. The greater abbeys of England. that the greater abbeys, of which Fountains wasone, were above suspicion, there were many who saw inthe fate of the houses under £200 a year a presage of thecoming general suppression. Although, as we nowknow, nothing could have warded ofif the rising storm,it was no doubt a misfortune for Fountains that at socritical a time it should have had a superior neitherwise, nor competent, nor even worthy. Abbot Thirsksdeposition had been mooted some years before, and hewas accused of dissipating the goods of his house and ofnot seeing that the service of God was kept
. The greater abbeys of England. that the greater abbeys, of which Fountains wasone, were above suspicion, there were many who saw inthe fate of the houses under £200 a year a presage of thecoming general suppression. Although, as we nowknow, nothing could have warded ofif the rising storm,it was no doubt a misfortune for Fountains that at socritical a time it should have had a superior neitherwise, nor competent, nor even worthy. Abbot Thirsksdeposition had been mooted some years before, and hewas accused of dissipating the goods of his house and ofnot seeing that the service of God was kept at Fountainsas of old. Layton and Legh, the Kings commissionersin 1536, suggested even worse things about him and com-pelled him to resign. He had a scanty pension assignedto him, and took refuge at Jervaulx; there, becoming in-volved in the Pilgrimage of Grace in some way not quiteobvious, he was hanged at Tyburn as the easiest way ofgetting rid of him and his pension. On Abbot Thirsks deposition the office was purchased [128]. A BRIDGE, FOUNTAINS ABBEY FOUNTAINS by one Marmaduke Bradley for a large sum paid toThomas Crumwell, the Kings all-powerful commissioners declare that he was one of the wisestmonks in England, and their immediate proof of theircharacter of him was the offer he made through them tobuy the abbey. At any rate Marmaduke Bradley se-cured a good pension for himself by surrendering thehouse into the Kings hands, three years after his appoint-ment, in November, 1539. Then began the destruction. The abbot went toRipon, where he held a prebendal stall; but the priorand his thirty brethren were quickly expelled, to findtheir own way in the world and to face the coming win-ter. They were despoiled of their religious habits, wereeach allotted a citizens gown, and were then set outsidetheir own gate and told to find their way about aworld which many of them had left long years before,and under circumstances for which they were ill pre-pared. ^The gold,
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