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The fate of the monks of Roche after the
Dissolution
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Abbot Henry
Cundall left the abbey with a respectable pension, a golden
handshake, and retired to Tickhill, where he held a living.
In his will of 18 October 1554 he left forty shillings to
the poor
of Tickhill and twenty shillings to the poor of Crowle; Henry had
died by 4 May 1555.(2)
Thomas
Twell, the sub-prior of the abbey, became a priest in Nottinghamshire,
and in his will of 16 November 1558, styled himself Sir
Thomas Twelves of Blyth, a Nottinghamshire priest. Thomas
left money and goods to his sister and other relatives, and
made bequests to
the poor of Blyth and surrounding villages; he also left a vestments
and a chalice to Sheffield parish church, in return for a
mass for
his father and himself.(3)
John
Dodsworth, the bursar of Roche, and one of those accused
of sodomy by Layton and Legh in 1535/6, may have obtained a
chantry
in Kirk Bramworth parish church in 1540; he later became rector
of Armthorpe, where he remained until his death in May 1574.
In
his will Dodsworth requested that he be buried in the churchyard
of Armthorpe, near his sister.(4) John
Dodsworths name also crops up in a court case of 1568-9,
where he testified on behalf of the eighty-year old Richard
Lonsdale,
a former friar of Tickhill. Dodsworth was himself seventy at the
time, and remembering events of some thirty or forty years
earlier;
that he is considered an acceptable (and accurate) character witness
is in itself significant. Dodsworths account of how
he came to know Lonsdale is extremely interesting and sheds
some light on
the nature of the bursars role in a sixteenth-century Cistercian
house. He explains that for twenty-one years before the Dissolution,
the abbot and convent of Roche were proprietors of the church of
Tickhill, and as John was the bursar, it was his duty to visit
once
or twice a week to ensure that the tithes
had been gathered, and that those who gathered, led and threshed
the tithe were duly paid. It was during these visits to Tickhill
over the course of nineteen or twenty years, that John came in
contact with the former friar, Richard. Dodsworths account
is interesting for a number of reasons, not least of all as it
shows he was still
identified with his former abbey some thirty years after the Dissolution;
John was styled former White Monk of Roche and now rector
of Armthorpe.(5)
Thomas
Wells, who was a priest at the surrender of Roche, acquired
the Stretton Wolfe chantry in Lincoln Cathedral. Thomas never
married
and died c. 1564.(6)
Henry
Wilson was a priest at the time of the Dissolution and became
a chantry priest at Heckington, Lincolnshire. It seems that
he never
married, and died at Braucnewell, 10 April 1573.(7)
John
Robinson, the novice
who was suspected of treason and imprisoned at York Castle, was
released before the surrender of Roche and, like the other monks
of his abbey, received a pension, which he was still drawing in
1556 and 1564.(8)
One former monk of Roche compiled a history
of the manor of Todwick, from the time of the Conquest in 1066
until
Henry IIIs reign (1216-72).(9)
There was evidently some lasting
sense of community and cohesion amongst former monks of Roche,
and
amongst former Cistercians in general. In 1555, Henry Cundall summoned
five former monks of the abbey, as well as the last abbots of Rievaulx
and Rufford, and three
former members of Rufford to sign a letter in support of the ordination
of a former novice of Roche, Richard Moysley. Significantly, Henry
referred to himself as abbot of Roche. (10)
Several wills testify to this solidarity amongst former monks,
and show that there was some contact amongst those who had once
shared
the monastic life at Roche. Henry Cundalls will of 1554 mentions
a fur gown that had been given to him by a former monk of Roche,
Nicholas Colys; on 21 August 1557 Thomas Twell, the former sub-prior
of Roche, was left 6s 8d and a short gown in the will of John
Thorpe
of Blyth who may have been a monk of the abbey.(11)
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