monasteries of Reading, Chelsey, and Leominster, together with their appurtenances of woods, fields, pastures, &c. with exemption from all tolls, duties, customs, and contributions." Besides these privileges, the abbot and monks were invested with the power of trying criminals, and entrusted, generally, with the conservation of the peace in the town and neighbourhood. In return for these extensive grants, the monks, by an obligation in the charter, were to provide the poor and all travellers with necessary entertainment. William of Malmsbury testifies, that the latter part of their duty was so well performed, that there was always more expended upon strangers than upon themselves. This was a mitred abbey ;* or, in other words, the abbot had the privilege of sitting in parliament.

The above gifts were not the whole that the munificent piety of the Monarch bestowed on the abbey of Reading. By some means, which history has neglected to register, he became possessed of the hand of St. James the apostle; or, at least, had been so induced to believe by the subtlety of the monks. This sacred rarity he deposited in the monastery, which, according to one assertion, recorded in the Monasticon, he founded" præ gaudio manus." Henry the Second confirmed the grants of all the preceding benefactors.

Though the monastery was finished in the year 1125, it does not appear that the church was consecrated till 1163, or 1164, when the famous Archbishop Becket performed that ceremony in the presence of the King and many of the nobility. On that occasion, the tutelars of the abbey were increased by the addition of the Holy Trinity and St. James the apostle. The church is said to have been a spacious fabric, in the form of a cross, with a tower in the centre, but without aisles,

By

* The custom of summoning to parliament commenced in the 49th year of the reign of Henry the Third. It was afterwards the practice of our Kings to call up as many abbots and priors as they thought proper, so that there was sometimes a less and sometimes a greater number summoned. This mode at length being found inconvenient, the number was limited, and the privilege bestowed on particular places only. The abbots thus dignified were said to be MITRED, The limitation continued till the dissolution,

By the deed of Hugh, the eighth abbot, we are informed that the obligation to relieve the poor,* contained in the foundation charter, was not always fulfilled. The abbot observes, that, "Whereas King Henry had appointed all persons to be entertained there, yet he found that the same was performed in decent manner towards the rich, but not according to the King's intention towards the poor, which miscarriage he, as steward to that noble charity, was resolved to correct." For this reason he built an hospital without the abbey gate, that those persons who were not admitted to the upper house might be there entertained. To this hospital he gave the church of St. Laurence for ever, for the maintenance of 13 poor persons in diet, clothes, and other necessaries, and allowed sufficient for the support of 13 others out of the usual alms. "This," Grose observes in his Antiquities, "though done under the specious pretence of charity, was, in all likelihood, only a method taken to exclude the meaner persons from the table

From the following story related in Fuller's Church History, it would seem that the devotions of the abbots were neither exclusively directed to the feeding of the poor, nor to the obtaining of spiritual grace.

Henry the Eighth having been hunting in Windsor Forest, struck down about dinner time to the abbey of Reading, where, disguising himself as one of the King's guard, he was invited to the abbot's table. Here, his tooth being whetted by the keen air of the forest, he fed so lustily on a sir loin of beef, that his "Well fare thy vigorous appetite was noticed by the master of the ceremonies. heart," quoth the abbot. "I would give a hundred pounds if I could feed so heartily on beef as thou dost. Alas! my weak and squeazie stomach will hardly digest the wing of a rabbit or chicken." The Monarch, having satisfied his palate, thanked the abbot for his good cheer, and departed undiscovered. Some weeks afterwards the abbot was arrested, conveyed to London, sent to This the Tower, and allowed no food for several days but bread and water. treatment, together with his fears for the consequence of the King's displeasure, soon removed the effects of repletion, and at last, when a sir loin was one day When he had placed before him, he eat as freely as a famished ploughman. finished his meal, the King, who had been a hidden spectator, burst from his concealment. " My lord," said the laughing Monarch, "presently deposit your hundred pieces in gold, or else no going hence all the days of your life. I have been the physician to cure your squeazie stomach; and now, as I deserve, demand my fee for so doing." The abbot, knowing that argument was of no avail with the stern Harry, paid the money, and returned home, rejoicing that he had escaped so easily.

table of the abbey, which was often frequented by travellers of the better sort." This conjecture seems to be well founded; for the prelates and nobility were too haughty to admit of that general association with the lower classes, which the conditions of the establishment must otherwise have occasioned.

This abbey was the burial-place of many illustrious persons. The body of the founder, who died near Rouen, in Normandy, in the year 1135, was embalmed, brought to England, and here deposited; but his heart, eyes, tongue, brains, and bowels, were interred beneath a handsome monument in the church of Notre Dame at Rouen. Sandford asserts, that when the monastery was converted into a royal palace at the dissolution, the bones of the Monarch were disturbed, and thrown out. This relation, which never obtained general belief, was supposed, by some antiquaries, to be entirely refuted in the year 1787, when an ancient coffin was found in a vault on digging the foundation of the county goal, which has lately been erected on the site of the abbey. Henry the First is said to have been buried in a bull's hide; and as the coffin contained the remains of a slipper, and a piece of brass, it was at once conjured into the depositary wherein the monarch's body had been laid. With what slender materials does Credulity erect her temples!

History has particularized two councils that were held here. One in the reign of John, by Pandulph, the Pope's legate, when the abbot was appointed a delegate for promulgating the sentence of excommunication against the barons who opposed the King's assumption of arbitrary power. The other in the time of Edward the First, by Archbishop Peckham. In the refectory (84 feet long by 48 feet wide) the parliament, assembled in the 31st of Henry the Sixth, is supposed to have been held.

The annual revenues of the abbey at the period of the dissolution were valued at 19381. 14s. 3d. a proof that its possessions were hardly inferior to any in England. Hugh Farringdon, the 31st, and last abbot, was attainted of high treason, for refusing to deliver up his abbey to the visitors; and in the month of November, 1539, was, together with two of his monks, named Rugg and Onion, hanged, drawn and quartered at Reading.

This

This extensive building appears to have occupied a circumference of nearly half a mile; but nothing remains except fragments of massive walls, composed of flint and gravel, and a gatehouse. The depredations of time, and the more destructive power of superstition and bigotry, have levelled its glories with the dust. The walls are eight feet thick in some parts, and were formerly cased with stone; but this has been long removed. The hospital for the poor knights at Windsor was built soon after the Reformation with some of the ruins; and many large masses, several of them as much as two team of horses could draw, were carried away by the late General Conway, to erect that singular bridge in his park, which is thrown across the high road leading from Henley to Walgrave.

Ausgerus, or Aucherius, the second abbot, founded a house for poor lepers near the church. This was dedicated to Mary Magdalen, and governed by regulations admirably adapted to the preservation of good order. If any person was engaged in dispute, and neglected to obey the third monition of the master to hold his peace, he was deprived for that day of every kind of food but bread and water. He who gave the lie was subjected to the same punishment, with the addition of some humiliating circumstances: if he continued sullen, or received his castigation impatiently, it was to be repeated another day; and should he afterwards persevere in his obstinacy, the benefit of the charity was to be denied him for forty days. A blow was immediate expulsion; and none were to go abroad, or into the laundress's house, without a companion.

Besides these foundations, there were several other religious houses in this town; particularly a priory, now used as a Bridewell, the west window of which still remains an elegant monu ment of the arts at a remote period; and a convent for nuns in Castle-Street, which at the dissolution was given by Henry the Eighth to the corporation, who disposed of it to the county for a prison. Since the erection of the new gaol, this building has been taken down, and a Methodist meeting-house raised on the same spot.

READING