13. THE WHITE FRIARS
The house of the Carmelites or White Friars (fn. 1)
in Fleet Street was founded by Sir Richard
Gray, knt., in 1241, (fn. 2) and thirteen years afterwards was of such importance that a general
chapter of the order was held there. (fn. 3) The site
was good owing to its proximity to the City and
to the river, the main road between London
and Westminster. Like all urban or suburban
situations in mediaeval times, however, it must
have left much to be desired as regards healthiness, considering that in 1290 many of the
friars died owing to their unsanitary surroundings. (fn. 4) The neighbourhood, perhaps because of
its being outside the City gates, soon had other
drawbacks, and in 1345 the friars complained
that they were impeded in the celebration of
divine worship by the brawls of people of bad
character in the adjoining lane. (fn. 5)
The temptations and risks to which religious
houses were exposed from the deposit of treasure
there are illustrated by the robbery at the White
Friars in 1305. (fn. 6) The robbers came after the
hoard of a certain knight, and were helped by
one of the friars. The prior and brethren were
bound, and the sum of £400 was carried off by
the robbers and their accomplice, who was
afterwards caught and hanged.
This incident argues that the house was already
of some standing, but its importance increased
greatly after the fall of the Templars, when,
with the neighbouring priory of the Black
Friars, it succeeded to the position hitherto held
by the Temple as a centre for the transaction of
affairs of state. The Chancery was established
there for a time, (fn. 7) and, during the reigns of
Edward II and Edward III especially, councils,
both royal (fn. 8) and ecclesiastical, (fn. 9) were held at the
White Friars.
That the house owed its position not merely
to a convenient situation is shown by the employment of its members in political and diplomatic
business. The convent seems to have gained its
freedom from livery of the king's stewards and
marshals through Friar Adam Brown who was
a clerk of Edward II. (fn. 10) John de Reppes, prior
in 1343, was engaged in important negotiations
for both the king and the pope between 1344
and 1348. (fn. 11) He received in return many privileges from the pope, among them leave to retain
his chamber in the London house for life, (fn. 12) and
faculties similar to those of bishops to meet the
requirements of the many noble personages who
came to confess to him. (fn. 13) This seems to indicate that, like the Franciscans and Dominicans
in the fourteenth century, the White Friars
were popular with the English nobility. (fn. 14) Their
patrons, however, were not all of the one class.
Thus, while the priory was rebuilt in 1350 by
Hugh Courtenay, earl of Devon, (fn. 15) it was to
the mayor and commonalty of the City that they
owed the grant of Crockers Lane for the west
end of their church; (fn. 16) and the frequent mention
of the friars in the wills of London citizens (fn. 17)
attests the general favour in which they were
held. Moreover, the fraternity of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, established in
the conventual church about 1364, was said to
owe its foundation to certain 'poor men' of the
City and suburb. (fn. 18) It may also be noticed, as
bearing on this point, that when the rebels
of 1381 were carrying on their work of destruction at the Temple and the Savoy they appear
to have left the White Friars in peace, and
although one Carmelite, Richard Lavingham,
fell a victim to them, it was as a friend of Archbishop Sudbury that he suffered. (fn. 19)
Judging from the class of house in the close,
the priory must have occupied a large area in
1385; (fn. 20) but in 1396 some ground along the
river was acquired (fn. 21) for the extension of the
friary, probably for the rebuilding of the church, (fn. 22)
of which Sir Robert Knolles (fn. 23) bore the main
expense. The choir, steeple, and other parts
were added somewhat later by Robert Marshall,
the Carmelite bishop of Hereford. (fn. 24)
Of the Carmelites summoned by the archbishop to the Council of 1382, one, at any rate,
John Lovey or Loney, (fn. 25) was connected with the
London house, (fn. 26) which had a not unworthy
record in respect of learning. The increase in
the library of the Carmelites, which dates from
about this period, and was probably one of the
fruits of the Wycliffite controversy, affords an
example of this point in the persons of the two
chief contributors, both at one time members of
the White Friars, London: Robert Yvory, (fn. 27)
provincial from 1379 to 1392; and Thomas
Walden, confessor and privy counsellor of
Henry V and English provincial. (fn. 28) But if the
new ideas resulted in a multiplication of books
to produce the learning to combat them, they
also tended to affect the minds of the religious
themselves in favour of change, (fn. 29) naturally
enough if the tale told in 1391 by John
Lethinard, an apostate Carmelite of London, (fn. 30)
be true. There was something wrong when a
child of twelve years of age could be persuaded
to enter a convent, and when older forced to
become professed by intimidation. The story
is not improbable, for minors did enter the
Mendicant orders, (fn. 31) and a Bill was introduced
into Parliament in 1414 to forbid it.
In 1443 Pope Eugenius IV commissioned
John, abbot of St. Benet of Holme, to try a
similar case, that of John Hawteyn, alias Scharyngton, who had applied to Rome to be absolved
from his vows on the ground that he had been
forced against his will to enter the order of
Carmelites in London (fn. 32) before he had completed
his fourteenth year. A witness in his favour
stated that Hawteyn at the age of eight had been
placed in the London house by his parents, by
whom he had afterwards been forced to make
profession there, and the latter part of his testimony seems to receive support from the statement made by one of the friars that when
Hawteyn ran away he was brought back by his
mother. He was imprisoned at the White
Friars by order of Thomas Walden, to whom
his profession had been made, (fn. 33) and was afterwards kept under ward for a time at Oxford.
Then, some years later, he tried again to leave
the order. The Carmelites, in spite of their
declaration that from fear of the statute they
never received anyone under the age of fourteen,
seem not to have felt very sure of their ground,
since it was owing to them that the king stopped
the proceedings, and when the royal prohibition
was removed and the case resumed in 1446,
they did not appear to plead, and the sentence,
given March, 1447, was against them, declaring Hawteyn not bound to the observance of
the rule.
The religious houses of London seem to be
so completely disconnected with the history of
the country in the fifteenth century that it is
of some interest to find that a council between
the two factions was held March, 1458, in the
morning at the Black Friars, and in the afternoon at the Carmelites, (fn. 34) though it must be
added that the two places were evidently chosen
merely for their convenient situation.
The friars and the secular clergy had united
for a short time in face of a common danger,
but their interests were too much opposed to
allow of a lasting peace between them. The
Mendicants, who had been the party attacked
in the fourteenth century, (fn. 35) in 1465 took the
offensive. The incident seems to indicate that
the popularity of the White Friars had somewhat waned, since Harry Parker, the Carmelite
friar who preached the sermon at St. Paul's
Cross (fn. 36) comparing the beneficed clergy to their
disparagement with the friars as followers of
Christ, owned afterwards that his sole object had
been to draw attention to his convent for its
pecuniary advantage. Attention was certainly
attracted, but hardly with the result expected.
William Ive, master of Whittington College,
took up the gauntlet on behalf of the beneficed
clergy, and disproved Parker's arguments, particularly the statement that Christ Himself was
a beggar, the following Sunday. In the disputations that followed at the White Friars, the
prior and provincial of the order, Dr. John
Milverton, and Dr. Haldon, also a Carmelite of
London, laid themselves open to a charge of
heresy, and were cited to appear before the bishop
of London. They pleaded privilege, but this
did not avail in case of heresy, and on their
failing to appear they were excommunicated,
Ive pronouncing the sentence at St. Paul's Cross.
Parker, the cause of all the commotion, was
imprisoned by the bishop and abjured. Milverton, the provincial, had meanwhile gone to
Rome to lay the matter before the pope, but he
had no better fortune, being kept in the Castle
of St. Angelo until he submitted. The king is
said indeed to have asked the pope to punish the
friars for creating the disturbance.
After this episode the White Friars seem to
have been contented with obscurity. John
Souley, one of the friars, formed a link between
the traditions of his house and the new age as a
man of learning and eloquence and a friend of
Dean Colet. (fn. 37) Such notices of the house as
occur indicate that it was still regarded with
favour by the upper classes of the community:
Lord Vescey was buried there according to his
will of May 1466; (fn. 38) Sir John Paston in the Lady
Chapel of the church in 1479; (fn. 39) and the
Marquis of Berkeley by his will of 5 February,
1491, arranged for the establishment of a
perpetual chantry of two friars at the altar of
St. Gascon; (fn. 40) moreover, when in 1527 the
prior found himself unable to proceed with the
rebuilding of a house in the precinct for lack of
money, Margaret countess of Kent came to
their aid with a loan of £60 that they might
remember in their prayers her late husband who
was buried in their church, and herself when she
was dead. (fn. 41) Nor were signs of the king's goodwill altogether lacking. (fn. 42)
How far the prior, George Burnham, in
acknowledging the king as supreme head of
the church 17 April 1534, (fn. 43) represented the
opinions of the friars it is impossible to tell. (fn. 44)
Information was laid against one of them,
Robert Austyn by name, for a sermon preached
in St. Bride's June 1537 which showed that he
preferred if possible to avoid the subject. (fn. 45)
But actual opposition to the new doctrines was
doubtless felt to be worse than useless when the
provincial, a supporter of the royal policy, (fn. 46) had
his head quarters there. (fn. 47) The priory was surrendered 10 November, 1538, the deed being
signed by the prior John Gybbes and twelve
friars. (fn. 48) Gybbes was in receipt of a pension
of £10 until March 1544. (fn. 49) The possessions
of the house, estimated as worth £26 7s. 3d. per
annum by Stow (fn. 50) and £63 11s. 4d. by Dugdale, (fn. 51)
included tenements in the parishes of St. Dunstan
in the West (fn. 52) and St. Olave near the Tower, (fn. 53)
but the most valuable part of the property must
have been the convent buildings and precinct
which consisted of the church, chapter house,
dormitory, fratry, kitchen, library, the cloister
with its green, and several gardens, and which
stretched from Fleet Street to the Thames and
from Water Lane on the east to Serjeants' Inn
and the Temple on the west. (fn. 54) The amount of
plate belonging to the church, 114 oz. in gilt
plate, 100 oz. parcel gilt, 244 oz. of white
plate, (fn. 55) does not argue great riches or extravagant display.
Priors of the White Friars
Osbert Pickingham, died 1330 (fn. 56)
John Elin or Helin, died 1339 (fn. 57)
John de Reppes, occurs 1343 (fn. 58)
Thomas Brome, provincial 1362 (fn. 59)
John, occurs 1393 (fn. 60)
Thomas Asshewell, S.T.P., occurs 1443 (fn. 61)
John Milverton, D.D., occurs 1465 (fn. 62)
William Bachelor, died at Rome 1515 (fn. 63)
Thomas Gaskyn, occurs 1527 (fn. 64)
John Kele, occurs 1533 (fn. 65)
George Burnham, occurs 1534 (fn. 66)
John Gybbes, occurs 1538 (fn. 67)
The convent seal of the thirteenth century (fn. 68)
shows two canopied niches: in the one to the
left, a saint holding in the right hand a sword,
in the left hand a church; in the one on the
right, the Virgin crowned, with the Child on
her right arm. Legend:
S'CONVENTVS . FRM . CARMELI . LOND.
There is also a prior's seal of the fourteenth
century. (fn. 69) This is a pointed oval, and represents a saint, seated in a canopied niche, holding
a sword in the right hand. Overhead in a
smaller niche sits the Virgin crowned, with the
child on her left knee. Legend :—
S . P'ORIS . LŌDON . ORD ... BE . MAR'. DE.
CARMEL'