You are here:

The grange at Micklethwaite was given to the monks by Roger de Mowbray, but when relations between Roger and Henry II soured, the king, ‘ill-advised by his counsellors’ seized Roger’s estates at Bardsey and Collingham, and so the monks lost their land at Micklethwaite; this had dire consequences for the community who were forced out of poverty – and in hope of moving the king to pity - to seek refuge for a time at other houses; Abbot Ralph even attempted to win the king’s favour, and thereby recover their lands, through gifts that included a golden chalice and a manuscript of the Gospel. His efforts were in vain and the monks did not retrieve this land until John’s reign (and then only as a parcel of a fee, for which they had to pay an annual rent).(46)