Queen Mary in her brief reign restored some of the religious houses, but another record shews us that her efforts were nullified on Elizabeth's accession:

And those houses which had been either erected or else restored and repayred by Queene Mary; as the Priory of Saint John of Jerusalem were agayne suppressed (1559).1

We find that the chapel and other buildings were used under Queen Elizabeth for the Office of the Revels':

The saied church or chapel and other buildings is converted and used by the said officers of the toils and Tentes . . . and for other necessaries.2 Also in Henry VIII's time:

A Storehouse for the King's Toils and Tents for hunting.3

Samuel Daniel in his History of Henry III' has a passage worth citing, inasmuch as it shews the status and authority of the head of a great religious house at the period (1252, 36 Henry III):

Boldly is he (the King) . reprooved by the Master of the Hospitall of Jerusalem in Clerkenwell, who, comming to complain of an injury committed against their Charter, the King told him :

The Prelates, and especially the Templars and Hospitalers, had so many Liberties and Charters that their riches made them proud and their pride mad, and that those things which were unadvisedly granted were with discretion to be revoked.

What say you Sir (sayd the Prior), God forbid so ill a word should proceed out of your mouth. So long as you observe justice you may be a King and as soon as you violate the same you shall leave to be a King.4

John Lydgate, usually known as 'the Monk of Bury,' in a

1 Sir John Hayward (1636), Annals of the First Four Years of Queen Elizabeth (1840), p. 28.

24

Survey of the Hospital of St. John.' See Feuillerat, Office of the Revels, p. 47.
Newcourt's Repertorium.
1613 (edition 1650, p. 168).

ballad-poem on Henry V, describes his marriage with Katherine
of Valois at S. John's, presumably this church. The banns
were thrice published according to law :

In the Chirch thries of Seint Johan

Liche the custome of new and yore agon
Thries published in open audience,

As the lawe byndeth in sentence.

er

Then came the wedding:

d

But in his chirche than parochialle

Of Seint Johan he came with good entent
For to receive the holy sacrement

Of mariage he and Katerine.1

But if Lydgate is correct, and we must remember he was living
at the time, this must have been a duplication of the French
nuptials, as the Chronicles say the marriage was at S. Peter's
Church at Troyes on June 3, 1420. The earliest English life
of Henry V, written in 1513, a translation of Titus Livius,
confirms this.

The historian relates how on May 21 in the cathedral church
at Trois the terms of peace were settled, and how on June 3

the Sacrement of Matrimonie was solemnely sacred betwixt the most
victorious Kinge Henrie of Englande and that excellent and glorious
Lady, Dame Katheryn, daughter to King Charles of Fraunce and to
Dame Isabell the Queene.2

Jordan Briset, the founder of S. John's Priory in the S. Mary eleventh century, had previously founded a priory of nuns Priory in the near vicinity. This was dedicated to S. Mary, and, being

1 T. Wright, Political Poems and Songs, ii. pp. 136-137.
2 (Clarendon Press, 1911), p. 162.

Stow's Survey (1603), p. 15.

In Newcourt's Repertorium Garnerius is given as the first prior. Hennessy

gives the name of Walter as prior in 1140.

Church

S. James, Clerkenwell

near the well, was called 'Ecclesia beatae Mariae de Fonte Clericorum.'

The priory was occupied by Black Nuns of the Benedictine Order. The last prioress was Isabel Sackvile, one of the Sackvile family ancestors of the Earl of Dorset. On the ruins of the priory was erected the Church of S. James, which Stow does not mention by name, though he has a brief allusion to Clerkenwell Church.

The old Church of S. James, Clerkenwell, was taken down in 1758, but drawings of it when in a state of ruin shew traces of a fine Gothic building with a tower. The spire was something of a byword!

Nor can the lofty spire of Clerkenwell,

Although he have the vantage of a Rocke,

Pearch up more high his turning weather-cock.1

Stow has it that 'the sayd Church tooke name of the well and the well tooke name of the Parish Clarkes who of old time were accustomed there yearely to assemble and to play some large hystorie of holy Scripture.'

In this church was buried William Weston, the last prior of S. John's, who died on the day of the dissolution of the priory, and did not live to enjoy the pension of £1000 a year allotted to him. Here also, by her own desire, was laid to rest Isabel Sackvile, the last prioress of S. Mary's. John Weever, the author of 'Ancient Funeral Monuments,' was buried here in 1632, as was also at a later date Bishop Burnet. Of Weever it was said:

Lancashire gave him breath

And Cambridge education.
His studies are of Death

Of Heaven his meditation.

11634. Pasquils Palinodia, B 3.