In a Catalogue of the Priors and members of religious houses, summoned to Parliament and Great Councils of England, inserted in Steven's Monat. Angl. vol. ii. p. 15, app. I find that the Priors of Lewes were summoned in the years 1265, 1307, 1308, 1310, 1311, 1312, 1313, 1314, 1315, 1317, 1318, 1319, 1320, 1322, 1323, 1324, 1325, 1328, 1330, 1331, 1332, 1333, 1334, 1335, 1336, 1337, 1338, 1339, 1340, 1341, 1342, 1343, 1344, 1345, 1346, 1347, 1348, 1349, 1350, 1351, 1353, 1362, 1364. It is remarkable that during the long period of four centuries and a half, from the foundation to the dissolution of the priory, there should have been no one amongst the monks or priors of this establishment who distinguished himself by nominated to this office by the pope, 1330, but Peter de Joceux, heir to John de Warren, was preferred before him.-4 Rymer, 376. It was in the priorship of John de Cariloco that the inmates of the monastery were alarmed by the landing of the French at Rottingdean, about six miles from Lewes. The prior exchanged his cowl for a helmet, and his beads for a sword, and together with Sir John Falsley, Sir Thomas Cheney, and other gentlemen, with their assembled vassals, advanced to repel the invaders. The prior with the two knights fell into the hands of the enemy, and about a hundred of their followers perished. 10 That John Ok was prior of Lewes at this time, may be seen by a reference to the Registerbook of Lewes Priory, where, at the back of p. 34, is a charter of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, made at the request of John Ok, prior of Lewes, and the convent there, in the castle of Lewes, 2d of November, 21 Rich. 11. "In the church of Cowfold in the neighbourhood of West Grinstead, there is a grave-stone, in the nave, on which is a remarkable brass, (see Pl. XIV.) engraved with various figures, and an inscription round its edge, in which is the same appropriation of the characters of Martha and Mary to designate the benevolence and piety for which the deceased was distinguished. What remains of the inscription, which is on a ribband on the external rim, in Gothic capitals, is as follows: shoulders, [breast] bearing each one of the inscriptions following: 1. Mater sancta Thu me serves mortis ab Esu. 2. Mater sancta Dei duc ad loca me requiei. 3. Sit sancti Thome suscepta precatio pro me. Over the head of this figure is a small arch, in the centre of which sits the virgin with the infant Jesus on her lap,and an ornament on her head somewhat resembling a coronet, from which Sir W. Burrell was led to imagine that this female might have been intended for Gundreda, wife of William the first Earl of Warren, and daughter to the Conqueror, who, in conjunction with her husband, founded Lewes Priory. He further supposed that the earl himself might be signified by the figure on her right, of St. Pancras, the patron saint of that monastic establishment, who here stands upon a pinnacle with a palm branch in his right hand, a book in his left, and treading on a warrior with his drawn sword. Another pinnacle on the left supports a bishop in his appropriate habiliments, his right hand extended as though he was in the act of exhortation, and his left hand holding a crosier. A label over his head, with the words Ss. THOS CANT. denotes that this figure is meant for the celebrated Becket, canonized for his presumed martyrdom at Canterbury. An escutcheon once placed over him to correspond with the one on the dexter side over St. Pancras is lost. The latter, which is in the form of a cross, has an inscription significative of the Trinity." 12 See Tanner's Notitia, art. Lewes. "Hic Terre Cumulus Thoma Nelond tegit ossa. 13 At a last holden at Westham, October 3d, Est et ei Tumulus præsens sub marmore fossa. Vir-24 Hen. VIII., for the purpose of preventing untutum donis hic clarvit et rationis exemplis que authorized persons bonis "from setting nettes, pottes, decus avxit religionis. Mundo Martha fuit sed Christo mente Maria. In Mundo vigvit sed erat sibi cella Sophia. In Maii Mensis quarto decimoque Sedes migravit ha Kalendis ad celi * bendas The following description of the brass is given in the excellent and beautifully executed little work, recently published, entitled, Excursions in the County of Sussex. It is, with a little alteration, borrowed from the description given of this tomb in the Beauties of England and Wales. "The principal figure is that of a person in ecclesiastical costume under a gothic arch, his hands clasped in prayer, having three labels issuing from his or innyances," or any wise taking fish within the privileges of the marsh of Pevensey, the king's commission was dated to John, prior of Lewes, Richard, abbot of Begham, John, prior of Mychillym, Thomas, lord Dacre, and others. Robert Crowham, therefore, though generally said to have held the priorship from 1526 to 1537, could not have been in office at that time. his tale of the Wisemen of Gotham, upon the Dr. Borde (the original Merry Andrew), founds proceedings of this meeting,-Gotham being the property of Lord Dacre, and near his residence. tained the prebendary of Langford, in the church "He was the last prior, and afterwards obof Lincoln.-Willis, vol. ii. p. 237. any species of literary production. Richly endowed as the monastery evidently was, and holding the highest station on the list of Cluniac houses in England, we might reasonably have expected that the many leisure hours of some one or more of the inmates would have been devoted to literary pursuits. But this seems not to have been the case, or if it were, their productions have been lost in the obscurity of time. The only literary performance that has come down to us, if we except the latin epitaphs in which they endeavoured to emblazon the fame of some of their noble patrons, is a work preserved in the Cotton library of the British Museum, which has been before quoted. The high estimation in which this monastic establishment was held, is apparent from the circumstance that it was the spot chosen by numerous noble individuals as the repository of their ashes. It might naturally have been expected that the founders of the stately pile would wish to have their remains deposited in the edifice which they had reared for the "good of their souls," and as an atonement for their transgressions. The same superstitious feelings which prompted them to raise a monastery to God, would urge them to secure a portion of the consecrated soil for the reception of their own bodies. But I know not how to account for other wealthy and noble individuals, unconnected with the establishment, soliciting interment within its walls, except by admitting that the piety of the monks, or the celebrity of the place, attracted the notice of the great ones of the earth, and prompted them to wish for an asylum within its hallowed walls as the most effectual means of securing a safe passport into heaven. LIST OF DISTINGUISHED PERSONS BURIED IN THE PRIORY. 1088 WILLIAM DE WARREN, the first Earl of Warren and Surrey, and founder of the monastery, was buried in the chapter-house, in a tomb adjoining that in which his Countess Gundred was laid. The earl died on the 11th of the Kalends of July, in the year 1088, in the 11th year of the foundation of the priory, and the 23d year from the conquest. A marble monument was erected over him, bearing an inscription; for which see page 118. 1085 GUNDREDA, wife of William de Warren, first Earl of Surrey, was interred in the chapter-house. For a copy of the inscription on her tombstone, &c. see p. 117. 1131 ISABELLA, Countess of Warren, wife of William the second earl, died on the Ides of March, and was buried in the chapter-house. 1138 WILLIAM, second Earl of Warren and Surrey, died May 11, in the 50th year of his earldom, and was buried in the chapter-house, at the feet of his father. 1155 RALPH DE PLAIZ'. Hugh de Plaiz his son, gave to the monks of Lewes, his windmill at Iford, for the health of his own soul, and the soul of his father, qui jacet de Capello de Lewes. 1179 ROGER EARL OF CLARE, who married Rawisia de Gurwaiz. A short time before his death he gave to the Priory of Lewes, the church of Bletchingly. 1188 SIR WILLIAM SYDNEY. 1199 ISABELLA, Countess of Warren, wife of Hameline the fifth Earl of Warren and Surrey, died on the 13th of July, and was buried in the chapter-house. 1202 HAMELINE PLANTAGENET, the fifth Earl of Warren and Surrey, obiit. 12th of May, and was buried in the chapter-house, near his countess Isabella. There is a confirmatory charter at p. 24 of | Yford, Toftes, and Syreford, which Ralph de the Lewes Priory Register, of the churches of Plaiz, had given to the monks of St. Pancras. .1215 MATILDA, the daughter of William de Albini, Earl of Arundel, was the first wife of William the sixth Earl of Warren and Surrey. She died on the 6th of February, and was buried in the chapter-house. 1236 MATILDA, his second countess, was daughter of William Mareschal, Earl of Pembroke, and widow of Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk. She died March 31. The Register Book of the Priory, professes not to know where she was buried, but tells us that her heart was deposited before the high altar at Lewes. 1239 EARL WILLIAM followed his two countesses to the grave on the 5th of the Kalends of June, 1239, says the Register-book of the Priory (p. 134), but Matthew Paris, Leland, and Dugdale, say in 1240. He died in London, and was buried in the choir of the Abbey of Lewes, in medio pavimenti coram summo altari. 1239 ROGER SYDNEY, Esq. 1286 WILLIAM DE WARREN, son of John seventh Earl of Surrey, lost his life at a tournament, at Croydon, in Surrey, December 15, and was buried "before the high altar, in the Abbey of Lewes." Dugdale's Bar. vol. 1, p. 80. 1290 ALICE, daughter of Hugh le Brun, Countess of Warren, and consort of John the seventh earl, is said by Matthew Paris to have died in 1256, but the Register of Lewes fixes her death in 1290'. She was buried in the Priory of Lewes, before the high altar, under a marble monument whereon was sculptured a dragon, (or what the heralds call a wivern), with a branch in its mouth, the crest of the Warrens. 1293 JOAN, daughter of Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and wife of William de Warren, whose untimely death is above mentioned, died the 11th of the Kalends of December, and was buried near her husband, under a raised tomb'. 1304 JOHN, the seventh Earl of Warren and Surrey, died at Kennington, near London, upon the 5th of the Kalends of October, and was buried in the midst of the pavement, before the high altar of Lewes Priory. 1341 EDWARD ST. JOHN, Knight, was buried in the chapel of St. Martin, in the monastery. 1347 JOHN DE WARREN, the last earl, died June 20th, and was buried under a raised tomb, near the high altar, in the abbey church of Lewes. 1372 ELEANOR DE LANCASTER, wife of Richard Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, and daughter of Henry Earl of Lancaster, died the 11th of January, the third year before her husband, and was buried in the chapter-house. 1375 RICHARD FITZ-ALAN, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, by will bearing date 5th of December, 1274, bequeathed his body to be buried in the chapter-house of the Priory of Lewes, near to the tomb of Eleanor, his wife; at the same time appointing that his funeral should be solemnized without any men at arms, horses, hearse, or other pomp; he also requested to have but five torches with their morters, and no more than five hundred marks to be expended thereon. He further left two hundred pounds "for the purchase of lands and rents for the monks of Lewes, or else one or two churches to be appropriated to that monastery, for the maintenance of two monks, to celebrate two masses perpetually every day, for the souls of his father and mother, his wife, with their children and successors, and all christian people, in the chapel of St. Thomas, the Martyr, in that house; or else in the chapel of our Lady, on the north side of the great church: the one mass of our lady, the other of the Holy Ghost." He died on the 9th of the Kalends of February, in the year 1775, and was buried according to his wish in the chapter-house, near his second wife Eleanor. Dug. Bar. i. 318. 1385 ELIZABETH, daughter of William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton, and wife of the unfortunate Richard Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, who was beheaded in 1397, was buried before the high altar, in the southern pew3. 1385 JOHANNA, wife of Edward St. John, was buried near her husband. 1392 SIR JOHN FALVEsley. He was Lord of Falvesley, in the County of Northampton, and served in Flanders and Spain. By his will, bearing date 8th September, 1392, he bequeathed his body to be buried on the left hand of the image of St. Pancras, in the Priory of Lewes. He died probably the same year*. "Jacet prope virum suum in tumbâ eminentiori," Ibid, p. 135. "Domina Alesia Comitissa Surregie, soror | ducentis ramum ex ore suo." Reg. de. Lewes, uterina Henrici tertii, Regis Anglie, uxor Johannis p. 135. primi obiit v Idus Februar. anno grat. Millimo cclxxxx et anno xiv. ante virum suum. Jacet coram magno altari Lewen. sub una petra marmorea et sculpta in modum unius draconis pro 3 Burrell's MSS. Brit. Mus. 4 Dug. Bar. vol. ii. p. 173. 1397 RICHARD FITZ-ALAN, son of the above mentioned Earl of Arundel, by his will dated 1382, bequeathed his body to be buried in the Priory of Lewes, behind the high altar, in a place which he had pointed out to John Cariloco, the then prior, and to Thomas Ashbourne, his confessor. On his attainder his will was disregarded, and his remains were interred in the Church of the Augustine Friars, in London, on the 11th of the Kalends of October. The tomb which had probably been erected some years before his death, by the earl, in the Priory of Lewes, long continued there, and on the restoration of the family to its privileges and honours, this cenotaph recorded his virtues. 1492 SIR GEORGE NEVILLE, Lord Abergavenny, died on the 20th of September, in this year. By his will bearing date the 1st of July, in the year preceding he "bequeathed his body to sepulture in the monastery of St. Pancras, called the Priory of Lewes, on the south side of the altar, where he had lately erected his tomb." He also appointed that twenty-four poor men cloathed in black, should carry torches burning at his exequies, and that masses should then be performed for the repose of his soul; for which services, each of them was to receive eight pence in money. He bequeathed two hundred marks to the prior of Lewes, to cause daily mass to be sung at the altar, near the place of his burial, and to observe the anniversary of his death'. Of the many splendid monuments that were raised in the chapter-house and great church of the priory, to record the virtues, and perpetuate the fame of the distinguished individuals whose ashes mouldered within the stately pile, scarcely a relic remains to gratify the curiosity of the antiquary, or to rouse the feelings of the moralist, if we except the sculptured marble that graced the tomb of the Conqueror's daughter. The unhallowed hand of avarice began the work of spoliation, and religious fanaticism completed it. Time might yet have spared to us these memorials of greatness, but the spirit of plunder and of bigotry, far more powerful in destruction than time, pillaged and laid waste even the sanctuaries of the dead. So complete has been the work of destruction, that not only is there no remaining relic of these once superb monuments, but even the scite upon which they stood is doubtful. The unconscious stranger treads upon the ashes of nobility, yet searches in vain for a memorial of the magnificence which once overshadowed them. Such is human greatness! and such the immortality that marble monuments and brazen tablets can give! The power and importance to which the Priory of St. Pancras could once lay claim, would best be seen by a detail of the vast possessions which it held in this, and the neighbouring counties. To give, however, a correct sketch of them, is, at this distance of time, impossible; and even if it were not so, it 1 Collin's Peerage, vol. v. p. 4. "After the reformation began, in the time of King Edward VI., which abolished indulgences, prayers for the dead, and many of those devices, then called Pie Fraudes, which had been used in the church; whereby the temporal profit of the layman was thought to be not a little impaired, they fell to work again under the specious pretence of taking away those things out of their places, as were then thought unnecessary and su perstitious: Whereby such spoil and destruction was made in the cathedrals, collegiate, and parochial churches of the nation, by defacing those monuments of the dead, where any gain was to be had; as that few of them, whereon any portraicture in brass or copper, or epitaphs in such mettle had been engraved, were permitted to remain; but were barbarously torne away, and sold to common brasiers and tinkers." Dug. Bar. pref. vol. i. p. 7. may be doubted whether it would be sufficiently interesting to the reader, to warrant the sacrifice of so much time and space as would be required. After flourishing upwards of four centuries and a half, this costly establishment was doomed to destruction, with the other larger monasteries of the kingdom, by the ruthless Henry VIII. This lawless monarch, whose unblushing hypocrisy is more hateful to remember than even his cupidity and licentiousness, grew rich by the plunder of the religious establishments, and purchased with the wealth that he had basely possessed himself of, and the estates that he had wrested from the monasteries, the services and adulation of his courtiers. Under the cloak of reformation, he destroyed some of the noblest structures of which this kingdom could boast; and his abject parliament, willing to second his every design, however base, confirmed to him and his successors, without regard to the rights of the founders, the possessions of all such religious houses as had been surrendered to him, as well as of such as should be ceded to him in future. Robert Crowham, who was at that time the prior of the Monastery of Lewes, surrendered the establishment to the king on the 16th of November, 29 Henry VIII., as appears by a copy of the instrument of surrender preserved in the British Museum. The prior and convent having thus unanime assensu et consensu given their monastery and possessions into the king's hands, the work of destruction began. Cromwell, the king's vicar-geral, was appointed to see the disgraceful act executed, and his zeal was in all probability heightened by the secret assurance, that he should benefit by the ravages he might make. John Portmarus was dispatched by Cromwell to destroy this venerable pile, and the following letter, written to his employer, by Portmarus, proves that he was not backward in executing the behests of his imperious master. The letter is preserved in the Cotton Library of the British Museum1. "MY LORD.—I humblie commend me to your lordshyyp. The last I wrote to your lordship was the 20th day of this present monthe by the hands of Mr. Williamson, by which I advertise your lordshypp of the length and greatness of this church and sale, we had begun to pull the At the back of Portmarus' letter in the Museum, is one pasted, which contains as follows: "My bounden duety remembred ynto your lordshypp. These shall be to signifye the same, that the prior of Lewes hath this present Monday knowlaged a fyne, both of Lewes and Castle-acre abbe. It is thought that Castle-acre passeth not by the fyne. And as concerning the preamble of the deed, it is now fully resolved, that there shall not be any such preamble. The prior affirmed this day, that my Lord of Norfolk's Grace promysed him to have all the goods of the monastery, and the one half of the debts. I am very sorry that my chance was not to come a little rather upon Sondaye, that I might have spoken with your lordshypp in the premises, asserteynynge your lordshypp that Master Pollard and I intend, (God willinge) to be at Rygate to-morrow at night, accordinge to my Lord of Norfolk's appoinment. And thus our lord have your lordshypp in his tuition. Written at the Rolls this Monday the xiith daye of November.-Your lordshyppy's humble servant, Henry Polsted." |