Martyred Benedictines of 1539

Today is the 475th anniversary of the martyrdoms by hanging, drawing and quartering of the last abbots of Glastonbury and Reading and their companions, two monks at Glastonbury, John Thorne, the Treasurer and Roger James, the Sacrist, and at Reading another monk John Rugge and John Eynon, priest of St Giles church in the town. There is amodern plaque to his memory in that church.

The other year I posted biographies of the two abbots in my posts Bl.Richard Whiting, Abbot of Glastonbury and Bl.Hugh Cook or Faringdon, last Abbot of Reading

Reading Abbey from the River Kennet

A reconstruction drawing by R.W.Ford

Image;readingmuseum.org.uk

Reconstruction model of Reading Abbey

The model was made by Mr R W Ford which is on display in the Museum of Reading and shows the Abbey as it was around 1500.   

Move your cursor over the picture of the Abbey above. Click when it turns into a hand to show that there is a link to another page. You will then jump to a page telling you about the part of the Abbey you have clicked on.

You may like to use the page on the buildings of the Abbey clearly numbering and naming the different parts - click here.

 Image:readingabbey.org.uk/Copyright Reading Museum Service (Reading Borough Council). All rights reserved.

Reconstruction model of Glastonbury Abbey

This is on display in the Abbey Visitor Centre and shows the Abbey as it may well have appeared at the time of the dissolution

Image:All rights reserved.Copyright Holder - GNU License/skyscrapernews.com

There is more about the fate of Bl. Richard Whiting and the possible survival of some of his bones, now at Prinknash Abbey, at the postvfrom the blog Clas Merdin at The Bones of Richard Whiting

 

In the modern Catholic church of the Shrine of Our Lady of Glastonbury is atapestery hanging on either side of the Statue of Our Lady, and which depicts various saints and Blesseds associasted with Glastonbury.

On the left are Blesseds Richard Whiting, John Thorne, and Roger James. Below them is St Dunstan (depicted with the Devil caught by his nose with pincers) and Blessed Richard Bere - he was a nephew of Abbot Whiting's predecessor and was one of the London Carthusians who died in prison.

On the right ate St Joseph of Arimathea, St David, St Patrick and St Brigid (depicted with a cow and a milking stool) 

Image:Glass Mouse on Flickr

At Colchester on December 1st that year the Abbot of Colchester, John Beche, was similarly executed. I posted about him in The last Abbot of Colchester

According to the Wilipedia entry on him his rectoral cross was rescued by the Mannock Family of Stoke-by-Nayland in Suffolk, who eventually gave it to Buckfast Abbey in Devon.

There is something about the late medieval and Tudor nature of Colchester in Medieval English urban history - Colchester - Map

The last Abbot of Colchester

December 1st 1539 saw the third martyrdom of an English Benedictine abbot that autumn, with that of the Abbot of Colchester following those of his brothers of Reading and Glastonbury.

Bl John Beche, was also apparently known as Thomas Marshall - I have not seen an explanation of this point.

His date of birth is unknown. He was educated at Oxford (probably at the Benedictine Gloucester Hall, now Worcester College) and he took his degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1515, and within the next fifteen years ruled the Abbey of St. Werburgh, Chester (now Chester Cathedral), his name appearing as twenty-sixth on the roll of abbots of that foundation.

He was elected Abbot of St. John's, Colchester, 10 June, 1530, and, with sixteen of his monks, took the Oath of Supremacy on 7 July, 1534. The year 1535 brought the martyrdoms of the three Carthusian priors and their companions (4 May), of St John Fisher (22 June), and of St. Thomas More (6 July), all for the Papal right to universal supremacy in spirituals. Beche was so deeply affected by these examples that his unguarded expressions of reverence and veneration for the martyrs, reported by spies, drew down upon him the resentment of the King. In November, 1538, the Abbot of St. John's further exasperated Henry and his ministers by denying the legal right of a royal commission to confiscate his abbey. Within a year of this he was committed to the Tower of London on a charge of treason, was discharged from custody, and rearrested some time before the 1st of November, 1539.

Witnesses were found to testify how the abbot had said that God would "take vengeance for the putting down of these houses of religion", that Fisher and More "died like good men and it was pity of their deaths", and that the reason for the King's revolt from Catholic unity was his desire to marry Anne Boleyn. In his own examination the abbot yielded to human weakness and tried to explain away his former assertions of Catholic truth. Despite this he eventually received martyrdom. Tried at Colchester, by a special commission, in November, 1539, he no longer pleaded against the charge of contumacy to the newly established order of things. He was convicted and executed.

An anonymous contemporary partisan of Henry, quoted by Dom Bede Camm in "English Martyrs", I, 400, says of Abbot Beche and others who died at that time for the same offences, "It is not to be as these trusty traitors have so valiantly jeopardized a joint for the Bishop of Rome's sake. . .his Holiness will look upon their pains as upon Thomas Becket's, seeing it is for like matter".

Pope Leo XIII beatified Abbot John Beche on 13 May, 1895.
Adapted from the Catholic Encyclopedia 1913

The abbey is depicted in a drawing done before the dissolution - a rare thing in itself - and it gives some idea of the appearence of the church

The abbey church of Colchester before the dissolution.
From BL Cottonian MS Nero D VIII

The fifteenth century gateway and some stretches of precint wall are all that survive - the gateway gives some idea of what has been lost.

Photo from Wikipedia