Monks held out for double the payoff as Henry VIII’s men prepared to destroy abbey
ON THE orders of Henry VIII, hundreds of monasteries, priories, convents and friaries were destroyed, assets seized and clergymen executed, but in one corner of Cumbria, a pocket of resistance held out, for a time at least.
Newly discovered documents from 1537 reveal that the monks of Furness Abbey mounted a stout campaign for better compensation for the king’s action against the Catholic Church. Furness was the first of the “greater” institutions to be broken up under the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the vellum document shows the blueprint for how the work was undertaken.
It was unearthed by Dr Michael Carter, an English Heritage historian, in the National Archives, where its significance had been overlooked, despite a correct catalogue entry.
He said: “I immediately thought I’ve struck gold. Remarkably for such a significant monastery, no other scholars who’d worked on it over the years had come across it. It’s very much filling in some blanks and fleshing out what was happening at Furness in 1537.”
The Dissolution was prompted by the king’s break with the Church after the Pope’s refusal to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and allow him to wed Anne Boleyn.
The Furness document details the financial accounts of the proceeds realised from the abbey’s possessions and the costs incurred. Dr Carter described it as “a major addition” to knowledge of Furness’s final days. Its 31 monks were allowed to remain there for nine weeks before its destruction and they received a generous cash settlement.
A letter from Robert Southwell, the official commissioner for its dissolution, to Thomas Cromwell, who oversaw the destruction, states that they had originally been promised a “reward” of 20s (£1) each, equal to half a year’s wages. But they held out for more, with each receiving £2, which allowed them to buy secular clothes, without which they were forbidden to leave the abbey.
Dr Carter said Southwell reminded the monks of the execution of others implicated in the rebellion in the North and West Ridings. “His willingness to increase the reward was because of nervousness about the loyalty of the region.” The accounts describe how part of the building’s destruction was carried out with “ropes and other engynes” for a steep £70. The sale of the abbey’s bells raised £80, and the vestments and other “churche stuffe” a further £26.
Dr Carter said Henry, Cromwell and the dissolution commissioners would have thought it money well spent. “They were eager to get their work finished at Furness, quite quickly destroying the church,” he said.