[Illustration: _PLATE XXV._ ST. LEONARD’S, YORK]
Few houses of Crown patronage escaped. The Commissioners, announcing to Cromwell (1537) the dissolution of certain northern monasteries, add:—“We have also altered the howse of Sancte Leonerdes in Yourke, after suche ordre and fassion as we trust shall appeir to your lordship to be to the kinges honour and contentacion.”[150] In truth the alteration meant annihilation for St. Leonard’s; and St. Nicholas’ hospital in the same city also [p233] disappeared. In London, the Savoy, fresh from the hand of the builder, was dissolved. The sisters of St. James’, Westminster, surrendered (receiving life-pensions), whereupon “the king builded there a goodly Mannor, annexing thereunto a Parke.”[151] The Maison Dieu, Dover, a rich foundation with good buildings near the quay, was declared suitable for a victualling yard (1544) which it eventually became.
Hospitals attached to a cathedral or see were usually, but not always, spared. In the bishopric of Durham, for example, the houses of Sherburn and Greatham survived, but neither Kepier nor the bishop’s hospital at Northallerton. God’s House, Portsmouth, was surrendered and became an armoury; in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries is a document of 1547 concerning “Munycions within the Churche at Goddeshouse.”[152] St. John’s, Ely, was spared, yet only for a while. The episcopal hospitals at Bath and Norwich remained in use, but under the municipality.
If directly dependent upon a monastic house, the fate of a hospital was practically sealed. Take, for instance, the case of St. James’, near the gate of Lewes Priory. From the monastery now demolished thirteen men and one woman had had all their living; wherefore Peter Thompson and the bedefolk begged relief (1538).[153] Hospitals of lay-foundation which had been subsequently placed under monastic supervision, but with distinct endowments, fell as forming part of the sequestrated property. In some cases the Crown kept up charities for a time. The [p234] return of pensions in 1552 shows that sums were paid out of the tenements of Nostell Priory to inmates of St. Nicholas’, Pontefract. The poor dwelling in the so-called “Kings Majesty’s almshouses” at Glastonbury (formerly abbey-pensioners) were also granted weekly allowances. This was generous, for although Henry VIII and Edward VI were fond of giving their names to charitable institutions, they too often gave little else.