Soon after their institution, they had a grant from Hervey, Baron Stafford, of all the land in Normacote, which he a short time previously had received in exchange from Henry de Audley, for the wood and lands enclosed by him in his park of Heley. Thus the whole lordship of Normacote was engrossed by them. In the eighth year of King Richard II. they procured the appropriation to their Abbey of the church and tithes of Audley, from which they had before enjoyed a pension of ten marks a year, and in the fourteenth of the same reign they got hold of the neighbouring church and tithes of Biddulph; but the largest endowment, after the first, was that of the lady Elizabeth, (relict of Nicholas, last Lord Audley of the male line,) who, being a devout woman, obtained from the same king, in the nineteenth year of his reign, his license to annex to this Abbey the manor of Cameringham, with the appropriate rectory, and all other possessions in the county of Lincoln, belonging to the priory of Cameringham, which she had purchased for this purpose from the Monks of Blanchland, in Normandy, under whom that priory was holden in chief. Moreover, by her testament, dated the last day of September, A. D. 1400, she bequeathed her body to be buried in the choir of Hulton Abbey, in her husband's tomb,* and gave to the Monks there, 400 marks to purchase lands for their own use, and forty shillings a piece to every Monk to pray for

"My Lords, this hypocrite hath discovered that I have three daugh"ters, which I maintain, viz. Pride, Covetousness, and Lechery, and "hath counselled me to bestow them in marriage. Wherefore, if I have 66 any such, I have found out most fit husbands for them all. My Pride "I bequeath to the haughty Templars and Hospitallers, who are as "proud as Lucifer himself. My Covetousness I give to the white "Monks of the Cisteaux order, for they covet the Devil and all; but "for my Lechery, I can bestow it no where better than on the priests "and prelates of our times, for therein have they their most felicity." Speed, p. 482.

See pp. 142, 223.

DISSOLUTION OF ABBEYS.

293

her soul, and her husband's, and all christian souls.* We may piously hope that this bountiful lady, though she ignorantly deemed the prayers of the Monks available for shortening the term of her purgation, founded her title to future blessedness on a surer basis.

From this time to the survey which preceded the dissolution of this and other similar foundations, (Anno 26 Henry VIII.) we have nothing to remark concerning Hulton Abbey, and, as that survey is printed among the public records, and in the "New Monasticon," we deem it superfluous to reprint it. The revenues of this

Abbey were then valued, in gross, at £80 10s. 11⁄2d., and reduced, by pensions, stewards' fees, episcopal dues, and other charges, to £76 14s. 11d. clear. Its original possessions of Hulton, Rushton, Normacote, and Bradnop were rated at nearly the same nominal amount,† as in Pope Nicholas's valor, taken 245 years before, though the weight of money had been diminished one-half during that interval,—to say nothing of its decreased value,—a most irrefragrable proof this, of the extreme moderation of the Ecclesiastical Survey of Henry VIII.

The monastic bodies had long been declining in public estimation. Their abodes, in which sanctity and sobriety, learning, charity, and all human virtues were expected to be enshrined, had become chargeable with profaneness, luxury, ignorance, covetousness, and all the grosser vices. These Ecclesiastics having also shewn a spirit of hostility to the design of Henry VIII. to make himself Pope in his own dominions, he determined on their destruction. Some were cajoled into a voluntary surrender of their possessions; the refractory were coerced by force of laws. enacted for the occasion. How he dealt with the Monks

There may be reason to suspect that the Monks kept the 400 marks to themselves, for though the abbey subsisted 138 years afterwards, it does not appear to have obtained any subsequent augmentation of its estates.

+ More by £1 2s. 6d. only.

of Hulton we can only infer from their act of surrender, which bears date the 18th day of September, 1538, and purports to grant spontaneously, and of their free will, (ultró et sponte suá,) to their illustrious and invincible (invictissimo) liege Lord, the site of their monastery, and all their possessions; but its date happens to be a little posterior to an act of parliament,* by which all monasteries, whose revenues did not exceed £200 per annum, were absolutely transferred to the king, so that this last solemn act of the Convent must have been a solemn farce.

The charter of surrender is carefully preserved, with other similar documents, in the Augmentation-office, the Conventual seal being attached to it as underneath. It has the signatures of the Abbot and eight Monks, (probably the whole of the then establishment,) in the margin, where they resume their common names; and thus they divested themselves of their sacerdotal character, as they of course did of their cowls and cloaks of undyed serge. That these last men, of their race, may be rescued from the oblivion they have hitherto suffered, we subjoin their signatures, correctly transcribed from the Charter :-(the inscription of the Seal is "SIGILLU COMMUNE BEATE MARIE DE HULTON.")

me EDWARDU WILKYNS, Abbem de

[Hulton

me WYLLM. HASHENHURST.

me WYLLM. NORTON.

me JOHN BUCTNALL.

mе JOHN SMYTH,

28.

REMAINS OF THE ABBEY.

295

Of the Abbot and Monks of Hulton personally the above is almost all we know. Some of the early Abbots are named in various ancient documents we have met with. ROBERT occurs A. D. 1340,-WILLIAM 1242, and another Sir WILLIAM circa 1290. The last Abbot but one was JOHN, who presided when the survey, 26 Henry VIII., was taken, (two years only before the surrender.) This functionary, like another we read of, placed under somewhat similar circumstances, sought to make to himself friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness, and granted a lease to Richard Bidulf, Esq., of the tithes of Bidulf for sixty years, at a small rent, which his successor, Edward, confirmed by deed, dated 13th January, 1536,* shortly before the act vesting the smaller Abbeys in the Crown.

The subscribing witnesses to the Deed of Surrender are "MR. PHILIP DRAYCOT, Miles, EDWARD DRAYCOT, RICHARD BEDYLL, and THOMAS BASSETT; of whom the first was high-steward of the Manors of Hulton, Normacote, and Bradnop, as appears by the Ecclesiastical Survey. He was, probably, lord of the ascendant under the waning fortunes of the devoted Monks of Hulton.

Of the buildings of the Abbey not a vestige now remains above-ground, and it is said the materials were removed for building the neighbouring church of Bucknall, about a century ago. The site of the Abbey is, however, plainly discoverable by the unevenness of the ground whence the foundations have been excavated.

A large barn of stone, called the Hall Barn, still exists, to attest the stately stile of even the farm buildings; and, below the site of the Abbey, parallel with the Trent, are some choaked up fish-ponds, whence the Monks undoubtedly supplied their table.

The upper, or eastern side of the Monastery, was defended by a moat, of which a large portion yet exists. Whilst the possessions of this Abbey remained in the

• Penes Baron Camoys.

King's hands, they were managed by stewards and receivers. A very minute account of their proceeds, taken in the fourth year after the surrender, (33 Henry VIII.) is preserved in the Augmentation-office, under the title of "Ministers' Accounts," of which we give an abstract in the Appendix.* It shows an improvement in the revenue over the estimate in the "Survey" made seven years before, but Rushton Grange is omitted in it, having been already disposed of; and Normacote seems to have shared the same fortune, except only as to some quit-rents, set down at 13s. 8d. per annum.

We here conclude our notices of Hulton and its Abbey, remarking merely that the village of Milton† occupies its northern confines, and is partly within its limits, and partly in the parish and manor of Norton on the Moors.

No. XIX (B.)

+ We should be inclined to consider this village as the same with "Norton under Kenermund," mentioned in the charter 2 Henry III., (Appendix, No. II., p. iv.,) unless there be some incorrectness in the MS. from which our copy is taken. Milton, (anciently Mulneton,) had its name, however, in early times, as we find from various aged authorities. By a deed, (sans date,) Edmund de Stafford grants to Nicholas de Mulneton a messuage, with the appurtenances lying near the Hay of the Abbot and Convent of Hulton, called Kenermund. The habendum of this deed proves it to have been antecedent to the stat. Quia Emptores, (A. D. 1290,) and Edmund, (afterwards Earl,) having succeeded his father, Nicholas, Baron Stafford, A. D. 1287, we fix its date within that short interval. Two of the attesting witnesses are Sir William, Abbot of Hulton, and Sir William de Mere; the latter personage, (according to Erdeswicke,t) was owner of Norton, 19 Edward II., and afterwards one moiety came to the Barons of Stafford, and the other to the Barons Audley; but, by what title, the historian did not know. We have been more fortunate in our researches, and have inserted in the Appendix, (No. XX.) a literal copy of a record as extraordinary as any thing we ever met with, relative to Sir William de Meere, his family, and the partition of his estates in Norton. We infer from other sources, that the transactions it relates to happened rather earlier than the reign of Edward II.

Harwood, p. 14.