This marks the closing of the second chapter in the history of the Hospital. With the cessation of saying masses for the dead its religious character expired. There remained only the services in the church for the inhabitants of the Precinct in the time of Henry VIII.
The only use of the Hospital was now as a charity. Fortunately, the place was not, like the Priory of the Holy Trinity, granted to a courtier, otherwise it would have been swept away just as that Priory, or that of Elsing's Spital, was swept away. It continued after a while to carry on its existence, but with changes. It was secularized. The Masters for a hundred and fifty years, not counting the interval of Queen Mary's reign, were laymen. The Brothers were generally laymen. The first Master of the third period was Sir Thomas Seymour; he was succeeded by Sir Francis Flemyng, Lieutenant General of the King's Ordnance. Flemyng was deprived by Queen Mary, who appointed one Francis Mallet, a priest, in his place. Queen Elizabeth dispossessed Malet, and appointed Thomas Wilson, a layman and a Doctor at Laws. During his mastership there were no Brothers, and only a few Sisters or Bedeswomen. The Hospital then became a rich sinecure. Among the Masters were Sir Julius Cæsar, Master of the Rolls; Sir Robert Acton; Dr. Coxe; three Montague brothers, Walter, Henry, and George; Lord Brownker; the Earl of Feversham; Sir Henry Newton, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty; the Hon. George Berkeley; and Sir James Butler. The Brothers had been re-established--their names are enumerated by Ducarel--one or two of them were clerks in orders, but all the rest were laymen. They still received the old stipend of £8 a year, with a small house. As for the rest of the greatly increased income it went to the Master after the manner common to all the old charities. During the latter half of the sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth century St. Katherine's by the Tower consisted of a beautiful old church standing with its buildings clustered round it--a Master's house, rich in carved and ancient wood-work, with its gardens and orchards; its houses for the Brothers, Sisters, and Bedeswomen, each of whom continued to receive the same salary as that ordained by Queen Eleanor. Service was held in the church for the inhabitants of the Precinct, but the Hospital was wholly secular. The Master devoured by far the greater part of the revenue, and the alms-people--Brothers, Sisters, and Bedeswomen--had no duties to perform of any kind.