When Islip died in 1532 the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster, was already (with the exception of Hawkesmoor’s addition of the incongruous western towers in the eighteenth century) substantially the church that exists to-day, but in order to understand Islip’s contribution to the buildings as well as the structure erected to some extent independently of his personal initiative, it is necessary to go back to the time when Henry of Reims produced his plan for the new church which Henry III. had designed to erect on the site where for nearly two centuries the old Norman buildings of the Confessor had stood.
In the year 1220 a Lady Chapel had been begun at the east end of the Norman church, and when twenty-five years later the Norman apse had to make way for Henry III.’s new structure the Lady Chapel must have been incorporated into the plan.When the King died the presbytery, choir, and transepts had been completed. In 1298 a disastrous fire destroyed the greater part of the Conventual buildings, and thus work and money which might have gone to the completion of the church were diverted to the rebuilding of the monastery.
For a century the Norman Nave served the Gothic church, but about the year 1365 the rebuilding of the Nave was seriously undertaken on the initiative of Simon Langham, who had been Abbot from 1349 to 1362 and subsequently Bishop of Ely, Archbishop of Canterbury and Cardinal. The story of Langham’s generosity does not belong to the present narrative and it must suffice to say that when Islip entered the monastery in 1480 a beginning was being made with the vaulting of three of the four westernmost bays, while the final bay was already raised to the triforium level. Abbot Estney’s enthusiasm for the work is obvious to any who can read between the lines in what are designed to be simple records of receipts and expenditure, and there can be little doubt that Islip caught the infection of that enthusiasm in the course of his association with the Abbot as his Chaplain. Abbot Fascet’s association with the work was honourable if short, and consisted mainly in generously wiping out debts the payment of which he might legitimately have charged on the fabric fund. It is not true as stated in Hacket’s life ofBishop Williams that Islip was responsible for the whole rebuilding of the nave, but his was certainly the glory of its completion.
Meanwhile at the other end of the church building of an entirely different character was going on. It is hardly possible to emphasise too strongly the contrast. At the west end were builders “original enough not to seek after originality in their work,� continuing in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the style and plan laid down by Henry of Reims in the middle of the thirteenth. At the east end the new Lady Chapel was being erected with all the glories of fan tracery in the most elaborate development of the Perpendicular. If further contrast be desired it can be found in Islip’s contemporary building of the Jesus Chapel, roughly midway in position and style between the severe and the ornate beauties of the opposite ends of the church.
The west front of the church as Islip left it at his death may be seen in two pictures. The former of these is an inset into the elaborate capital letter which should have begun the wordTitulusin Islip’s mortuary roll, destined unfortunately never to be carried further. Here on the northern tower of the nave stands the great wheel by means of which the heavy stones were raised. It is perhaps no great matter if this picture seems to shew the southern tower in a somewhat more advanced stage thanHollar depicted it in his engravings of 1653 and 1655.
In 1502 the Chapel of St. Erasmus was dismantled and the old Lady Chapel demolished. The image and canopy of the Saint were placed by Islip over what is now the entrance of St. John the Baptist’s Chapel; and on January 24th, 1503, Islip, attended by a distinguished company, laid the foundation of the King’s new chapel.
With the disappearance of the old chapel went also the tombs of Abbot Berkyng and Queen Katharine of Valois, Henry’s “graunt Dame of right noble memorie.� Her coffin was to lie unburied for more than two centuries and a half. Within less than three weeks from the laying of the stone Henry’s wife, Elizabeth of York, died at the Tower of London. Her body was brought in solemn procession a few days later as far as Charing Cross, where it was met by the Abbots of Westminster and Bermondsey in full pontificals with the Convent of the former all vested in black copes. After the solemn censing of the corpse the procession moved onwards to the Abbey church and the funeral service with a sermon by the Bishop of Rochester was duly performed. Then comes a gap in the story, for the site of her immediate burial is unknown. Six years later her husband directed in his Will that the body of the Queen “be translated from the place where it nowe is buried and broughtand laide with oure bodye.� This was of course done, but as to the year and manner of it the records are perplexingly silent.
In the building of the new chapel the King’s mother, Margaret, Countess of Richmond, took considerable interest. At the end of the year 1496 she had endowed a chantry for herself at the Shrine of St. Edward, and there mass was said daily for her good estate during life and for her soul after death. She had planned also to found a chantry at Windsor in the new work there, but it does not seem to have come into being, and it is possible, though there is no evidence to prove it, that with the adverse judgment given in the matter of the body of Henry VI. her eyes turned like those of her son towards Westminster. It is certain that from Easter, 1505, a weekly mass was being said for her in the new foundation and it may therefore be supposed that the south aisle, rightly called the Lady Margaret’s Chapel, must have been completed by that date. It is true that about the same time she had provided for masses to be said at the old Lady Altar on the north side of the church until Henry the Seventh’s Chapel should be finished, but entries begin to occur referring to the “King’s mother’s chapel� which preclude the possibility of any other identification.
This weekly mass fell to the monks in turn and the celebrant received three shillings and fourpence, which seems a generous endowment. It is noteworthy that one shilling was being paid at this time for the weekly mass for Abbot Estney, probably in the Chapel of St. John Evangelist where he was buried, though the altar is not specified.
The Lady Margaret was indeed a generous benefactress of the new foundation. She gave to the Abbot and Convent the churches of Cheshunt and Swineshead, of the yearly value of more than fifty-three pounds, for the special purposes of the chantries, and also various lands at West Drayton and elsewhere, the proceeds of which the Abbot was to spend in the salaries of divinity readerships at the universities, while in her Will she made gifts of various ornaments to “oure chapell at Westminster� as well as assigning legacies for masses. She is stated to have built an almshouse for poor women in the Almonry by the Chapel of St. Anne.
On St. Peter’s day, 1509, she died in the Abbot’s house, and Bolton, Prior of St. Bartholomew’s, was charged with the erection of her tomb. The Sacrist of that year records the receipt of twenty-two pounds in mass-pence at her funeral.
The arrangements for the new foundation were of the most elaborate character. For his own guidance Islip found it necessary to summarise the long indenture made between the King and himself. Apart from the worship in the chapel itself HenryVII. was to be remembered daily both at the high mass and the Chapter mass. Ultimately the masses in the King’s chapel were to be said only by bachelors or doctors of divinity, though the Abbot, Prior, and Monk-Bailiff were to be excused this qualification.
Accordingly the Abbot was bidden to cause the Oxford students of his monastery to take these degrees as soon as might be and within three months thereafter to appoint them to the service of the King’s masses. Three additional monks above the present number of the monastery were to be acquired and placed on the new foundation to say each a mass daily for the King’s welfare in life and death. These three masses were to be said at the altar “under the lantern place� until the chapel should be ready. The greatest bell was to be rung for forty strokes or above a quarter of an hour before each of these masses and from noon till one o’clock before the preaching of certain “solemne sermondis� appointed for various feasts and fasts. Once a year every priest in the monastery was to say a mass of requiem with special collects and every lay-brother the psalter of David or our Lady. Needless to say the most elaborate directions were given as to tapers and torches. Various officials of the kingdom such as the Chancellor, Treasurer, Master of the Rolls, Barons of the Exchequer and Justices of the Benches wereto receive fees if they attended the anniversary. So too the Mayor of London, the Recorder and Sheriffs, for whom the costs of their barges were to be defrayed. In default of attendance the fees were to go to the prisoners in the King’s Bench or “mareschalsy.� A weekly distribution of alms was provided for and an almshouse for thirteen poor men founded. Some nineteen other monastic or collegiate foundations were to receive fees from the Abbot of Westminster for the performance of services, as well as the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Masters, and scholars of both universities. It would be tedious to follow Islip’s summary of the duties in any more elaborate detail and it must suffice to add that specific forfeitures of money were prescribed for the neglect of any article contained therein.
To meet all these expenses the King’s endowment was generous. The Deanery of St. Martin-le-Grand, the Priory of Luffield, various manors and advowsons formed substantial gifts, while a sum of more than five thousand pounds in money was made over for the purchase of other estates. In the Orde MS. there is the entry of a payment of thirty thousand pounds for the purchase of lands for the King’s new chapel, but it is not possible to verify the accuracy of what is only a transcript from the privy purse expenses of the King. The same manuscript records in seventeen differentitems the payment of £9,844 18s. 3d. to the Abbot of Westminster for the carrying on of the building between October 1st, 1502, and May 20th, 1505. A number of entries in the King’s Books of Payments (Treasury of Receipts) beginning in January, 1506, amount to more than £11,188, and so the total expenditure on the new building was certainly more than twenty-one thousand pounds. The last entry occurs on April 15th, 1509, about a week before the King died. It would appear to be a final payment for it refers to theaccomplishment and performingof the chapel, while no entries of payments occur in the succeeding book. It is unfortunate that it is not at present possible to do much more than note the cost of the chapel and the years occupied in the building, for the “reckonings� which were presented by Islip from time to time for the royal approval do not appear, though all probable sources have been searched.
Islip would seem to have been the general supervisor of the works and responsible for the disbursement of the money, but the building itself was carried on under the direction of the royal workmen. One problem of the greatest interest remains unsolved, and that is the identity of the master-mason or architect who made the original design and plan of the chapel. Among the names suggested have been John Alcock, Bishop of Ely from 1486 to 1501; Sir Reginald Bray; RichardFox, Bishop of Winchester from 1501 to 1528, and even the King himself. Mr. Lethaby[4]assumes that there can be no doubt that Robert Vertue, the senior royal mason, was the architect, but in the absence of evidence the matter must remain unsolved. It is to be noted that the only person mentioned in the directions as to the chapel given in the will of Henry VII. is the Prior of St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, who is described there as the master of the works of the said chapel. The reference is of course to Bolton who was Prior from 1505 to 1532 and whose work in his own church may still be seen. Stow refers to him as a great builder and in any discussion as to the identity of the architect his name must not be forgotten.
Mention has been already made[5]of the “brassen� chapel or chapel within the grille surrounding the tomb of Henry VII. One reference to this occurs in the Exchequer Accounts of September, 1505, where a payment is recorded of twenty pounds to “Thomas Ducheman Smith� for copper-work for the “chapell of metal� at Westminster. This chapel is said to have been called St. Saviour’s, while the high altar of the new building retained its dedication to the Blessed Virgin. The dedications of the chapels in the apse cannot be determined with certainty, butamong them may well be St. Dionysius, St. Ursula and St. Giles, for chapels in honour of these find mention in the Sub-sacrist’s roll for the year ending at Michaelmas, 1524. If the last-named chapel may be identified with “orffather Abbottes Chappell wt.in the new chapell� for which the Sub-sacrist was wont to supply six candles a year, there would be some slight additional reason for supposing that Islip’s family name was Giles.
The work of Torregiano in connection with the tomb of the royal founder is too well known to call for additional record.
The devotion of the Jesus mass, which began to be popular towards the close of the fifteenth century, was in vogue at Westminster some years before the actual erection of the Jesus Chapel. For instance, in an indenture made between the Countess of Richmond and the Abbot and Convent in the year 1506 it was agreed that when her chapel was ready an altar should be erected there in honour of the Holy Name and the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, and that among the masses said there should be a Jesus mass every Friday.
It does not appear when the Jesus Chapel, now commonly known as the Islip chantry, was built. Its accounts, if they survive, are so inextricably mixed up with those of building in other parts of the church that it is impossible to separate them. We have, however, hints here and there whichsuggest that it followed closely upon the completion of the chapel of Henry VII. It is certain that the Jesus Chapel was in use before it was actually finished, for the Sub-sacrist notes the provision of pound tapers to be burnt there at Christmas, 1523, while two years later there is a record in theNovum Opusroll of a payment for carving in the chapel. The final decoration was not completed until 1530, when Master Humfrey received the last instalment of the money owing to him for “payntyng uppon the wall in Ihs Chappell� and for some further work in connection with the Five Wounds which John Ellys had made for the stairs. The Islip roll gives some faint indication of the painted Crucifixion on the eastern walls above the altars and shews also the medallion of the head of our Lord on the outer side of the western parapet. There is record that weekly masses were said for Islip after his death and these would naturally be performed in the chapel where he lay buried, so that Islip’s chantry is a fitting description of it; but it is to be regretted that its earlier name and dedication should be relatively forgotten.
The completion of the nave and the building of this chapel do not form the whole tale of work for which Islip was directly responsible. The same document which records the payment for painting of the Jesus Chapel refers tomy lordes chapell at Chenygates. On the northern side of the courtyardover part of the substructure of Abbot Litlyngton he built a set of rooms of two storeys and continued the building round the side of the south-west tower, making a window into the nave of the church. The whole of course forms a private part of the present Deanery, but the panelled chamber called Jericho Parlour which looks on to the courtyard is well enough known. The chapel at Cheynygates has been identified with a chamber on the upper floor built in between the tower and the first buttress of the nave.
In addition to the work in connection with the Abbey church and his own house Islip was called upon in 1518 to undertake the rebuilding of the chancel of St. Margaret’s Church, of which the Convent took the rectorial tithes. The rebuilding of that church had already occupied some years of the previous century but had been carried on with a view to the least possible disturbance of parochial worship. The nave was completed before Islip was required to rebuild the chancel. It was work which he could not neglect, for the King had made a special grant of land to facilitate the extension of the church. In justice to him it must be mentioned that there is no evidence to shew that he desired to escape his responsibilities. When in 1905 the chancel was still further extended the demolition of the east wall revealed two stones bearing Islip’srebuswith which in some of itsvarying forms the visitor to the Abbey church is familiar. These stones may still be seen incorporated into the east wall of the chancel of St. Margaret’s and in fact their pattern has been multiplied in the frieze of the wooden panelling.
No narrative of Islip’s work as a builder would be complete without some attempt, however slight, to indicate the debt which the world owes to the activity which he and his immediate predecessors displayed. This can only be estimated by a consideration of the Abbey church as it is with some thought as to what it might have been. The conservatism with which the later builders of the nave adhered to the original pattern has given to the church “a unity and a harmony which largely contribute to its special beauty.� So far as the interior of the church is concerned nothing could destroy this, for Islip lived to complete it. How much that unity has been destroyed externally by the addition of Hawkesmoor’s western towers is sufficiently obvious, and we are left to conjecture the possible fate of the interior also had its completion been left for a later age. If Islip had not died when he did it is probable that the march of events would not have allowed him to finish the western front as he must have desired to do. That he lived to do so much must be a matter of thankfulness to the many who love the place with understanding.
“The knell that tolled at Islip’s death was really a knell for the Convent itself.� The appointment of his successor was long delayed and it is probable that intrigue was rife in the matter. John Fulwell, then Monk-Bailiff, was evidently strong enough to assume considerable authority in the monastery and it may well be that he looked to be appointed himself. On October 16th, 1532, he wrote to Cromwell reporting that “all things in the sanctuary as well within the monastery as without are in due order, according to the advertisement you gave me when I was last with you in London. At your return I trust you shall not hear but that we shall deserve the King’s most gracious favour in our suit.� Whatever may have been Fulwell’s hopes they were destined to be disappointed as was an effort made three years later by his friends to bribe Cromwell into giving him the Priorship of Worcester.
The year drew to a close without any appointment to the vacancy, and not until May in the following year is there any certain news of its being filled. On the twelfth of that month William Boston, a monk of Peterborough, took the oath in the Chancery Court to observe the conditions of the foundation of Henry VII. For three hundred years some son of the house had been chosen to rule over it. Boston was a stranger and it is doubtful if he obtained his office in a manner honourable to himself or to those who procured it for him. Three of the abbatial manors were mortgaged by him until he should have paid five hundred pounds to Cromwell and Sir William Paulet who was Controller of the royal household. It is perhaps unfair to blame him for the exchanges of land with the King by which the Abbey lost the manors of Hyde, Neyt and Eye, together with Covent Garden, but it is the fact which is most remembered against him.
It was in his time and in his own Chapter House that the famous thrill of horror ran through the assembled Commons at the reading of theCompertaor findings of the Commissioners employed to make a case against the monastic houses of England. How much credit may be given to the findings of men who were themselves of a not too high standard of morality and honesty we shall not attempt to determine. It must be sufficient to say that nobreath of scandal touched Westminster. It was a city set upon an hill which could not be hid, and its fall came for none of those grosser sins alleged against some other houses.
The story of Abbot Boston’s rule cannot be told in any detail owing to the lack of material. A kind of paralysis seems to have fallen on the monastery with his election. Account rolls if written at all were left untotalled, unbalanced and unaudited. He gathered into his own hands the more important offices as they fell vacant, holding ultimately those of the Sacrist, Cellarer, Warden of the New Work, Warden of the Lady Chapel, and Domestic Treasurer. It would almost seem as if Boston had been brought in to undo all that Islip had wrought and deliberately to provide an excuse for a dissolution which in Islip’s day would have been hard to find.
Under Cromwell’s influence and in obedience to his orders as Vicar-General Boston allowed his monks to be absent from the monastery on any plea of mental or bodily recreation. It was a subtle move thus to recreate a desire for the world that had once been renounced. This and the absence of any responsibility of office within the monastery were swift to sever the bonds of what in Islip’s day had been a family with but little dissension, and the path to the final dissolution was an easy one.
On January 16th, 1540, the deed of surrender was signed by Boston and twenty-six of the brethren. The Abbot became Dean of the new collegiate foundation and many of the house remained therein as prebendaries or minor canons. Among these was Thomas Elfrede, who was installed as ninth prebendary. To him the change cannot have brought much comfort. Forty-two years previously he had taken part in Fascet’s election as Abbot, and he had been one of those who voted in 1500 for Islip. It would be small wonder if his heart yearned for the older days and misliked the new. There is a note of pathos in the request which the old man recorded in his Will that he should be buried by the south door of the church in what wassometyme the procession waye, desiring to be carried in death along the path he had trodden so many times in the more peaceful days of his profession.
The End.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY MUNIMENTS:
Rolls and Accounts of the Obedientiaries, 1480-1532.
BOOKS:
Bentley:Excerpta Historica, p. 404.
BOOKS:
The Rites of Durham: Surtees Society, 1902 Vol. II.
Customary of St. Augustine’s Canterbury and St. Peter’s Westminster, Henry Bradshaw Society, Vol. I., 1902; Vol. II., 1904.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY MUNIMENTS:
Islip’s Diary, Mun. 33290.
Sub-Almoner’s Notebook, Mun. 33301.
Domesday Chartulary.
Mortuary Roll of John Islip.
Infirmarer’s Rolls, 1480-84.
Muns. 9462, 12790, 6631dors.
VOW ON PROFESSION.
“Ego, frater N., promitto stabilitatem meam et conversionem morum meorum et obedientiam secundum regulam Sancti Benedicti, coram Deo et Sanctis omnibus Ejus, in hoc monasterio quod est constructum in honore Beati Petri, Apostolorum principis, in presentia domini N. abbatis.�
COATS OF ARMS.
BOOKS:
Pollard:Henry VII.
Stanley:Memorials of Westminster Abbey.
Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1479.
Venetian State Papers.
Archæologia, 1914,
Sir William Hope:The Funeral, Monument, andChantry Chapel of King Henry the Fifth.
Surtees Society, Vol. 35.
Douthwaite:Gray’s Inn.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY MUNIMENTS:
Register Book, I.
Rolls of the Monk-Bailiff,passim.
Islip’s Diary, Mun. 33290.
Depositions touching the site of the tomb of Henry VI., Mun. 6389**.
Judgment of the Privy Council, Mun. 6389*.
BOOKS:
WESTMINSTER ABBEY MUNIMENTS:
Death of Abbot Estney, Mun. 5459.
Domesday Chartulary, ff. 629, 633, 638, 639.
Prior Mane’s Household Accounts, Mun. 33325.
Sacrist’s Roll, 16-17 Henry VII.
Muns. 5448, A, B, C; 5444, 5449, 5450, 5454, 6389***.
BOOKS:
PUBLIC RECORDS:
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, 1500-1532.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY MUNIMENTS:
Sacrist’s Rolls, 1490-1532.
Articles of Complaint, Mun. 5447.
Visitation Documents, Muns. 12788, 12789, 12790.
Muns. 15212, 15703, 12757, 22950, 12521, 9611, 19814, 13188, 13304.
BOOKS:
PUBLIC RECORDS:
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, 1500-32.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY MUNIMENTS:
Enrolment of Præmunire against Wolsey and Islip, Mun. 12256.
Islip’s Household Accounts, Mun. 33320.
Savoy Papers, Muns. 32408-24.
BOOKS:
WESTMINSTER ABBEY MUNIMENTS:
Subsacrist’s Rolls, Muns. 19836, 19818.
Account Book of John Fulwell, Mun. 33303.
Novum Opus Rolls.
Abstract ofRoyal Indenture, Mun. 6637.
PUBLIC RECORDS:
BOOKS:
Widmore :History of Westminster Abbey.
Rackham :Nave of Westminster.
Robinson:Benedictine Abbey of Westminster.
Register of Consistory Court.
PUBLIC RECORDS:
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, 1532-5.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY MUNIMENTS:
Rolls of theNovum Opus, 1532-4, and 12787.
FOOTNOTES:[1]See also page 108.[2]Pollard: Henry VII., Vol. I. page 93 and note.[3]cf. Abbot Butler:Benedictine Monachism, p. 199, quoting from Cardinal Gasquet;English Monastic Life, pp. 42-50.[4]Westminster Abbey and the King’s Craftsmen, page 255.[5]See page 11.
FOOTNOTES:
[1]See also page 108.
[1]See also page 108.
[2]Pollard: Henry VII., Vol. I. page 93 and note.
[2]Pollard: Henry VII., Vol. I. page 93 and note.
[3]cf. Abbot Butler:Benedictine Monachism, p. 199, quoting from Cardinal Gasquet;English Monastic Life, pp. 42-50.
[3]cf. Abbot Butler:Benedictine Monachism, p. 199, quoting from Cardinal Gasquet;English Monastic Life, pp. 42-50.
[4]Westminster Abbey and the King’s Craftsmen, page 255.
[4]Westminster Abbey and the King’s Craftsmen, page 255.
[5]See page 11.
[5]See page 11.