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Michael Sherbrook's account of the spoliation
of Roche(1)
(Roche Abbey) a house of White Monks; a very finely built house
of freestone and covered
with lead (as the abbeys in England, as well as the churches are).
An uncle of mine was present at the breaking up of the abbey, for
he was well acquainted with several of the monks there. When the
community was evicted from the abbey, one of the monks, his friend,
told him that each monk had been given his cell where he slept,
wherein there was nothing of value save his bed and apparel, which
was simple and of little worth. This monk urged my uncle to buy
something from him, but my uncle replied that he could see nothing
that would be of any use to him; the monk asked him for two pennies
for his cell door, which was worth over five shillings; his uncle
refused, as he had no idea what he would do with a door (for he
was a young unmarried man, and in need of neither a house nor a
door). Others who came along later to buy the monks’ corn or
hay found that all the doors were open, and the locks and shackles
plucked off, or the door itself removed; they entered and stole
what they liked.
Some took the service-books that were in the church and laid them
on their Waine Coppes
to repair them; some took windows from the hay barn and hid them
in the hay, and did the same with other things: some pulled iron
hooks out of the walls – but did not buy them – when the
yeomen and gentlemen of the country had bought the timber of the
church.
For the church was the first thing that was spoiled; then the
abbot’s lodging, the dormitory and refectory, with the cloister
and all the buildings around, within the abbey walls. For nothing
was spared except the ox-houses and swinecoates and other such houses
or offices that stood outside the walls – these had greater
favour shown to them than the church itself. This was done on the
instruction of Cromwell, as Fox reports in his Book of Acts and
Monuments. It would have pitied any heart to see the tearing up
of the lead, the plucking up of boards and throwing down of the
rafters. And when the lead was torn off and cast down into the church
and the tombs in the church were all broken (for in most abbeys
various noblemen and women were buried, and in some kings, but their
tombs were no more regarded than those of lesser persons, for to
what end should they stand when the church over them was not spared
for their cause) and all things of value were spoiled, plucked away
or utterly defaced, those who cast the lead into fodders plucked
up all the seats in the choir where the monks sat when they said
service. These seats were like the seats in minsters; they were
burned and the lead melted, although there was plenty of wood nearby,
for the abbey stood among the woods and the rocks of stone. Pewter
vessels were stolen away and hidden in the rocks, and it seemed
that every person was intent upon filching and spoiling what he
could. Even those who had been content to permit the monks’
worship and do great reverence at their matins, masses and services
two days previously were no less happy to pilfer, which is strange,
that they could one day think it to be the house of God and the
next the house of the Devil – or else they would not have been
so ready to have spoiled it.
But it is not a thing to be wondered at by such persons that mark
the inconstancy of the rude people in whom a man may graft a new
religion every day. Did not the same Jews worship Christ on Sunday,
who had done so much good to them, yet on the following Friday cried
‘Crucify him’?
For the better proof of this, thirty years after the Suppression
I asked my father, who had bought part of the timber of the church
and all the timber in the steeple with the bell frame, (in the steeple
eight or nine bells hung - the last but one could not be bought
today for £20 – and I myself saw these bells hanging
there over a year after the Suppression) if he thought well of the
religious people and of the religion followed at that time? And
he told me yes, for he saw no cause to the contrary: well, I said,
then how did it come to pass that you were so ready to destroy and
spoil the thing that you thought so well of? What should I have
done, he asked, might not I as well as the others have had some
profit from the spoils of the abbey? For I saw that everything would
disappear and therefore I did as the others did.’
Thus you may see that those who thought well of the religious, and
those who thought otherwise, agreed enough to spoil them. Such a
devil is covetousness and mammon! And such is the providence of
God to punish sinners in making themselves instruments to punish
themselves and all their posterity from generation to generation!
For no doubt there have been millions of millions that have repented
since, but all too late. And this is the extent of my knowledge
relating to the fall of Roche Abbey.
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