVE
+
+
+When the body of the late Lord Kelvin was laid to rest, by a right
+which there was none to dispute, in the Abbey Church of Westminster, it
+was placed, by the same kind of right, close to the grave of Sir Isaac
+Newton. In the same corner there are the graves, or the memorials, of
+Darwin and Herschel, of Joule and Gabriel Stokes and John Couch Adams,
+to be joined shortly by tablets in memory of Alfred Russel Wallace,
+of Sir Joseph Hooker, and of another Joseph, who died Lord Lister. It
+was not likely that Kelvin would long lack some memorial more impressive
+than the slab which covers his remains, and it was a happy and appropriate
+impulse which caused the representatives of engineering science on both
+sides of the Atlantic to undertake the task of providing one. But what
+form could it best take? The walls of the church have been overcrowded,
+to the grievous destruction of some precious features. The floor-space, as
+the centuries following the Reformation were apt to forget, is intended
+to serve the purposes of public worship. But the large windows of the
+Nave offer to those who would honour and foster the memory of the great
+dead a means of fulfilling their desire, and of adorning the fabric at
+the same time. In this case the chance was welcomed, and Kelvin has his
+Abbey memorial in stained glass. The window is one of a series projected
+in 1907 by Dr. Armitage Robinson, now Dean of Wells, and loyally accepted
+by his successor in the Deanery of Westminster--a series in which there
+are placed side by side a King of England who contributed either to the
+greatness of the foundation or to the majesty of the building, and the
+Abbot through whom the King worked his pious will. The King in this case
+is Harry of Monmouth, and we are thinking with somewhat mingled feelings
+that October 25, 1915, brings us to the 500th anniversary of the battle
+of Agincourt. But it is Henry V.'s Abbot who concerns us now; for in such
+a scheme of windows the Abbots are more difficult to justify to the
+ordinary visitor than the monarchs, not because of unworthiness,
+but because there has been but little effort made to appraise their
+worth as heads of our ancient house, or as conspicuous figures in their
+generation.[1]
+
+In this case the Abbot is William of Colchester. As we shall see, his
+character is depicted by Shakespeare, but he has no article to his credit
+in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. If he is to be brought back
+from obscurity, it can only be accomplished by repeated visits to the
+Abbey Muniment Room. I shall therefore ask the reader to climb with me
+the turret staircase which is approached from a door in the East Cloister,
+and to enter a noble apartment of which that cloister is the origin. For
+when Henry III.'s builders came to the planning of the South Transept,
+known as Poets' Corner, the lines of the Great Cloister had already
+been long established, and must not be minished or altered by the new
+work. Therefore, whereas the North Transept has aisles on its east side
+and on its west, the South Transept is aisled only on the east side.
+The East Cloister occupies the space of what would otherwise be the
+western aisle, and thus upholds the floor of the apartment which we
+enter. We look into the distant recesses of the Abbey eastward, through
+three of Henry III.'s bays, across a low wall split up by the bases of
+dwarf pillars. There are signs of royalty in the room, such as the crowned
+heads at the capitals of the pillars of the colonnade by which we enter,
+and on the wooden wall which shuts off the southern section is the outline
+of a white hart crowned, the emblem of Richard II. Professor Lethaby has
+suggested to me that such a point of vantage from which to see what stones
+and what buildings are here, and from which to observe some procession
+of State as it arrives from the Palace by Poets' Corner door and makes
+its solemn circuit of the church, would naturally be appropriated as a
+royal pew. Be that as it may, the room was set apart in very early times
+for the storing of muniments; it contains a cupboard which probably dates
+from Richard II.'s reign and now stands under Richard II.'s hart; and at
+least one of its archive chests, if not more, belongs to the fourteenth
+century. We may assume, then, that here, from that century onwards, the
+Convent kept its official archives--charters, leases, acquittances, and
+the annual account-rolls of its officers. Here, for the last twenty years,
+the Dean and Chapter have had the constant service of Dr. Edward Scott,
+formerly of the British Museum, as the Keeper of their muniments. He
+has written with his own hand over 110,000 descriptions of documents,
+and has compiled, and is still steadily compiling, an index of persons and
+things. I am merely attempting to construct a life of Abbot Colchester out
+of documents which I have spelt out with Dr. Scott's assistance. Any one
+who finds the story uninteresting must console himself with the thought
+that it has not been told before.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+A NOVICE FROM ESSEX
+
+
+In Shakespeare's _Tragedy of King Richard II._, there is an Abbot of
+Westminster who flits craftily across the scene, generally shadowing a
+Bishop of Carlisle, whom we shall meet again. When Bolingbroke announces
+that he is about to be crowned King in Richard's stead, this Abbot bids
+his friends--
+
+  "Come home with me to supper; and I'll lay
+  A plot shall show us all a merry day."[2]
+
+In the next act[3] it is stated that he is dead--
+
+  "The grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,
+  With clog of conscience and sour melancholy
+  Hath yielded up his body to the grave."
+
+As to which it must be sufficient to say that the poet who could not give
+the Abbot's name was equally unconscious of the fact that he outlived
+his alleged conspiracy by twenty years.
+
+But his name was William Colchester, and we may begin by assuming that,
+as his name implies, he was a Colchester man. In and before his time,
+and for a considerable space afterwards, the customary designation of
+a Brother was his Christian name and a place name, with or without the
+copula _de_; in earlier years he called himself William de Colchester,
+but the documents which concern him as Abbot mostly speak of William
+Colchester, or William Abbot of Westminster. Nor are we left to
+guess-work as to the place of his origin. In later life, according to
+the habit of his time, he busied himself with the endowment of obits,
+or anniversaries, for the good of his soul. Here is a document,[4]
+dated May 20, 1406, in which he bargained with the Prior of St. Botolph,
+Colchester, having paid 40_s._ to Henry IV.'s Clerk of the Hanaper to
+seal the bargain, that one of the canon-chaplains of that Priory should
+say Mass every week, at sixpence a week, for his soul and for the
+souls of his parents; that the Prior and his Brethren should observe
+his anniversary, again with a memorial of his parents, in the parish
+church of St. Nicholas, Colchester; that a set sum should be distributed
+yearly to the vicar of St. Nicholas, to the poor of the parish, and to
+the prisoners in Colchester Castle; and that the tomb of his parents
+in the parish churchyard should be kept in proper repair.
+
+We may conclude, then, that this was his native parish, and that in
+his great position as Abbot of Westminster he wished the connexion
+to be had in remembrance. But he knew to a mile the distance between
+his Abbey and Colchester, and how easy it might be for the Prior of St.
+Botolph to accept his bequest and to neglect to fulfil its conditions.
+So in 1407 (December 3), when he was completing the arrangements[5] for
+maintaining an anniversary at the Abbey out of the revenues of the church
+of Aldenham,[6] in Hertfordshire, he inserted an instruction that the
+Monk-Bailiff of Westminster, at the time of his annual visit to the
+Essex manors, should either proceed or send to Colchester and make
+careful inquiry as to the due observance of the covenants, as who should
+say, "It is as well not to trust these provincial Priors further than
+you can see them."
+
+We get to know also from the grant[7] of another anniversary at the
+Abbey's daughter Priory of Hurley, in Berkshire, that his father's name
+was Reginald, and his mother's Alice. He had a sister who in 1389-90
+was living in Cambridge, for in that year his Receiver entered a gift
+of 12_d._ to a man who came from my lord's sister at that town; and we
+shall find that he had other connexions, some poor enough to bring him
+a basket of poultry, some rich enough to receive from him a present of
+jewelry. Evidently he sprang from a burgher stock of no great eminence,
+for whom the Church seemed the sphere in which the career was opened to
+the talents.
+
+How he came to enter our Monastery we shall never know, for with all the
+wealth of our materials there survives not a trace of his or of any other
+postulant's testimonials. He came, he was seen, he was admitted. We know
+what the requisites were--that he must have examined his conscience as
+to the motives which led him to apply, that he must be sound in body,
+free in civil status, unburdened by debt or other obligations, and as a
+rule not less than eighteen years of age.[8] What steps the Fathers of
+the Convent took to secure outside evidence of a candidate's fitness
+in these respects must be left to the imagination. He passed muster and
+joined their number.
+
+Our first trace of William Colchester's name on the books of the House
+is in connexion with his ordination as priest. I cannot tell what
+Bishop admitted him to the ministry, nor where it took place, but it
+can be ascertained that he said Mass for the first time during 1361-2
+(the conventual year was reckoned for administrative purposes, as it
+is still, from Michaelmas to Michaelmas), and we are able to discover
+this, not because it was felt to be an event worth chronicling for its
+own sake, but because in that year three of the officers note that they
+severally expended 1s. 7-1/2_d._ in bread and wine as "exennia"--_i.e._
+a complimentary gift[9]--made to him in honour of the event. We may
+suppose that he was then twenty-three years of age; he may have entered
+the Convent in or about 1356; and we may take 1338 as the probable year
+of his birth. If, as we have assumed, he entered the Convent some
+years before his ordination, then he did so during the reign of Simon
+Langham, the most eminent of all our Abbots, but it is not possible to
+say whether he received priest's orders before or after the election
+of Nicholas Litlington to the Abbacy in April, 1362. The Monastery was
+still suffering in numbers from the ravages of the Great Pestilence in
+1349, and consisted in 1356-7 of only thirty-five monks and two novices.
+Colchester was the last of five new members of whom we hear first
+in 1361-2.
+
+Five years later, in 1366-7, he was chosen by the Convent as one of two
+of their number whom they thought specially apt to learning, and whom
+it was therefore their duty to send up to Oxford to join the other
+Benedictine students at Gloucester Hall, an institution established
+by the Order in its General Chapter held at Abingdon in 1290.[10] Our
+custom was that the Convent Treasurer paid L10 yearly to each Westminster
+student for his maintenance,[11] besides the cost of his journeys to
+and fro; so that it is possible to compile from the Treasurers' rolls a
+fairly complete list of our Oxford scholars from 1356, when I came upon
+the first signs of a definite system, until the Dissolution. The plan
+tended to the great advantage of the monasteries; it meant that the
+likely young men were taken at an impressionable time in their lives
+out of the narrow rut of cloistral life, and were associated with the
+world of scholarship and of affairs; and it will be found that a large
+proportion of those who were sent to Oxford rose quickly to positions
+of trust in the Convent. William Colchester remained at Oxford, save for
+periodical visits to the Abbey, from 1366 to 1370. It cannot be said that
+the Latin prose of which he was capable does credit to his University,
+and even monkish Latinity was seldom worse than that in which his few
+surviving letters are couched. But it is fair to assume that he learnt how
+to deal with men, and we can now go on to see that the Convent which had
+supported him at Oxford was satisfied with the product of its expenditure.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+A MAN OF AFFAIRS
+
+
+Soon after his return from the University two things happened, as if to
+signify that his competence was recognized. In October, 1371, he was
+promoted, as the Westminster phrase went, to sit by the bell--sedere
+ad skillam; that is to say, he moved up to the seniors' table in the
+Refectory, where was the bell or skyllet which gave the signal for grace
+to be said, or for the reader of the week to begin the lection. Like the
+day of his first Mass, this promotion, coming as a rule not less than ten
+years later, was reckoned to be an occasion for a little addition to the
+usually frugal fare, and we can state the date of it because the Sacrist
+and the Infirmarer and the Treasurer each sent him bread and wine to the
+value of 2_s._ 3-1/2_d._, so that he might make merry with his friends.
+
+Secondly, he begins to be recognized as an experienced person who can
+safely be sent upon missions involving prudence and the management of
+men. In the same year, 1371-2, a payment of twenty shillings was made
+by the Steward of the Abbot's Household for the expenses of William
+Colchester and two valets who were sent to Northampton for the meeting of
+the General Chapter of the English Benedictines, probably in attendance
+on the Abbot of Westminster, who was frequently one of the Presidents
+of the Chapter.
+
+But the next year, 1372-3, as we learn from the Sacrist, saw Colchester
+entrusted with a still more delicate duty. It was on this wise. Among
+the precious relics given to the Abbey by Edward the Confessor[12]
+was the girdle of the Virgin Mary--zona beate Marie--which she had
+made with her own hands and had herself worn.[13] It was regarded as
+having especial value in securing a safe delivery to expectant mothers,
+and when the Westminster Book of Customs was compiled by Abbot Richard
+de Ware about a century before Colchester's admission, it was the rule
+that the Sacrist or, as he was sometimes called, the Secretary, should
+carry the girdle of the blessed Mother of God to any destination which
+it was appointed to reach, or should be at charges with the bearer
+of it in his place.[14] So here is our Sacrist paying the expenses of
+William Colchester, namely, 13_s._ 4_d._, and the more considerable
+price of two horses for the journey, L6 16_s._ 8_d._ But the Sacrist
+has something to enter on the other side, an offering of L2 from the
+Countess of March, the lady who craved the aid of the girdle. If any
+one is churlish enough to say that the bargain seems but a poor one
+for the Convent--150_s._ spent on the journey, and only 40_s._ received
+from the beneficiary--the answer is that the horses would be sold at the
+end of the return journey for almost as much as they cost. If, again,
+it is objected that in any case the lady's gift was money thrown away,
+it is not so easy to convince the gainsayer. For while it is on record
+that on February 12, 1371 (_i.e._ in the year previous to that of the
+Sacrist's account), the lady Philippa, granddaughter of Edward III.,
+did present her husband, the 3rd Earl of March, with a daughter who in
+process of time became the wife of Harry Hotspur, yet it does not appear
+that she was equally blessed during the year 1372-3.
+
+Such duties sensibly performed, William Colchester was not long in
+attaining to administrative office. To begin with, Abbot Litlington
+chose him as his Custos Hospicii; _i.e._ Seneschal or steward of his
+household. We have the roll on which the young monk gave an account of
+his stewardship for the year Michaelmas to Michaelmas, 1373-4, and as
+the doings it records represent his early experience of that conventual
+business in which he was to be immersed for nearly half a century,
+we may stay by it for a short space in order to get our impressions.
+
+He found his master in possession of a considerable rent-roll in
+various parts of the country, the manors being situate in the counties
+of Worcester, Gloucester, Oxford, Surrey, Buckingham, and Middlesex. The
+rentals amounted to L696 13_s._ 6_d._, and the sale of stock, including
+an ox sold for 18_s._ 4_d._, and a cow--timore pestilencie--for 13_s._,
+brought the total to L719 8_s._ 8_d._ Large as this sum sounds,
+especially when multiplied to correspond with present values, it was
+none too large for the needs of the position. Household expenses,
+which are not entered in detail, came to L151 1_s._ 4-1/2_d._ The
+purchase of live-stock--grey palfreys, bullocks, cows, steers, sheep,
+pigs, swans, poultry, and no less than 966 pigeons at about 1/2_d._
+each--required L63 2_s._ 10_d._, and the outlay on dead stock such as
+bacon, salt-fish, five barrels of white herring, fourteen casks of red
+herring, and three casks of Scottish red herring, amounted to L31 8_s._
+4_d._ Lest it should be claimed that the Scottish variety was a special
+delicacy, we must add that the latter cost only 4_s._ a barrel as against
+5_s._ 6_d._ for the other. Nor, if the quantities seem large, must it
+be lightly concluded that there was carelessness in the dispensation;
+indeed, it was the Seneschal's duty to enter on the back of his roll
+a stock-keeping account, from which it may be gleaned that all the
+herrings were consumed and eighty pigs; but there was a residue of five
+salt-fish and of two out of sixteen bullocks. Altogether in corn and
+wine and clothing and gifts to visitors and in other ways there was an
+expenditure of L684 to set against a revenue of L719.
+
+But what we want is an idea of the duties and experiences that came to
+the young Seneschal, and this can be obtained from various items. He
+gets a pair of my lord's boots mended for twopence, and small sums go in
+stringing the great sportman's bows or in buying bags in which to carry
+his arrow-heads. That which cost more, and was probably more interesting
+to Colchester himself, was the coming and going of personages or their
+servants--the squire of the Earl of Cambridge (Edmund Langley, fifth
+son of Edward III.), who receives 20_s._ for bringing a letter to the
+Abbot from his lord; the Earl of Warwick's steward, who comes to sell
+a black palfrey; a monk of his own year, Richard Excestr', who is just
+starting on his career at Oxford, and to whom the Abbot gives a fatherly
+present of 20_s._; the Bishop of Durham's[15] man, whose master we know
+as the builder of Bishop Hatfield Hall, and who is sent with a gift of
+two greyhounds to the Abbot. Several messengers arrive from the Prince,
+_i.e._ the Black Prince, who is now at Wycombe and now at Kensington, and
+Abbot Litlington makes several journeys by boat to call on the Bishop of
+Winchester, no less a personage than William of Wykeham, who was in some
+disgrace at the time.
+
+Having in this way served the Abbot efficiently, Colchester received
+his next responsibility from the whole Chapter, who chose him as Convent
+Treasurer, and "Coquinarius" or Kitchener, for the year 1375-6. Happily
+we still possess his compotus as such. I must not describe it at length,
+but one feature of it, an entry under the head of "pitancie et flacones,"
+is of too great interest to be passed by. Pittances were additional
+meals on special occasions by way of varying the dreary round of dry
+bread and sour wine, which alone could be provided in the Refectory. But
+"flacones" seem to be pancakes, and pancakes are a recognized Westminster
+institution, though it is no longer the duty of the Convent Treasurer to
+provide them for his brethren. I first translate the item as Colchester
+entered it:
+
+    "Paid in milk, 'creym,' butter, cheese and eggs bought for the
+    pancakes in Easter week, on Rogation days and at Pentecost,
+    64_s._ 8_d._"
+
+And now for some further light upon it. In 1389, when Colchester had
+occupied the Abbot's chair for three years, the Kitchener was Brother
+William Clehungre or Clayhanger, who has left us his bill[16] for
+materials, and from this it will appear how the pancake-custom has
+developed in the interval. It sets forth his
+
+    "expenses laid out in respect of the pancakes prescribed for the
+    brethren and delivered to the monastery according to custom during
+    56 days each year, namely from Easter Day to Trinity Sunday,
+    in the 12th year of the reign of King Richard II., as appears
+    by all the parcels:--
+
+                                                      L _s._ _d._
+    Milk.    First 126 gallons of milk
+                   @ 1_d._ the gallon                    10   6
+
+    Butter.  Also 3 gallons 3 qrts of butter
+                   @ 2_s._ 4_d._ the gallon               9   4-1/2
+
+    Eggs.    Also 5816 eggs
+                   @ 10_d._ the hundred               2   8   5-1/4
+
+    Salt.    Also one peck of salt @ 3_d._                    3
+                                                     --------------
+                                               Total L3   8 11-3/4"
+
+
+Our Kitchener makes some trifling assumptions in his multiplication as
+to the butter and the eggs, and he robs the Convent of fivepence when
+he adds up the total. The number of eggs sounds large, but it means
+only 103 and a fraction daily, and when it is considered that in 1389
+the Prior and his Brethren numbered forty-nine persons, this works out
+at the by no means excessive rate of 2-1/2 eggs daily to each brother.
+
+[Illustration: THE KITCHENER'S ACCOUNT FOR PANCAKES.]
+
+But there is a local reason for dwelling on this custom. Westminster
+School is admittedly a Tudor foundation, but at the Abbey we cherish
+the conviction that its roots penetrate deep down into the monastic
+soil. Every Shrove Tuesday the school--in modern times by means of
+selected gladiators--makes a furious onset upon a single pancake.
+Mr. Sergeaunt[17] speaks of the ceremony as "the sole survivor of the
+medieval sports," and adds that "although its origin cannot be traced,
+it can hardly have come into being after the date of Elizabeth's
+foundation." Is it, then, beyond all likelihood that it arose out of some
+ancient protest of our Benedictines against the prospect of being fed
+upon pancakes every day for eight weeks? Is it inconceivable that the
+successful protestant was conducted at the end of the "greese," as now,
+to the Lord Abbot's presence to receive one mark from his lordship's
+bounty? All we can say is that the Brethren continued to be similarly
+regaled from Easter to Trinity until the Dissolution of the House.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+A PROCTOR AT ROME
+
+
+William Colchester ceased to be Treasurer in the autumn of 1376, and
+within eight months circumstances had arisen in which his capacities were
+to be put to a severer and more prolonged test. We are all familiar with
+the expression "St. Stephen's," as applied to Parliament House. But it
+is not as readily realized that the House of Commons, after sitting for
+long years in the Chapter House[18] at the Abbey, removed itself at
+the Dissolution to the ancient Chapel of St. Stephen in the Palace of
+Westminster. I am only concerned now with the story of that chapel[19]
+as it is related to William Colchester's career. Placed where it was, it
+stood within the ancient limits of our Abbot's jurisdiction, but its Dean
+and his twelve Prebendaries had good grounds for regarding themselves
+as a royal foundation, and they craved the kind of ecclesiastical
+independence which attaches to-day to St. George's Chapel in Windsor
+Castle. Our Convent resisted this claim, which, on the other hand, had
+the good will of the Court. In 1377 a suit to test the rights of the
+case was entered before the Roman Curia, and it was necessary to appoint
+some careful and astute person to take charge in Rome of the Abbey's
+interests, and to negotiate their success. I will not go further into
+the merits of the case. It lasted for seventeen years, and was ultimately
+settled, on the whole, in the Abbey's favour, the College of St. Stephen
+agreeing to pay to the Abbey a yearly sum of five marks, and the right
+of the Abbot to instal the Dean of St. Stephen's being upheld.[20]
+What concerns us is that the Abbot and Convent chose William Colchester
+as their proctor at Rome in this suit, and that by good fortune there
+survive long statements of his personal and legal costs in carrying out
+the task laid upon him. They will serve as a guide-book of his journey
+and will give us considerable insight into his adventures.[21]
+
+He left Westminster on June[22] 10, 1377, and was absent, as he is careful
+to record, for two years, twenty-three weeks, and three days. His first
+business was to furnish himself with official commendations, and to
+this end he sought for royal letters--pro expedicione cause--from the
+Keeper of the Privy Seal; he paid 3_s._ 4_d._ to the Keeper's servant to
+urge his master to dictate them, and by a like payment he made things
+right with the scrivener who would execute them; but the letters were
+not ready when he started. Meantime we can watch him as he reckons up
+the difficulties of his ordeal. It was arranged that he should go by
+way of Avignon, for Master Thomas Southam,[23] Archdeacon of Oxford,
+was still there, settling the affairs of Cardinal Langham's will. But
+the Pope was no longer there. Gregory XI. had quitted that scene of
+luxurious exile and ravenous extortion on September 13, 1376, and had
+entered Rome on January 17, 1377.[24] Most Englishmen had resented
+the Avignonese sojourn because it threw the Papacy into the hands of
+the French, but William Colchester, as he packed his valise, saw the
+matter in a different light. Because the Pope had left, there was
+no great chance of finding company for the journey;[25] and company
+meant so much the more security. There was nothing for it but to hire
+a companion, and he found one Gerard of London, who was willing to face
+the journey for 20_s._ and his expenses. Colchester is conscious that
+this seems an extravagance, but he enters in his account a plea that it
+was justified by the variety of language and the dangers of the roads in
+foreign parts.[26] For the road to Dover he bought for himself a horse and
+saddle which cost 34_s._ 8_d._; but it appears that he rather expected
+the man Gerard to walk, for he extenuates a further payment of 26_s._
+8_d._ for a horse, a saddle, and bridle for Gerard, by stating that
+the man entirely declined to go afoot. Thus mounted, they reached Dover,
+where they wasted five days in waiting for a passage, and all the time
+the cost of food was mounting up at the rate of sixpence a day for each
+horse, and fivepence a meal for each man. The passage, when they obtained
+one, cost 3_s._ 4_d._ each for the men, and double for the horses. At
+that cost they reached Calais, and within three days were at Bruges,
+where again there was a long halt. For the royal letters had not come.
+Edward III. was on his death-bed, and passed away eleven days after
+our travellers left London. But Colchester is convinced that an enemy
+had done this, and when he insists that the issue of the letters has
+been frustrated "per aduersarios," we must remember that the Dean and
+College of St. Stephen's were closer to the royal ear than our Abbot and
+Convent. Whatever the cause, the result was the entry in his account of
+the cost of nine days' commissariat at Bruges, together with a reward
+of 10_d._ to the hotel servants, which he at once resents and excuses
+as being the custom of the country.[27] In brief, he had already spent
+nearly all the L10 which he received at his journey's start from the hands
+of Brother John Lakyngheth, his rival for monastic promotion.
+
+So now he converts his balance of 16_s._ 8_d._ from sterling into florins,
+reckoning a florin at 3_s._ 2_d._ To this he adds seven florins by the
+sale of his own horse--a creditable bargain, for, having paid 34_s._
+8_d._ for the beast in London, he has ridden it to Bruges, and there
+parted with it for 22_s._ 2_d._ On the other hand, Gerard's horse has
+turned out badly; the journey has nearly killed it;[28] and it goes for
+three florins, or 9_s._ 6_d._ Colchester negotiated a loan of twenty-three
+florins, and on they went towards the south, sometimes hiring mounts,
+sometimes begging a ride in a cart, often in terror of the Frenchmen,
+who laid an ambush for them as they entered Dauphine, so that our
+travellers hired a guide and went through byways. On the 27th day after
+leaving Bruges they entered Avignon, and next day they found Master
+Southam at his lodgings by the church of Our Lady of Miracles.
+
+For a moment I lay aside Colchester's ledger and turn to a separate
+document; for Southam had with him at Avignon another Westminster monk,
+John Farnago, who became Colchester's paymaster and in due course
+presented to the Abbey an account[29] of what he had laid out on his
+behalf. We are thus furnished with the date of the arrival of Colchester
+and Gerard--July 24--and learn that they required bed and board at
+Avignon till August 19. Farnago purchased for his Brother a fresh
+outfit--cape, tunic, and hood of black Benedictine cloth, a scapular
+and cowl, and a plain colobium (or sleeveless tunic), buying the last,
+as he says, from Hagyuus, a Jew, whose real name was probably Hayyim. He
+also provided a horse for the journey to Marseilles, where Colchester
+was to take ship, and put some money in his scrip. So our Proctor turned
+his back on Avignon, perhaps not fully realizing that when on August 14,
+five days before his departure, he and Farnago witnessed the probate of
+Cardinal Langham's will,[30] he had been concerned with a document which
+was to have a vast effect on the church and the conventual buildings
+of St. Peter, Westminster.
+
+We turn back to Colchester's own ledger, and note that he does not enter
+the actual date of his arrival in Rome; but we can fix it fairly closely.
+He says that, having got thus far, he was obliged to move on to Anagni,
+some forty miles southward from Rome on the road to Naples; and we know
+that Gregory XI., who had spent the summer of 1377 there, returned to
+Rome on November 17.[31] Colchester must have found the Papal Court busy
+at the packing of its trunks and must have returned with it forthwith
+to Rome; for the first date that he mentions is November 20. It would
+be wearisome to pursue the details of his activity in engaging counsel,
+English and Italian, and in paying their fees; but it is worth while
+to notice that there has been no great change since his day in legal
+expressions--retinuit duos aduocatos--and perhaps not a complete reform
+of illegal practice; for instance, he explains that he gave six florins
+to the valet--cubicularius--of the Cardinal of Milan, who was concerned in
+the decision of the case, with a view to the man's stirring up his master
+to sign a certain document; the object of the gift, says Colchester,
+was greater security, because at the moment there was a fierce altercation
+between the parties to the suit.
+
+His expenses, already large, received a sudden addition through the death,
+on March 27, 1378, of Gregory XI. Seldom can an observant traveller have
+had a more exciting experience than to be in Rome during the session of
+the Consistory[32] which set Bartolommeo Prignano, Archbishop of Bari,
+upon what Colchester calls "the apex of the chief Apostolate." On personal
+grounds our monk must have been pleased at the choice of the electors,
+for the new Pope was the special _protege_ of the French Cardinal of
+Pampeluna, Simon Langham's friend and executor. But financially the
+effect was provoking. We know that Urban VI. proved himself a man "full
+of Neapolitan fire and savagery," who thought "that the Cardinals could
+be reduced to absolute obedience by mere rudeness,"[33] and we are quite
+prepared for Colchester's statement that between the Pope and the Sacred
+College there arose a great dissension. Cardinals and curials fled
+secretly, he says, in some numbers, and among the latter the two advocates
+whom he had briefed and paid. That money at any rate was a dead loss, but
+there was this advantage in Urban's case, that, knowing the preference of
+the Cardinals for Anagni as a summer residence, he decided for Tivoli in
+their despite, and Colchester could get there in a few hours for a couple
+of florins. Six weeks had to be spent within sound of Horace's waterfall
+before his business was finished. His return journey led him through Nice,
+where he was robbed of his cloak and other property. Then to Avignon
+once more, and thence in due course--at least, so he hoped--to the Abbey.
+
+But he was fated, nevertheless, to turn again and revisit the Roman
+Court; for while he tarried in Master Southam's lodgings at Avignon,
+in September, 1378, there came news of a notable murder committed in the
+church of Westminster while the Gospel was being read at High Mass,[34]
+on August, 11. The victim was one Robert Hawle, who had escaped from
+the Tower and had taken sanctuary at Westminster. The incident had its
+political aspects; it raised various perilous questions; and Southam
+advised that Colchester should return to Rome in order to counteract any
+plots that might be mooted in behalf of the authors of "that horrible
+deed." So again the expenses began to roll up--the journey overland
+to Marseilles; a passage by galley to Ostia; a sojourn in Rome for the
+greater part of December, 1378; gratuities on several occasions to the
+Papal janitors for free entrance to the Chamber and the Consistory, and to
+the valets for access to the Pope himself; an expensive struggle by each
+faction to extract from the Curia the kind of Bull that each side wanted,
+in which our Proctor was apparently successful; and a journey from Rome
+to Bruges lasting forty-one days. Colchester waited for three weeks at
+Sluis to secure a passage across the Channel, in the belief that the
+enemy was watching Calais with the intention of doing him violence;[35]
+and when he reached his native shore, he rode up to London by ways that
+were devious for the same reason, arriving there in November, 1379. It
+was neither easy nor without peril to be the chosen representative of
+Westminster at the Roman Court.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+AN ARCHDEACON
+
+
+It is not doubtful that the Abbot and Chapter were well pleased with
+Colchester's fulfilment of the duties entrusted to him and that the
+large bill of costs was paid, if not with delight, at any rate with
+resignation. Of this we have several conclusive indications. First,
+within a brief space the Convent again despatched him to Rome, in 1382-3,
+doubtless to continue his management of the same suit. This time there
+is no record of his payments, nor should we be aware of his journey if
+it were not for two documents. One is the Chamberlain's compotus-roll
+of 1382-3. These accounts presented a balance of money on the one side,
+and a balance of materials on the other side; it was necessary for the
+Chamberlain to show, not merely that he had purchased so many outfits, but
+that he had distributed these outfits to such and such Brethren. So when
+he makes his statement about the habits--panni nigri--he notes that he
+did not give these to Brother William Colchester nor to Brother William
+Halle, because they were at Rome. No doubt, Colchester had represented
+to the Chapter the wisdom of providing him with a companion from the
+monastery instead of his hiring a courier as before. The other is a legal
+document, whose purport is of some personal interest. When Colchester
+left Westminster in 1382-3, Richard Excestr' was about to resign the
+Priorship, which he had held only since 1377. Attempts seem to have
+been made, perhaps by some of Colchester's Roman friends during his
+stay at the Curia, to secure a "provision" of the vacant office for him
+from the Pope, and the efforts succeeded. The document in question[36]
+bears date January 2, 1384, and is of the nature of a pardon to Colchester
+for the prejudice or contempt caused by such efforts to the Crown and
+its prerogatives. He denied that he was party to the attempt, and paid
+the necessary fee to the Hanaper for his pardon. The Priorship another
+took;[37] not, perhaps, because the Brethren thought Colchester unworthy
+of promotion or too young for it, but because the interests of the
+House required that he should go to Rome, whither he was sent, as the
+Treasurers' rolls inform us, both in 1384-5 and 1385-6. The suit against
+St. Stephen's Chapel still dragged on, and he alone had the knowledge
+and the experience for hastening its delays.
+
+As a second proof of the confidence reposed in him we may note that in
+1382[38] he was Archdeacon of the Convent; it is possible that he held
+the post earlier; certainly he held it in 1386; and probably he owed it to
+the Abbot personally. The office of Archdeacon is proverbially puzzling
+to the lay mind, and it may be that the Archdeaconry of Westminster
+creates some wonder in the minds even of other Archdeacons. The fact is
+that the Abbot in the exercise of jurisdiction over his Westminster area
+required the services of an ecclesiastical jurist in matters of divorce
+and of excommunication and the like; he needed also some one who would
+serve as his pastoral representative to those denizens of the area who
+were not on the foundation of the Convent. For this reason, even in
+Abbot Ware's time,[39] the Archdeacon was permitted to walk abroad
+to the Palace or elsewhere in the discharge of his duties, which,
+indeed, might take him much further afield; for when Abbot Colchester
+drew up an indenture[40] appropriating to certain memorial purposes the
+revenues of Aldenham church, he inserted a provision that the Archdeacon
+of Westminster for the time being should be in charge of the parish,
+receiving 40_s._ yearly for his labour therein. We have seen that
+Colchester's experience marked him out for juridical duties, and we
+must assume that he was not without pastoral zeal and aptitude.
+
+A letter in Norman French addressed by "William, Conte de Salisbury"
+to Abbot Litlington will help us to see that his duties were of a
+varied character. The writer of the letter[41] was William de Montacute,
+2nd Earl, who fought at Poitiers and in most of the French wars of his
+time. Addressing the Abbot as his dear and faithful friend, he thus
+unfolds his story. His servant, Nicholas Symcok, of London, has been
+robbed in the middle of June by highwaymen, one of whom, Richard Surrey,
+is popularly known as Richard atte Belle. The knight of the road has made
+off with some silver plate and L40 in coin, and has taken sanctuary at
+Westminster, being hotly pursued by his victim, who finds on Surrey's
+person all his lost property, less L5 of the stolen money. Symcok has
+deposited his recovered goods in the hands of Dan William Colchester,
+one of the lord Abbot's monks, who has laid them aside and placed his
+seal upon the package. Therefore, my good Lord--asks the Earl--I pray
+you have these chattels delivered up to my servant. This letter bears no
+date, and there is no proof that the Archdeacon as such was concerned
+with the affairs of sanctuary; nor does any title of office accompany
+the introduction of his name. But the incident was one which bore a
+legal character and Colchester's part in it may possibly be brought
+within the vague limits of archidiaconal functions.[42]
+
+We are fortunate in possessing one unquestionable intimation as to
+his personal circumstances while holding this office. It bears date
+November 9, 1386, shortly before his promotion to the highest room,
+and is an indenture of lease of sheep.[43] It sets forth that Thomas
+Charlton, the valet, and Henry Norton, the servant of William Colchester,
+Archdeacon of Westminster, leased to John Waryn, butcher, of Westminster,
+132 muttons--multones--3 rams, and 168 ewes, of the average value of
+20_d._ each, to be fed and kept sound till Ash Wednesday next ensuing; and
+there follows a statement of the terms upon which the tenant may acquire
+any or all of them. The bargain was apparently made by the Archdeacon's
+servants, and the actual document leaves it in doubt whether the sheep
+were his or theirs, but the endorsement[44] places the ownership beyond
+question and proves the sheep to have been the Archdeacon's.
+
+The third means adopted by the Convent for marking its sense of
+Colchester's services to the House was more exceptional. I give the
+statement of it as it stands in the vellum volume called _Liber Niger
+Quaternus_, a fifteenth-century copy of an earlier black paper register
+compiled by a very active monk called Roger Kyrton, or Cretton,[45] who
+entered the Convent in 1384-5, served many offices under Abbot Colchester,
+and survived him by about fourteen years:--
+
+    "On September 25, 1382, there was granted to Brother W. Colchester
+    Archdeacon of Westminster a chamber, together with that part of
+    the Garden which belongs to the Lady Chapel; also a pension of six
+    marks [L4] and an additional monk's allowance--corrodium--such
+    as is enjoyed by the seniors; but on condition that if the
+    said William be promoted to any prelacy elsewhere, the pension,
+    the allowance and the chamber are to revert to the Convent."
+
+Two questions of topography arise here, the position of the Garden and
+that of the chambers, or "camerae." It is not necessary to assume that
+they were contiguous. "The part of the Garden which belongs to the Lady
+Chapel" cannot be located with certainty, but the Convent Garden lay in
+the acres eastward of St. Martin's Church, Charing Cross, which still
+retain the name, and are now the scene of the sale of garden-produce
+that is grown elsewhere. Our great chartulary called Domesday[46] shows
+that the Lady Chapel was given considerable property in this district
+during the reign of Henry III., under whom the chapel was built. In
+view of our information that within four years the Archdeacon possessed
+a flock of 400 sheep, it seems reasonable to suppose that his share of
+the Garden included considerable pasturage, and that he sometimes took
+his walks abroad in the direction of Charing to see if it was well with
+the flocks.
+
+There is less doubt about the position of the chambers, which are
+often mentioned in connexion with the Infirmary, and which were
+probably attached to Little Cloisters, then recently rebuilt by Abbot
+Litlington. To this day the south side of Little Cloisters shows
+an alternation of old doors and old windows that suggests a row of
+almshouses. It thus becomes easy to realize that a separate residence,
+instead of the usual bed in the Great Dormitory, was a privilege highly
+prized and rarely conferred.
+
+[Illustration: CHAMBERS IN LITTLE CLOISTERS.]
+
+It is natural to ask in what conditions the tenants of these chambers
+lived, and the answer can be given in some detail. We have a long
+strip of frail paper,[47] 3 ft. 7 in. x 5-1/2 in., which deals with the
+post-mortem distribution of the effects of a monk whom William Colchester
+must have known long and well. Richard Excestr' said his first Mass,
+as did Colchester himself, in 1361-2; he became Prior quite early in
+life, in 1377; but, as we have seen, he resigned the office in 1382,
+and we do not know why his tenure of it was so brief. That the reason was
+not discreditable to himself may be inferred from the fact that on his
+resignation he was given precedence next after the new Prior, receiving
+a pension of four marks, a double, or Prior's, assignment of clothing,
+and a double share of the pittances that marked certain anniversaries,
+till his death in 1397. In this paper, then, his modest effects are
+arranged according to the rooms in which they stood, like the items in
+an auctioneer's catalogue when the sale is to take place, by order of
+the executors, on the premises. We gather that he has a reception-room,
+or "aula," where he can entertain a few friends, with a special welcome
+for any Brother who can play chess (for among his possessions are a
+chess-board and a set of chess-men[48]); a pantry, or "buteleria,"
+for his little store of plate and crockery and napery, including
+a silver cup and cover, thirteen silver spoons (was it a complete
+"Apostle" set?), and a table-cloth 3-1/2 yards in length; a bedroom, or
+"camera," containing his white bedstead with a tester over it, and a
+"parpoynt," as well as his wardrobe; a kitchen, or "coquina," equipped
+with "droppyngpannes," "dressyng-Knyues," "flesshhokys," "anndyrons,"
+a "treuet," and three pans which like the trivet are honestly described
+in the catalogue as being the worse for wear;[49] and a library, or
+"studium," with ten books and three maps. Among these books there was of
+course some scholastic theology and canon law, but there was also the
+Latin version of the Book of Messer Marco Polo, as if to signify that the
+latest modern literature was by no means excluded. The Provost of King's,
+who was kind enough to look through the list for me, takes this to be,
+as I suspected,[50] a very early instance of English interest in the
+Venetian traveller's adventures; and added that he believes it to be
+still more rare that a man of this monk's period should possess a map
+of Scotland.
+
+As there was nothing exceptional in the disposal of the ex-prior's
+goods,[51] the incident may be fairly taken as an illustration of Convent
+life as Colchester lived it, and we may therefore go on to notice that,
+putting together the sum that Excestr' left in cash and that which was
+realized by the sale of some of these articles, the Convent was able
+to pay the cost of his illness and burial; the items ranged from 2_d._
+for milk to 10_s._ for the fee of the brief-writer who wrote out the
+formal announcement of his death on one shilling's worth of parchment
+for the information of other Benedictine houses, and L4 13_s._ 4_d._
+for a marble slab with a memorial inscription. As Excestr' died in 1397,
+we may think of Abbot Colchester as saying the last words over the open
+grave of his former neighbour in Little Cloisters.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER
+
+
+Our Archdeacon was not destined to remain such for any great time.
+On November 29, 1386, there passed away during a meal-time[52] at his
+manor house of la Neyte, near Westminster, our great builder, Abbot
+Nicholas Litlington, to whom we owe the south and west sides of the Great
+Cloister, the Little Cloisters, Jerusalem Chamber, the Abbot's Dining
+Hall, and much besides of the present Deanery, and the great Missal.[53]
+The vigour of Litlington's character can be realized from what we have
+seen of the fight which he maintained through William Colchester for
+the privileges of the Abbey, but Colchester must have witnessed a more
+remarkable proof of the old man's pluck. In the _Liber Niger_ (f. 87)
+there is a record to the effect that a threatened invasion of our
+shores by the French King in 1386 caused the Chapter of the Convent to
+come to the unanimous opinion that the old Abbot and two of his monks,
+John Canterbery and John Burgh, should don full armour and proceed as
+far as the coast, on the ground that it was lawful to do so for the
+defence of the realm.[54] It is astonishing that Litlington should
+have contemplated such an enterprise at his age, for we have a letter
+in Norman French, not dated, but clearly referring to this period,
+in which he excuses himself on the ground of "age et feblesse" for
+not coming to the Abbey "en propre persone" to bring to the King the
+famous ring of St. Edward. But Litlington's possession of armour cannot
+be doubted. There remains a schedule[55] of his effects at his death,
+which shows that those which passed into the hands of his successor
+consisted chiefly of various accoutrements, and included six hauberks;
+a helmet called a "pisanum"; seven others called basnetts with ventailles
+or vizors; a "ketelhat"; a pair of steel gloves; some "leg-harneys";
+fore-braces and back-braces; and four lance-heads.
+
+[Illustration: THE PERSONAL EFFECTS OF ABBOT LITLINGTON.]
+
+Though general opinion pointed to his election in Litlington's stead,
+Colchester was in some danger of disappointment. He had spent so much
+time abroad--a very large proportion of the preceding nine years--being
+engaged all the time in a cause which brought him into collision with the
+preferences of the Court, that it is not wonderful if the King desired
+the election of another. We can thus easily credit the statement of
+a Westminster chronicler,[56] whom the Dean of Wells believes to have
+been the rival candidate himself, that, when the vacancy occurred, the
+King wrote thrice to the Prior and Convent urging them to find their
+new Abbot in Brother John Lakyngheth, the very Treasurer whom we have
+seen in the act of paying to William Colchester the sums required for
+his long journeys and his legal costs, perhaps with a keen satisfaction
+at thus facilitating his rival's absence. But the Convent had made up
+its mind, and within a fortnight[57] of Litlington's decease, Colchester
+was elected Abbot by compromission; that is to say, the Brethren chose
+a committee of five or seven of their number and entrusted to them
+the choice of the best man. Richard II. was angry, and refused for a
+while to receive the nomination. We have the request[58] of the Prior
+and Convent to the King, written in French, but not bearing any date,
+to give his consent to their choice of "daunz William Colchestre un
+de lours commoignes en abbe et pastoure." The letter was written at a
+time when Richard could be said to have "graciousement accroiez votre
+roial assent al election auantdite," and when it was only necessary to
+petition him to make formal announcement of it to the Pope. But there
+was considerable delay also on the part of the Pope, who wanted to
+quash the election and to appoint by "provision."[59] But the King's
+ambassador intervened, and the bulls of confirmation were issued
+September 1, 1387. Colchester was installed October 12, and made a great
+feast to his friends on St. Edward's Day. His temporalities had been
+restored September 10.[60] All this places Richard's attitude towards
+him in some doubt, especially as, on November 10, the King, who walked
+barefoot from Charing to the Abbey precincts, was there received by
+Colchester and his Brethren vested in copes. Almost immediately there
+arose a difficult question about sanctuary, as to which the reader may be
+again referred to the _Polychronicon_.[61] Words almost fail the scribe
+as he pictures the reverence and love of the King for the Church. "There
+is not a Bishop on the bench," he says, "who displays as much zeal for
+the Church's rights."
+
+Thus it came to pass that King and Court alike poured upon the Abbey
+the benefits of their generosity in spite of Colchester's election,
+and in the case of the Court the gifts came quite as readily from
+Richard's enemies as from his friends. Within three months of Colchester's
+installation, on December 1, 1387, a deed[62] was executed whereby the
+Abbot and Convent bound themselves to observe the anniversary of Thomas
+of Woodstock, Richard's uncle and at that time his fierce enemy, and of
+Eleanor de Bohun, his wife, in return for a splendid gift, which included
+vestments of cloth of gold, broidered with their initials, silver-gilt
+vessels for the altar, a silver-gilt thurible adorned with images of
+the saints, and two silver candlesticks formed of angels bearing the
+heraldic shields of the houses of Essex and Hereford.[63]
+
+Richard's own gifts to the church during Colchester's time were even
+more magnifical. On May 28, 1389, there was a royal grant, witnessed by
+the Archbishop of Canterbury and many others, conveying to the Convent
+a richly adorned chasuble of cloth of gold, two tunicles, three albs,
+the orphreys bearing representations of the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary,
+St. John Baptist, St. Edward the Confessor, St. Edmund the King, and
+"a certain Abbess." In 1394, after the death of his beloved Queen,
+Anne of Bohemia, came Richard's grant of L200 yearly to maintain an
+anniversary for her, and for him when he should depart hence;[64] which
+was followed in 1399 by his grant to the Abbey of manors and lands in
+Middlesex, Bedfordshire, and Berkshire,[65] whence an equivalent in rents
+would be derived in perpetuity. To this gift the Dean and Chapter owe
+the advowson of Steventon, Berkshire, which they still retain. On the
+other side, it may be admitted that Richard made use of the Abbey's
+resources; we have his note of hand for a loan of L100, dated September
+11, 1397.[66] To what extent he fostered that building of the Nave,
+which our documents speak of as the New Work, has been told in detail
+elsewhere.[67] It comes to this, that Colchester's effigy in stained
+glass looks into the Nave from a window which probably dates from Henry
+III.'s time, but it faces towards Purbeck pillars which were the work
+of one of our Abbot's most zealous officers, Peter Coumbe. The portion of
+the triforium above his window is also due to Henry III., but in his old
+age Colchester may well have seen the workmen busy with the erection of
+the corresponding section of the clerestory.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE ABBOT AT HOME
+
+
+As before, if we want to know an Abbot's interests and his manner of
+life at home, we shall go to the accounts of his stewards or Seneschals.
+His rent-roll is less than Abbot Litlington's, and there are heavier
+arrears. The country is greatly unsettled and it is not an easy
+time for landholders. We possess a clear "statement[68] of the lands
+and apportionments of the lord William by the grace of God Abbot of
+Westminster," as audited in the year 1388. The total revenue when fully
+paid has fallen to L617 16_s._ 1_d._, but there are arrears amounting to
+L104 12_s._ 7_d._ However, if his receipts are less, his stock is still
+plentiful; he possesses 58 horses and 19 foals; 351 heads of cattle;
+2287 sheep and lambs; and 299 pigs. When he listened to his monks and
+lay clerks singing the 144th Psalm, he had every reason to join in the
+desire "that our garners may be full and plenteous with all manner of
+store: that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in
+our streets: that our oxen may be strong to labour"; and he knew his
+times well enough to ask also that there may be "no complaining in
+our streets."
+
+We have six rolls of his Seneschals between 1388 and 1403, and we may
+put together from these the facts that are to be gleaned about him.
+At this time, at any rate, he was a man of good health. There is a
+slight reference to an indisposition in 1389, and once there is a fee
+of one shilling to a doctor for treating his "tibia," which seems to
+have been a peculiarly vulnerable part of monkish anatomy. On the other
+hand, he does not appear to have been as fond of field sports as his
+great predecessor; at least in 1402-3 his steward bought 359 rabbits, 41
+woodcock and a pheasant, which would hardly be necessary if his lordship
+were in the habit of inviting the neighbouring gentry to help him keep
+down his game. It is evident that his estates are being well managed.
+We can tell, for instance, that in 1388-9, on his manors of Eybury,
+Denham, Laleham and Pyrford, he sold 215 stone of wool at 1_s._ 9_d._
+a stone. He made red wine at Islip, and his price for it was L2 12_s._
+6_d._ a pipe. The needs of his own establishment were mainly supplied
+from Denham and Pyrford, especially the former; for his accounts are
+full of small payments to servants who had driven pigs from Denham
+to la Neyte. In other words, when he was in town he did not patronize
+the Westminster tradesmen, but he purchased supplies from himself as
+over-lord of Denham. For these he paid his factor at Denham the current
+price, so that the manor could give a good account of its takings at
+the end of the year.
+
+And this careful accountancy went to quite practical lengths. For
+instance, the Abbot was wont to receive during each year a large number
+of "exennia," which, as we have seen, were complimentary presents
+mostly offered in kind. It happens that there is a complete list of
+these with the names of the donors for 1388-9. The clergy beneficed
+on the estate, such as the rector of Islip, the vicar of Hurley, where
+the Abbey had a daughter priory, the rectors of Oddington and Sutton
+on the Gloucestershire property, and the vicar of Brailes in Warwickshire;
+the heads of the affiliated convents, such as Hurley, Greater Malvern,
+Deerhurst, and Pershore; the tenants, such as the miller at Pyrford;
+the man who rents the church farm at Longdon; various monks of the
+Abbey, such as John Stowe, who brings now a lamb as a peace-offering, now
+the results of his skill with the line, a pike or an eel, and now that
+which he has taken with his bow, a brace of bittern; and Peter Coumbe,
+the Sacrist and warden of the New Work, who offers a swan and a brace
+of pheasants. The gifts, in fact, are from all sorts and conditions
+of folk. There is the King's larderer with his modest present of fish;
+there is Master Thomas Southam, Cardinal Langham's lawyer, who now sends
+the Abbot a pipe of red wine, the most costly of all the gifts, in the
+hope, no doubt, of continuing to serve his present lordship in a similar
+capacity; and, most pathetic of all, there are two women, who claim to
+be of the Abbot's kin,[69] and who offer for his acceptance half a dozen
+capons. But the point for us is the careful management of his affairs,
+which appears in the fact that each of these eighty-three contributions
+is entered by the Seneschal at its market-price. The pipe of wine
+figures at L2 13_s._ 4_d._; the lamb at 8_d._; the six capons from
+the poor relations at 2_s._; and the brace of bittern at 2_s._ 6_d._
+Altogether these tributes towards his maintenance save the expenses
+of the mansion by L14 11_s._ 6_d._, and a reference to his steward's
+balance-sheet under the head of "outside receipts" shows this exact
+sum entered as derived from the "exennia" of divers persons. Prudent
+housewifery could scarcely go further. On the other hand, he does not
+so treat the presents he receives from the great ones of the earth. When
+a stag arrives from Windsor, or a buck from the Baroness Despenser,
+the cash value of these compliments is not taken into the account;
+there is merely an acknowledgment that certain recognitions in money
+have been given to the bearers of the gifts.
+
+It is natural to ask whether the accounts show signs of luxurious
+habits. Certainly not in his furnishing. Thus, in 1401 he was adding to
+the accommodation of his London mansion of la Neyte. For his new parlour
+he obtained a cupboard for 10_s._, two chairs for 4_s._ 6_d._, six stools
+for 4_s._ 4_d._, and a deal table for the same sum. I think (the word
+is not quite clear) that he had a curtain provided for his study-window
+at a cost of 1_s._ 8_d._; and there was a fireplace in his parlour,
+for which his Seneschal laid out 7_d._ upon coal. Certainly not, again,
+in wine and strong drink; for his outlay under this head was about a
+sixth part of the sum which he spent upon corn and meat. Nor is there
+any evidence that he used his position for the enrichment of poor
+relations. It may be that we can detect a needy kinsman in one John
+Colchester who was granted 3_s._ 4_d._ by my lord's command at la Neyte
+in March, 1389, and it was quite possibly for a sister-in-law--the wife of
+Thomas Colchester--that he ordered a diamond ring[70] at a cost of 40_s._
+on May 31 of that year, perhaps because it was her birthday. When one of
+his servants was sent to Colchester on some personal business of the
+Abbot, the man was evidently not expected to comport himself as if his
+master's resources were unlimited, for his total expenses were 2_s._ 4_d._
+
+The Abbot liked to have one or two of the younger monks around him,
+such as John Sandon and Thomas Merke, whom we have met, as Shakespeare
+also met him, in the events that gather mysteriously round the end
+of Richard II.'s reign. No doubt, they joined him at table in the new
+parlour of la Neyte, but the only sign of further bounty towards them was
+a gift of 6_s._ 8_d._ to them jointly for a treat--pro gaudiis--a term
+which survives in the custom of applying the word "gaudy" to those College
+entertainments to which at the moment Oxford is patriotically a stranger.
+
+When the great man moved about, it was seemingly not with any great
+train; otherwise it would hardly be necessary for the Seneschal to
+give 1_s._ 8_d._ to a certain man for guiding my lord out of the forest
+of Rockingham, as if the Abbot were too lonely to face the possible
+appearance of Robin Hood with equanimity. But, of course, there were
+exceptional circumstances when he would travel in the dignity of his
+position. There was a formal visitation of the manors of Denham, Laleham,
+Staines, and Pyrford in 1402-3, which cost over L6, and visits to Henry
+IV. in the same year at Ware and Windsor and Berkhamstead, at an expense
+of about L4. A short time after, the Abbot had to face a continental
+journey, but L4 12_s._ is no great sum to enter as "the expenses of my
+lord and his household in setting out for Calais with porterage and the
+hire of a boat to take him to the ship, and also the expenses of John
+Sandon and John Stowe [two monks] and part of the household on their
+way back to London."
+
+Not a little of his petty expenses arose from the frequency with which he
+was officially visited by persons of position who were not too proud to
+receive a present of money, and would have resented its absence. They
+were mostly content with much less than the 20_s._ imparted to the
+Remembrancer of the King's Exchequer, but the gifts of 3_s._ 4_d._
+mounted up when the Abbot must receive now a Herald and his boy, now
+the Sheriff of Middlesex and his valet and his boy, now a messenger
+with a summons to Parliament, now two criers from the King's Bench,
+and all within a brief space of time.
+
+But Abbot Colchester did indulge one luxury, whether out of a taste for
+it or because it was the fashion of the time, I cannot say. He was fond
+of being entertained, particularly by musicians; and his Seneschal's
+accounts during these six or seven years are full of small payments to
+such persons, from a boy who danced before my lord at Walsingham for
+6_d._ to Henry the piper--fistulator--who was retained at Pyrford all
+Christmas time for 14_s._ He could provide some of this enjoyment from
+the resources of the Abbey, as when he made two clerks bring a pair
+of organs from Westminster to Pyrford. His chief delight was to have
+Master Percyvale and other of the King's minstrels, especially on great
+festivals such as St. Peter ad Vincula, and he could listen to Percyvale
+for the modest consideration of 2_s._ Evidently it came to be known that
+he had tastes of this kind, for William of Wykeham's pipers journeyed
+to Pyrford to strut their little hour before the Abbot; Henry Despenser,
+the fighting Bishop of Norwich and doughty champion of Richard II.,
+sent his minstrels to entertain my lord when he was at Birlingham;
+the Duke of Gloucester, Thomas of Woodstock, kept a blind harper who
+gave a performance at Denham; and the other visitors included the Abbot
+of Eynsham's player--lusor--and the musicians of the ill-fated Earl of
+Arundel. Even when he was resident for a space in Northampton for the
+General Chapter of the Benedictine Order, he was sometimes entertained
+by mummers.[71]
+
+But it would not be fair to think of him as having no desires that
+went down to the realities of things. For he lived in troublous times,
+and he knew how Christian men should face the serious issues that
+then emerged. His duty to the country and to the various properties
+for which he stood in trust called him away from Westminster often,
+and sometimes for prolonged periods. It is possible by means of the
+accounts of his various bailiffs to follow his comings and goings;
+for the receipts from the properties must be delivered to the Abbot in
+person, and there is thus an entry of the cost of journeying to such
+and such a place, wherever he happened to be, and generally of the cost
+of one or two horsemen for safety's sake. But the Abbey and the welfare
+of his Brethren were in his mind, and he kept a guiding hand upon their
+spiritual concerns, particularly in times of trial. There is an instance
+of this in a document,[72] which bears no date except August 31, but
+which may be assigned with reasonable certainty to Richard II.'s troubled
+reign. It is headed in another hand, "W. Abbot of Westminster to the
+Prior of the same place"; but this is an error. The Abbot in a quite
+exceptional way addresses himself to the officers or obedientiaries
+without mentioning the Prior, and I incline to attributing the document to
+the latest years of Richard II., because the Prior, John de Wratting,[73]
+was then becoming unequal to his duties. It is true that our evidence
+for this is dated 1405,[74] but, as Wratting was then over eighty, it
+may hold almost as well for seven or eight years earlier. The Abbot's
+message is as follows:--
+
+    "My beloved sons in Christ,
+
+    "The most serene Prince our lord the King has urgently required
+    of us that in this present time of dire necessity we should be
+    instant in prayer to the most High with all our hearts for the
+    good estate of King and country. For enemies without and rebels
+    within are confederate in their malicious plots to shatter the
+    peace of the realm. You therefore to whom (under us) belongs the
+    administration of government in our monastery we hereby urge and
+    enjoin that, considering what we say above, you should put a
+    limit upon the Brethren's walks abroad and upon their ridings
+    into distant parts--except of course in the case of the Monk
+    Bailiff--until God grants us more peaceful times. Call all and
+    singular your Brethren to Chapter and bid them from me to be
+    content with their usual recreation within the house and to give
+    themselves so much the more earnestly to meditation and prayer as
+    the distress and wickedness of the times become more pressing.
+    Go in solemn procession every fourth day round the bounds of the
+    monastery, and every sixth day through the vill of Westminster,
+    praying for a successful issue and for the common weal of
+    the King and the realm--petitions which are already earnestly
+    commended to the private prayers of all the Brethren. Summon
+    all the chaplains and clerks dwelling within St. Margaret's
+    parish to join you, and specially the clerks of our Almonry,
+    according to custom. Fare you well in Christ now and for ever."
+
+The Abbot wrote from Denham; but his heart was with his Brethren in a
+time of trouble.
+
+There are also signs that in normal times he was exercising an effect
+on the organization of conventual activity. In his roll for 1393-4 the
+officer called the Warden of the Churches made entry that he had paid
+to Peter Coumbe, as Sacrist, the sum of 32_s._, at the rate of 4_s._ for
+each of the Abbey's eight principal feasts, "in accordance with the
+recent ordinance of the lord William now Abbot."[75] It is an intimation
+that the Abbot was already making his influence felt, and was encouraging
+his Brethren to regard the solemnities of divine worship[76] as the
+chief care of their monastic life.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE ABBOT ABROAD
+
+
+But though we may realize that Abbot Colchester loved his Convent and
+cherished it, we still have to think of him as being often compelled to
+wander far from it. True, he had spent so much time in Rome before his
+election, that he was able to escape in 1390 the triennial visit _ad
+limina_ which was normally expected of an Abbot. He was represented
+on that occasion by John Borewell, an active and efficient monk, who
+had succeeded him in the Archdeaconry in 1387; he was also represented
+by the gifts of himself and his Brethren on the occasion of the year of
+Jubilee, which are carefully recorded in the _Liber Niger_ (f. 92). But
+that exemption did not avail to keep him at home, for we are told that on
+December 14, 1391, he set out for the Continent on the King's business,
+the King being responsible for his travelling charges and his safe
+conduct.[77]
+
+[Illustration: ABBOT COLCHESTER'S SEAL.]
+
+In 1393 he was commissioned by the Pope to join the Bishop of Salisbury
+and the Abbot of Waltham in an inquiry into the statutes and customs of
+the Collegiate Chapter of the Chapel in Windsor Castle, and to correct
+and reform these, where they seemed to need it.[78] John de Waltham,
+Bishop of Salisbury, and our Abbot were there associated not for the
+first time or the last. Two years later the Bishop died, and was buried
+by Richard's desire in the Confessor's Chapel. Waltham was a successful
+favourite, without claim to royal sepulture, and we may assume that
+Colchester and the Convent were among the many who protested. It is,
+perhaps, not unfair to assert that "the Abbey was well considered for
+this," or that the monks' "scruples were overborne by gifts of money and
+vestments."[79] Yet it is a fact that, whereas the Bishop was buried
+in 1395, the indenture tripartite,[80] which dealt with the use to be
+made of the gifts, was not drawn up till July 15, 1412. It recites
+that the Bishop, who had served the Kings of England from his boyhood
+in their Chancery and in other and higher offices, was buried among
+the tombs of the Kings;[81] that at the sight of his bier--we must,
+no doubt, think of Abbot Colchester as standing by--Richard II. had
+given to the Abbey a rich "Jesse" vestment valued at 1000 marks, and
+that the executors had added another vestment valued at L40 and 500
+marks in money. Colchester and the Convent covenanted to observe the
+Bishop's obit--September 18--which we know they did to the last. They also
+admitted into their company one of the Bishop's executors, Ralph Selby,
+Archdeacon of Buckingham, giving him precedence next to the Prior with
+corresponding privileges, and granting him, in 1402-3, a yearly pension
+of L4. This does not support the notion of the Convent's hostility to
+John de Waltham; at the same time it occurs too late to be reckoned
+as a bargain entered into for the purpose of securing to the Bishop
+a posthumous honour which they were unwilling to accord, even when
+Richard II. asked for it.
+
+I pass by Colchester's part, if he took any, in Richard's journey to
+Ireland in 1399;[82] for our records throw no light on what did not
+concern the Convent. There appears to be no doubt that he was confederate
+with the Earls of Rutland, Huntingdon, Kent, and Salisbury, who were
+at first confided to his safe-keeping by Henry IV.; that he took part
+on December 17, 1399, in a secret gathering of the conspirators within
+the Abbey; that he was arrested, and sent first to Reigate and then,
+January 25, 1400, to the Tower; and that he was released, after a trial
+there held on February 4.[83] He had, of course, received Henry IV. when
+he made his progress to Westminster on October 12, 1399, and had taken
+part in the coronation on the following day.[84]
+
+But inside the Convent there was an evident desire to eschew
+partisanships, as any one can realize who reads Roger Cretton's bare
+and impartial record in the _Liber Niger_.[85] I therefore pass from
+public questions and take up an otherwise undated letter[86] of the Abbot,
+written from Cologne on October 10, to two important Westminster monks
+whom we have already had before us, Peter Coumbe and John Borewell.
+It reveals Colchester's close interest in Abbey affairs, however far
+away he might be, and it is even somewhat peremptory in tone. For he
+had referred to them some detail of monastic business, and says that
+he is daily awaiting their answer, in order that he may take action
+accordingly. The Convent, he adds, is to receive with due honour a
+relation of the Bishop of Lincoln, remembering that his lordship has
+always been gracious to them in matters of conventual concern.
+
+We must try to fix the date of this journey through Cologne, and some
+things can be soon settled. It must be before 1409-10, when John Borewell
+died.[87] He was in office as Granger, Kitchener, Cellarer, and Gardener
+almost till his death, and he had been in partnership with Peter Coumbe,
+as manager of the funds provided for Queen Anne's anniversary,[88]
+from 1394 to 1399. But who is the Bishop of Lincoln? It is tempting to
+think of the princely Henry Beaufort, the most potent holder of the see
+at this period; if so, the journey would fall at some time before 1404,
+when Beaufort was translated to Winchester, and thus it might even be
+got just within the limits of the partnership above-mentioned, for he
+was appointed to Lincoln in 1398. But we have evidence pointing to 1407
+and 1408 as the time with which the visit to Cologne must be connected,
+and bringing Henry Beaufort's help and Abbot Colchester's travels into
+further association. It is a tattered paper document[89] which states
+that when Colchester was in foreign parts in 1407,[90] the collector
+of Romescot for the county of Surrey doubled his demand upon the
+chapels of Pyrford and Horsell from 12-1/2_d._ each to 25_d._ each, and
+laid them under interdict when payment was refused. But the Bishop of
+Winchester issued a special mandate to the collector to desist from the
+exaction. Beaufort was therefore not abroad at the time with Colchester,
+but was defending his interests at home. But both Colchester and Philip
+Repingdon, Bishop of Lincoln, were in Italy in 1408. Colchester was at
+Lucca and Pisa in May, supporting the Cardinals who were struggling
+with Gregory XII.,[91] and his old friend, Bishop Merke, was with
+him. At Siena, on September 18, Gregory created ten new Cardinals,
+and one of these was Philip Repingdon.[92] It would be natural that he
+and Colchester should then meet, possibly travelling homeward together,
+and being in Cologne on October 10.
+
+[Illustration: CORONATION OF HENRY V.]
+
+The matter of the augmented Romescot was brought to an end at Guildford,
+says the document, after the Abbot's return to England, July 22,
+1412. This must not be interpreted to mean a continuous absence of five
+years, 1407-12, for we have seen the Abbot on his homeward way in 1408,
+and know that in July, 1411, he presided alone over the General Chapter
+of Benedictines at Northampton.[93] His absence in 1412, which is also
+substantiated by his bailiffs' payments to a substitute, was due to one
+more journey to Rome; for the account of the "Novum Opus" for 1412-3
+enters payment, by consent of the Prior and the Seniors, of the large
+sum of L33 to the Abbot for the acceleration of certain concerns of
+the church in the Roman Court. It is possible that this journey took
+place in the autumn; for great events at home, in which the Abbot had
+some share, marked the months which followed. Early in 1413[94] Henry
+IV. had a seizure while at his devotions in the Abbey, and we should like
+to know whether the Abbot was in town and gave his instructions for
+the King's removal to the noblest apartment in the abbatial residence,
+Jerusalem Chamber, where he died on March 20. It does not appear that
+Colchester took any part in the royal obsequies, but there is no doubt
+that he assisted at the coronation of Henry V. in the Abbey church on
+that snowy Passion Sunday, April 9, 1413. For when the King's chantry
+was built, about twenty years after Colchester's death, its famous
+sculptures included two Coronation groups--perhaps, the acclamation and
+the homage[95]--in each of which the Abbot is represented as standing,
+in cope and mitre, on the King's left hand, Thomas Arundel, the Archbishop
+of Canterbury, being on the King's right hand. We may also assume that
+Colchester was at Westminster to receive Henry, when he attended divine
+service in the church on Ascension Day and Whitsunday of that year.[96]
+The new King's devotion to the Abbey was beyond question, and his zeal
+for the immediate resumption of the New Work in the nave would tend to
+keep the Abbot at hand. Operations began on July 7, one thousand marks
+a year being granted by the Crown;[97] and Colchester would see things
+well in train under the hands of Richard Whitington and Brother Richard
+Harwden, before he left the precincts once more.
+
+Possibly he had a rest from travel in the year 1413-4; at least we have
+nothing more serious to notice than his Receiver's payment of 8_d._ for
+boat hire "when my lord dined with the Archbishop at Lambhyth." But
+the autumn of 1414 saw him once more setting out for foreign parts;
+for Henry chose him as one of the English delegates to the great
+Council of Constance.[98] People spoke of the greatness of his train
+as he journeyed. Dr. Wylie remarks that he "was looked upon by the
+foreigners as a prince."[99] Perhaps he himself thought sometimes of the
+very different circumstances in which he and his man Gerard had crossed
+the Channel in fear and trembling, seven and thirty years earlier. He
+had been already engaged, as collector of the triennial contribution of
+1/2_d._ in the mark imposed on English Benedictine houses, in paying out
+loans for their journey to the Abbot of St. Edmundsbury and the Prior of
+Worcester, who were the delegates from the Order to the same Council,
+and in sending fees to the various counsel who were retained by the
+Order at Constance. We have his triennial accounts as collector for 1417
+and 1420,[100] which show that the business of the Council hung about
+him for the rest of his days; even in the latter, made up long after
+Constance had seen the last of its visitors, he was still reckoning the
+cost of a monk of Worcester's journey to Constance and back.
+
+How long he remained at Constance, and what part he took in the tortuous
+proceedings, we do not know. The spring and summer of 1415 were anxious
+times in England, and Henry V. would be glad to have so shrewd an adviser
+within reach. The Abbot was now about seventy-seven years of age, and the
+lust of travel must have long since ceased. The King's writ went forth
+in May for the "Array and Munitioning of the Clergy" by July 16,[101]
+and the head of our House would be concerned to see that Westminster did
+its duty, _per alios_ if not _per se_. Our Treasurers' roll for 1414-5
+shows how Abbot and Convent performed their several parts:--
+
+    "For one new chariot with six horses in the same, over and above
+    one [chariot] provided by the lord Abbot, and with a complete set
+    of harness for the said chariot and for the horses pertaining
+    thereto--the whole being bought and given to our lord the King
+    on the occasion of his expedition to France, together with the
+    wages of a valet, a groom, and a page for the said chariot,
+    and cloth bought for their livery, besides the maintenance of
+    the men and the horses aforesaid for three weeks, pending the
+    King's departure for France this year. xxxiii. li. xii. d."
+
+If we may take it that the Abbot's expenditure on his chariot was of the
+same extent, we have a total outlay of L66, or about L1000 of our money.
+
+Colchester's generally good health began to fail in 1416, and his
+apothecary was called in to apply various remedies at a fee of 16_s._
+8_d._[102] At home he could still find interest in watching the progress
+of the New Work, for the north aisle of the nave was being proceeded
+with and the pillars of the triforium above it were being put in their
+place.[103] If Henry's gifts for the purpose failed to reach Henry's
+expectations and the Convent's, that is only another way of saying that
+Colchester's aged thoughts were often occupied with the expedition to
+France and the scenes that he knew so familiarly. He may have taken part
+in the rejoicings over the victory of Agincourt; he certainly received
+a special message about the capture of Rouen in 1418.[104]
+
+He died in 1420 at a good old age, probably fourscore and two, and in
+the 34th year of his Abbacy. The exact day is not recorded. We know that
+there was much mortality in the Convent during 1419-20. When the Wardens
+of Queen Alianore's Manors made up their accounts to Michaelmas (they did
+so generally about November), they wrote at the end a sorrowful list of
+twelve names with a note that "all these died this year together with the
+lord Abbot and Brother Thomas Peuerel." Thus in strictness we might put
+his death before September 29. But the rolls were by no means precise in
+the matter, and often included those who died at any time before the day
+on which the accounts were balanced. Moreover, we have the royal licence
+to the Convent to elect a successor,[105] which is dated November 12,
+1420. We may therefore suppose that Colchester died late in October or
+early in November. He was buried in the Chapel of St. John Baptist,
+where his much battered free-stone image lies on an altar-tomb. His
+initials still remain, but the heraldry has long since perished, and
+his mitre and gloves have lost the jewels that once adorned them. It
+adds insult to this injury that his countenance should be described as
+"stern and ill-favoured."[106]
+
+But the character behind the countenance is not difficult to sum up.
+In his own day he was reckoned to be a man of shrewd judgment and wide
+experience; we have noted the far-travelled uses that were made of him
+by the Convent and by the Crown, and we can conclude that his judgment
+increased in shrewdness as his experience extended in width. Indeed,
+he retained this quality to the last. We have seen that there is still
+extant an account of his official disbursements in behalf of the General
+Chapter of the Benedictines at Northampton for the last year of his life,
+1420.[107] It includes payments made, for special services rendered,
+to two Westminster monks, who had been bidden to attend the conference.
+They were Richard Harwden and Edmund Kirton, and each was appointed Abbot
+of Westminster in his turn. It is not every man of eighty-two who is
+shrewd enough to pick out his successors for the next forty years, and
+at the same time large-hearted enough to give them every encouragement
+to fit themselves for the office which he holds. Indeed, his was the
+kind of character to which justice can only be done after a lapse of
+time. It is necessary to look back at the men who, noting his shrewdness,
+came to a conviction that he was also just and trustworthy--Richard II.,
+who opposed his election as Abbot, but lived to prove his friendship;
+Henry IV., who knew his friendship for Richard, and at first treated
+him accordingly, but afterwards found no reason to regret the clemency
+shown to him; Henry V., who appreciated his devotion to Richard, and
+did not honour him the less because of Henry IV.'s early suspicions;
+and the Cardinals and others who met him in the tortuous paths by which
+ecclesiastical diplomacy was trying to make its way towards the peace
+of the distracted Church. We may leave on William Colchester's memorial
+an inscription taken from a letter addressed to him by Thomas Merke,
+Bishop of Carlisle, who was conveying to the Abbot a request that he
+would use his influence at the Roman Court on behalf of Merton Hall,
+Oxford. We shall admit that Merke was his intimate friend, and shall
+remember that Colchester showed his own affection for Merke by arranging
+that the Bishop should be commemorated at Hurley Priory along with the
+Abbot's parents.[108] Merke's witness, however, may still be true.
+"Men like," he wrote, "to know your Paternity's views on these matters,
+for they observe your solidity, which is a rare virtue in these days,
+and they give you their confidence all the more."[109] No other Abbot
+ruled our House as long as he; nor could any man of his line desire a
+more satisfying verdict on his character.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Agincourt, battle of, 10, 85
+  Aldenham, Herts, church of, 16, 44
+  Alianore, Queen, manors of, 85
+  Almonry, clerks of the, 71
+  Anagni, 37, 39
+  Anne of Bohemia, wife of Richard II., 58, 78
+  Armour, an Abbot's, 53
+  Arundel, Earl of, 68
+  Arundel, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, 81 f.
+  Atte Belle, Richard, highwayman, 45
+  Avignon, 32 f., 35 f., 39
+
+
+  Beaufort, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, 78 f.
+  Benedictines, general chapters of, 19, 22, 69, 80, 82, 86
+  Berkhamstead, 66
+  Birlingham, manor of, 68
+  Bohun, Eleanor de, Duchess of Gloucester, 57
+  Borewell, John, Archdeacon, 73, 77 f.
+  Briefs, funeral, 51
+  Bruges, 32 n., 34 f., 40
+  Burgh, John, monk, 53
+
+
+  Calais, 34, 40, 67
+  Cambridge, 17
+  Cambridge, Earl of, 26
+  Canterbery, John, monk, 51 n., 53
+  Chamberlain, duties and accounts of, 41 f.
+  Chambers, or camerae, monks', 47-50
+  Chapter House, 30
+  Charing Cross, 47 f., 56
+  Clehungre, William, monk, 28
+  Clergy, Array and Munitioning of the, 83
+  Cloisters, Little, 48
+  Colchester, 15, 16, 65;
+    Priory of St. Botolph at, 15 f.;
+    parish of St. Nicholas, 15;
+    castle of, 16
+  Colchester, John, 65
+  Colchester, Thomas, 65
+  Colchester, William [de], Abbot, portrait in Nave window, 11, 58;
+    in Shakespeare's _Richard II._, 14;
+    native of St. Nicholas' parish, Colchester, 15 f.;
+    parents and relations, 17, 65;
+    First Mass, 18;
+    probable date of birth, 19;
+    at Oxford, 19 f.;
+    promoted in Refectory, 20;
+    at general chapter, Northampton, 22;
+    Abbot's Seneschal, 24 ff.;
+    Convent Treasurer, 27;
+    proctor at Rome, 30 ff., 41 ff.;
+    attempts to secure Priorship for, 42;
+    Archdeacon, 43 ff.;
+    his sheep, 46;
+    his pension, 47;
+    election as Abbot, 54 ff.;
+    installation, 56;
+    details of his establishment, 60 ff.;
+    orders prayers in war-time, 70 f.;
+    ordinance for payment to obedientiaries, 71;
+    supporter of Richard II., imprisoned by Henry IV., 76;
+    letter from Cologne, 77-79;
+    at coronation of Henry V., 81;
+    at Council of Constance, 82 f.;
+    chariot provided by, 83;
+    death of, 85;
+    tomb of, 86;
+    character of, 87 f.
+  Cologne, 77-79
+  Compromission, election by, 55
+  Constance, Council of, 82 f.
+  Coumbe, Peter, monk, 59, 63, 71, 77 f.
+  Covent Garden, 47 f.
+  Cretton, or Kyrton, Roger, monk, 47, 76
+
+
+  Dauphine, 35
+  Deerhurst, Prior of, 63
+  Denham, manor of, 61, 66, 68, 71
+  Despenser, Baroness, 64
+  Despenser, Henry, Bishop of Norwich, 68
+  Domesday chartulary, 48
+  Durham, Hatfield, Bishop of, 26
+
+
+  Edmund the King, St., 58
+  Edward, Black Prince, 26 f.
+  Edward the Confessor, St., 22, 56 f.;
+    chapel of, 74;
+    ring of, 53
+  Edward III., 24, 26, 34
+  Excestr', Richard, Prior, 26, 42, 49-51
+  Exchequer, Remembrancer of the, 67
+  Exennia, given to monks, 18, 21;
+    to Abbots, 62 ff.
+  Eybury, manor of, 61
+  Eynsham, Abbot of, 68
+
+
+  Farnago, John, monk, 36
+  _Flacones_, or pancakes, 27 ff.
+
+
+  Gloucester Hall, Oxford, 19
+  Gregory XI., Pope, 32, 37 f.
+  Gregory XII., Pope, 79
+
+
+  Halle, William, monk, 42
+  Harwden, Richard, monk, 81;
+    Abbot, 86 f.
+  Hatfield, Thomas, Bishop of Durham, 26
+  Hawle, Robert, 39
+  Henry III., 11 f., 48, 58 f.
+  Henry IV., 14 f., 66, 76, 80, 87
+  Henry V., 10, 80-84, 87
+  Horsell, Surrey, 79
+  Hotspur, Harry, 24
+  Hurley, Berks., Priory of, 17, 62 f., 88
+
+
+  Infirmarer, 78 n.
+  Infirmary, chambers in the, 48
+  Islip, manor of, 62
+
+
+  James, Dr. M. R., Provost of King's, 47 n., 50, 52 n.
+  Jerusalem Chamber, 52, 80
+
+
+  Kelvin, Lord, 9 f.
+  Kirton, Edmund, Abbot, 87
+  Kitchener or _Coquinarius_, 28, 78
+
+
+  Lakyngheth, John, monk, 35, 54
+  Laleham, manor of, 62, 66
+  Langham, Simon, Abbot and Cardinal, 19, 32, 36, 38, 63
+  Langley, Edmund, Earl of Cambridge, 26
+  Lethaby, Prof. W. R., 12
+  _Liber Niger Quaternus_, 39 n., 47, 53, 73, 76
+  Litlington, Nicholas, Abbot, 19, 24-27, 44 f., 48, 51 n., 52-54
+  London, Tower of, 39, 76
+
+
+  Malvern, Prior of, 63
+  March, Philippa, Countess of, 23 f.
+  Marseilles, 36, 39
+  Mary, the Virgin, girdle of St., 22 f.
+  Merke, or Merks, Thomas, Bishop of Carlisle, 14, 66, 79, 87 f.
+  Merton Hall, Oxford, 88
+  Monk-Bailiff, 16
+  Musicians, Abbot Colchester's favour to, 67 f.
+
+
+  Nave, the New Work in, 58 f., 63, 80 f., 84
+  Neyte, la, mansion of, 52, 62, 64, 66
+  Northampton, 22, 69, 80, 86
+
+
+  Organs at Westminster, 68
+  Oxford, Benedictine students at, 19, 26;
+    "Gaudies" at, 66;
+    Merton Hall, 88
+
+
+  Pampeluna, Cardinal of, 38
+  Pancakes, monks', 27 ff.
+  Percyvale, Master, King's musician, 68
+  Pershore, 63
+  Pestilence, Great, 19
+  Peuerel, Thomas, monk, 85
+  Poets' Corner, 11 f.
+  Polo, Marco, Book of, 50
+  _Polychronicon_, 55 n., 56
+  Pyrford, manor of, 62, 66, 68, 79
+
+
+  Rackham, Rev. R. B., 81 n., 84 n.
+  Reigate, 76
+  Repingdon, Philip, Bishop of Lincoln, 79
+  Richard II., 12, 14, 28, 53-58, 66, 68, 70, 74-76, 87
+  Robinson, Dr. J. Armitage, Dean of Wells, 10, 32 n., 52 n.,
+     53 n., 54, 72, 83
+  Rome, 31, 33, 37-43, 80, 88
+  Romescot, collection of, 79
+  Rouen, capture of, 85
+
+
+  Sacrist, 23, 63, 71
+  St. Edmundsbury, Abbot of, 82
+  St. John Baptist, chapel of, 86
+  St. Margaret, Westminster, parish of, 71
+  St. Peter ad Vincula, feast of, 68
+  St. Stephen's, Westminster, Dean and Canons of, 30 ff., 43
+  Salisbury, William de Montacute, Earl of, 44 f.
+  Sanctuary, 39, 45
+  Sandon, John, monk, 65, 67
+  Scott, Dr. E., Keeper of Muniments, 13
+  Selby, Ralph, Archdeacon of Buckingham, monk, 75
+  Seneschal, or steward, the Abbot's, 22, 24, 45 n., 60 ff.
+  Sergeaunt, John, _Annals of Westminster School_, 29
+  Skilla, or Refectory bell, 21
+  Southam, Thomas, Archdeacon of Oxford, 32, 35, 39 f., 63
+  Staines, manor of, 66
+  Stanley, Dr. A. P., Dean of Westminster, 11 n.
+  Steventon, Berks., 58
+  Stowe, John, monk, 63, 67
+  Sutton, Gloucs., 62
+
+
+  Tivoli, 39
+
+
+  Urban VI., Pope, 38 f.
+
+
+  Waltham, Abbot of, 74
+  Waltham, John de, Bishop of Salisbury, 74-76
+  Ware, 66
+  Ware, Richard de, Abbot, 22, 44
+  Warwick, Earl of, 26
+  Westminster Abbey, memorial windows, 10;
+    Muniment room, 11, 13;
+    Poets' Corner, 11 f.;
+    Abbot's rent-roll, 24, 60;
+    pancakes at, 27 ff.;
+    Monk-Bailiff, 16; Treasurer, 19 f.;
+    Refectory, 21;
+    Abbot's Seneschal, 22, 24 ff., 45 n.;
+    Sacrist, 23;
+    Kitchener, 27 f.;
+    Chapter House, 30;
+    suit against St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, 31 ff.;
+    enriched by Langham's will, 36;
+    murder in the choir of, 39;
+    Archdeacon of, 43 ff.;
+    Lady Chapel, 47;
+    Convent Garden, 47 f.;
+    royal gifts to, 57 f.;
+    New Work in Nave, 58 f., 63, 80 f., 84;
+    prayers in war-time at, 70 f.;
+    Confessor's Chapel, 74 f.;
+    Henry IV.'s death at, 80;
+    Henry V.'s chantry, 81
+  Westminster Abbey, Almonry, clerks of, 71
+  Westminster Abbey, _Customary_ of, 18, 22 f., 44
+  Westminster Abbey, Monks of, how named, 15;
+    how admitted, 17 f.;
+    exennia given to, 18;
+    Great Pestilence among, 19;
+    at Oxford, 19 f.;
+    clothing of, 41 f.;
+    chambers or camerae for, 47-50;
+    funerals of, 51;
+    in armour, 53;
+    chariot provided by, 83.
+  Westminster Abbey, parish of St. Margaret, 71
+  Westminster Abbey, Sanctuary at, 39, 45
+  Westminster School, "greese" at, 29
+  Whittington, Richard, 81
+  Windsor Castle, 64, 66
+  Windsor Castle, St. George's Chapel in, 31, 74
+  Woodstock, Thomas of, Duke of Gloucester, 57, 68
+  Worcester, Prior of, 82
+  Wratting, John de, Prior, 43 n., 70
+  Wykeham, William of, 27, 68
+  Wylie, Dr. J. H., 79 n., 81 n., 82
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+
+
+[Footnote 1: "Such were the Abbots of Westminster," says Dean
+Stanley (_Memorials_, 3rd ed., p. 394), after recording the
+little that he knew of them, adding that, "if from the Abbots
+we descend to the Monks their names are still more obscure."]
+
+[Footnote 2: Act iv. sc. 1, ll. 332-3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Act v. sc. 6, ll. 19-21.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Mun._ 5259.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Mun._ 5260, A.]
+
+[Footnote 6: The reader who wishes to know what parts of this ancient and
+interesting church were known to Abbot Colchester may be referred to the
+details and the plan given in the Herts. volume of the Royal Commission
+on Historical Monuments, 1911, p. 31 f.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Mun._ 3571; October 5, 1411.]
+
+[Footnote 8: _Customary of Canterbury and Westminster_, H.B.S. i. 261,
+404.]
+
+[Footnote 9: This custom will be treated in greater detail in the
+introduction to a Register of the Westminster Benedictines, which will
+be issued shortly.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Reyner, _de Antiq. Benedict. in Anglia_, App., p. 55.]
+
+[Footnote 11: This sum is roughly equivalent to that which an economical
+undergraduate spends at the present time.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Cf. _Flete_, ed. J. Armitage Robinson, p. 70.]
+
+[Footnote 13: The inventories of the Monasteries imply that the blessed
+Virgin was industrious with her needle.]
+
+[Footnote 14: _Customary_, ii. 49: Idem vero secretarius zonam beatae Dei
+genetricis, ubicumque destinetur, sumptibus suis portare vel, si per alios
+portatur, expensas eis exhibere tenetur, cum vectura, si forte indigeat.]
+
+[Footnote 15: Thomas Hatfield, Bishop of Durham, 1345-81.]
+
+[Footnote 16: _Mun._ 27968.]
+
+[Footnote 17: John Sergeaunt, _Annals of Westminster School_, pp. 57,
+130.]
+
+[Footnote 18: The building is still in the sole care of His Majesty's
+Office of Works.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Cf. J. T. Smith, _Antiquities of Westminster_, 1807, p. 38,
+etc.]
+
+[Footnote 20: J. T. Smith, _Antiquities of Westminster_, 1807, p. 100;
+Widmore, _History of Westminster Abbey_, pp. 103-4.]
+
+[Footnote 21: _Mun._ 9256, C, D.]
+
+[Footnote 22: The manuscript actually says July; but what follows shows
+this to be an error; _e.g._ he was at Bruges for the two feasts of June
+24 and June 29.]
+
+[Footnote 23: Cf. J. Armitage Robinson, _Simon Langham, Ch. Quart. Rev._,
+July, 1908, p. 358.]
+
+[Footnote 24: Cf. L. Pastor, _Geschichte der Paepste_, i. p. 109.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Non potuit reperire societatem versus Auinionem.]
+
+[Footnote 26: Propter diuersitatem lingue et viarum discrimina in
+partibus transmarinis.]
+
+[Footnote 27: Prout modus est patrie.]
+
+[Footnote 28: Infirmabatur per viam quasi ad mortem.]
+
+[Footnote 29: _Mun._ 9228.]
+
+[Footnote 30: Widmore, p. 191; _Mun._ 9225.]
+
+[Footnote 31: Pastor, _Gesch. d. P._ i. p. 113.]
+
+[Footnote 32: See the account in Pastor, _Gesch. d. P._; and Creighton,
+_Hist. of the Papacy_, i. 61 ff.]
+
+[Footnote 33: Creighton, _ibid._, p. 67.]
+
+[Footnote 34: Cf. _Lib. Nig. Quat._ f. 88b, 89; J. C. Cox, _Sanctuaries_,
+p. 51 f.; G. M. Trevelyan, _England in the Age of Wycliffe_, p. 87.]
+
+[Footnote 35: Quod non erat ausus transire per Calis' propter metum
+aduersariorum.]
+
+[Footnote 36: _Mun._ 9503.]
+
+[Footnote 37: Viz. John de Wratting, Colchester's senior by about
+eighteen years.]
+
+[Footnote 38: Cf. _Mun._ 18478, D.]
+
+[Footnote 39: _Customary_, ii. 95.]
+
+[Footnote 40: _Mun._ 5260, A.; December 3, 1407.]
+
+[Footnote 41: _Mun._ 9615.]
+
+[Footnote 42: On the other hand, Colchester may have come into the
+affair either as Abbot's Seneschal or as Convent Treasurer.]
+
+[Footnote 43: _Mun._ 5984.]
+
+[Footnote 44: Indentura Willelmi Colchester de ouibus suis ad firmam
+dimissis.]
+
+[Footnote 45: Cf. Robinson and James, _Manuscripts of Westminster Abbey_,
+p. 96 f.]
+
+[Footnote 46: F. 507-69.]
+
+[Footnote 47: _Mun._ 6603.]
+
+[Footnote 48: Tabularium cum familia.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Debiles.]
+
+[Footnote 50: Cf. Col. H. Yule, _Marco Polo_, vol. i., Introd., Secs. 75-8.]
+
+[Footnote 51: There are corresponding records in the cases of Abbot
+Litlington (_ob._ 1386), _Mun._ 5446, and of John Canterbery (_ob._
+1400), _Mun._ 18883.]
+
+[Footnote 52: In manerio de la Neyte, hora prandendi (_Lib. Nig. Quat._
+f. 86).]
+
+[Footnote 53: Cf. J. Armitage Robinson, _The Abbot's House at Westminster_,
+chap. ii., and Robinson and James, _Manuscripts of Westminster Abbey_,
+pp. 7 ff.]
+
+[Footnote 54: See an article by the Dean of Wells on the Array of the
+Clergy in July, 1415 (_Nineteenth Century and After_, July, 1915, p. 86).]
+
+[Footnote 55: _Mun._ 5446.]
+
+[Footnote 56: Cf. J. Armitage Robinson, _An Unrecognised Westminster
+Chronicler_, pp. 16, 22.]
+
+[Footnote 57: _Lib. Nig. Quat._ f. 86, says December 10, 1386; but the
+Westminster chronicler in the _Polychronicon_ (see J. Armitage Robinson,
+_op. cit._, pp. 9, 22) says December 21. It is suggested that the
+difference of eleven days represents the period during which the King
+was supporting the cause of Lakyngheth.]
+
+[Footnote 58: _Mun._ 5431.]
+
+[Footnote 59: Volens sicut alias cassare electionem et electo postea
+providere; Higden, _Polychronicon_, ix. pp. 98, 102; Robinson, _op. cit._,
+pp. 9, 23.]
+
+[Footnote 60: _Flete_, p. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 61: April 18, 1388, p. 178.]
+
+[Footnote 62: _Mun._ 9474.]
+
+[Footnote 63: For the graves of the Duke and his wife, see E. T. Murray
+Smith, _Roll Call of W.A._, p. 51 f.]
+
+[Footnote 64: _Mun._ 5257.]
+
+[Footnote 65: _Mun._ 7579.]
+
+[Footnote 66: _Mun._ 5922.]
+
+[Footnote 67: R. B. Rackham, _Nave of Westminster_, pp. 8-12.]
+
+[Footnote 68: _Mun._ 6165.]
+
+[Footnote 69: De consanguinitate domini, ut dicunt.]
+
+[Footnote 70: Anulus de auro com diamandys.]
+
+[Footnote 71: Interlusores.]
+
+[Footnote 72: _Mun._ 6221.]
+
+[Footnote 73: His record will be given in the Register referred to on
+p. 18, note.]
+
+[Footnote 74: _Mun._ 9500.]
+
+[Footnote 75: Ex noua ordinacione domini Willelmi nunc Abbatis. The
+ordinance applied to other obedientiaries.]
+
+[Footnote 76: The Dean of Wells edited in 1908, for use in his chapel,
+a service of Compline derived from a Bodleian manuscript (Rawl. Liturg.
+g 10) which belongs to our Abbot's period.]
+
+[Footnote 77: _Lib. Nig. Quat._, f. 87b: et dominus Rex suscepit eum et
+omnia bona sua in proteccione sua.]
+
+[Footnote 78: _Kal. Pap. Registers_, iii. 456.]
+
+[Footnote 79: Widmore, p. 109; E. T. Murray Smith, _Roll Call_, p. 53.]
+
+[Footnote 80: _Mun._ 5262, A.]
+
+[Footnote 81: Infra regiam sepulturam.]
+
+[Footnote 82: Thomas Merke, Bishop of Carlisle, is mentioned, but not
+Colchester, in the list of those summoned to attend the King. Rymer,
+_Foedera_.]
+
+[Footnote 83: J. H. Wylie, _Henry IV._, vol. i. pp. 91, 92, 108.]
+
+[Footnote 84: _Ibid._, p. 44.]
+
+[Footnote 85: Lib. Nig. Quat., f. 86b:--
+
+    Anno Domini millesimo ccc xcix^o et regni regis Ricardi
+    secundi xxiii incipiente. In vigilia Nativitatis sancti Johannis
+    Baptiste venit Henricus dux Herford versus Angliam Et in vigilia
+    apostolorum petri et pauli venerunt prima noua ad Westm de
+    aduentu ipsius. Et iiii^{to} die Julij applicuit apud Pylevyng.
+
+    In vigilia sancti petri advincula fugit Rex Ricardus secundus a
+    facie ducis Henrici Et postea in vigilia Assumpcionis beate marie
+    captus est et se submisit ordinacioni prelatorum et procerum
+    Anglie.
+
+    In crastino sancti laurentii feria secunda venerunt Londonienses
+    ad Inquirendum Regem Ricardum II^{um}.]
+
+[Footnote 86: _Mun._ 1653.]
+
+[Footnote 87: Infirmarer's account, 1409-10.]
+
+[Footnote 88: Administrator participationis Anne Regine.]
+
+[Footnote 89: _Mun._ 1676.]
+
+[Footnote 90: There is another means of verifying the Abbot's absence
+daring this year. His farm-bailiffs, whose duty was to deliver rents to
+him personally, paid them at this time to the Abbot's Receiver instead.]
+
+[Footnote 91: Widmore, p. 110; J. H. Wylie, _Henry IV._, iii. p. 349;
+Creighton, _Hist. of the Papacy_, i. p. 218.]
+
+[Footnote 92: Wylie, _op. cit._, p. 348.]
+
+[Footnote 93: _Lib. Nig. Quat._ f. 90.]
+
+[Footnote 94: About Mid-Lent; J. H. Wylie, _Henry IV._, iv. p. 103.]
+
+[Footnote 95: Sir W. H. St. John Hope, _Funeral, Monument, and Chantry
+Chapel of Henry V._, p. 173.]
+
+[Footnote 96: Cf. J. H. _Wylie, Henry V._, p. 203.]
+
+[Footnote 97: The details are given in R. B. Rackham, _Nave of
+Westminster_, pp. 13-17.]
+
+[Footnote 98: Rymer, _Foedera_.]
+
+[Footnote 99: J. H. Wylie, _The Council of Constance_, p. 80.]
+
+[Footnote 100: _Mun._ 12395, 12397.]
+
+[Footnote 101: Cf. J. Armitage Robinson, _Array of the Clergy, Nineteenth
+Century and After_, July, 1915, p. 87.]
+
+[Footnote 102: Abbot's Receiver's roll, 1416-7.]
+
+[Footnote 103: Rackham, _Nave_, p. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 104: Et dat' seruienti principalis Baronis portanti noua de
+captione ciuitatis Rothemagensis (Abbot's Receiver's roll, 1417-8).]
+
+[Footnote 105: _Mun._ 5440.]
+
+[Footnote 106: Neale and Brayley, _Westminster Abbey_, ii. p. 184.]
+
+[Footnote 107: _Mun._ 12397.]
+
+[Footnote 108: _Mun._ 3571; _see_ above, p. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 109: _Mun._ 9240. Vident etenim vestram soliditatem, que rara
+virtus est modernis diebus, et illo specialius in vobis confidunt.]
+
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+    By the Very Rev. H. D. M. SPENCE-JONES, M.A., D.D., Dean of
+    Gloucester. Demy 8vo. With map, cloth boards. 4_s._ net.
+
+=Illustrated Notes on English Church History.=
+
+    Vol. I. From the Earliest Times to the Dawn of the
+    Reformation. Vol. II. The Reformation and Modern Church Work. By
+    the late Rev. C. A. LANE. Crown 8vo, cloth boards. 1_s._ net each.
+    In one volume, 2_s._ net.
+
+=Lessons from Early English Church History.=
+
+    By the Right Rev. G. F. BROWNE, D.D., D.C.L. Small post 8vo, cloth
+    boards. 1_s._ 6_d._ net.
+
+=Some Notes of the Church of England.=
+
+    For popular use. By the Rev. H. J. CLAYTON, Special lecturer to the
+    Central Church Committee. Numerous illustrations. Small post 8vo,
+    cloth, 1_s._
+
+=Story of the Church of England, A.=
+
+    By Mrs. C. D. FRANCIS. Post 8vo, illustrated, cloth boards. 1_s._
+    6_d._ net.
+
+=Turning Points of English Church History.=
+
+    By the late Rev. E. L. CUTTS, D.D. Post 8vo, cloth boards. 3_s._
+    6_d._ net.
+
+=Turning Points of General Church History.=
+
+    By the late Rev. E. L. CUTTS, D.D. Crown 8vo, cloth boards. 3_s._
+    6_d._ net.
+
+=Whitgift and His Times, Archbishop.=
+
+    By the Rev. H. J. CLAYTON. Small post 8vo, illustrated, cloth
+    boards. 2_s._ 6_d._ net.
+
+
+NOTES ON THE CATHEDRALS.
+
+
+  Introduction.        Lichfield.           Southwell.
+  Bangor.              Lincoln.             St. Albans.
+  Bath Abbey.          Liverpool.           St. Asaph.
+  Bristol.             Llandaff.            St. David's.
+  Canterbury.          Manchester.          St. Paul's.
+  Carlisle.            Newcastle.           Truro.
+  Chester.             Norwich.             Wakefield.
+  Chichester.          Oxford.              Wells.
+  Durham.              Peterborough.        Winchester.
+  Ely.                 Ripon.               Worcester.
+  Exeter.              Rochester.           York.
+  Gloucester.          Salisbury.
+  Hereford.            Sodor and Man.
+
+
+Each 1_d._ net. In five volumes, paste grain roan, each 2_s._ net. The
+five volumes in a case, 10_s._ net.
+
+_Bound in geographical arrangement as follows:_--
+
+    SOUTHERN SECTION:--Introduction, Canterbury, Rochester, Chichester,
+    Winchester, St. Paul's, Salisbury.
+
+    NORTHERN SECTION:--York, Newcastle, Durham, Ripon, Lincoln, Carlisle,
+    Liverpool, Sodor and Man, Wakefield.
+
+    MIDLAND and EASTERN SECTION:--Oxford, Lichfield, Southwell, Peterboro',
+    Norwich, Ely, St Alban's.
+
+    WESTERN SECTION:--Bath, Truro, Exeter, Gloucester, Wells, Bristol,
+    Worcester.
+
+    WELSH and N.-WEST SECTION:--St. David's, Llandaff, St. Asaph, Bangor,
+    Hereford, Chester, Manchester.
+
+
+=Notes on the Abbey Churches.=
+
+    Westminster Abbey. Parts I. and II. Each 1_d._ net.
+
+
+PORTFOLIO OF ENGLISH CATHEDRALS.
+
+    With Historical and Architectural Notes by ARNOLD FAIRBAIRN.
+
+
+  Bangor and St. Asaph.   Hereford.                 Salisbury.
+  Birmingham.             Lichfield.                Southwark.
+  Bristol.                Lincoln.                  Southwell.
+  Canterbury.             Llandaff & St. David's.   St. Albans.
+  Carlisle and Sodor      Manchester                St. Paul's
+    and Man.                & Liverpool.              Cathedral.
+  Chester.                Newcastle-on-Tyne.        Truro.
+  Chichester.             Norwich.                  Wakefield.
+  Durham.                 Oxford.                   Wells.
+  Ely.                    Peterborough.             Winchester.
+  Exeter.                 Ripon.                    Worcester.
+  Gloucester.             Rochester.                York.
+
+
+Paper wrappers, each 1_s._ net.
+
+In four volumes, cloth boards, each 10_s._ 6_d._ net.
+
+=Westminster Abbey.=
+
+    A portfolio of photo reproductions and Architectural Notes by
+    ARNOLD FAIRBAIRN. 1_s._ net.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
+  London: Northumberland Avenue, W.C.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+This author sometimes uses the old-style "u" form for "v" in Latin
+transcriptions, _e.g._ "noua" for "nova."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's William de Colchester, by Ernest Harold Pearce
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