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Mortons were afterwards looked upon as the founders, and the chapel became the family burying-place.

The circumstances of their benefaction were these. The canons of the House of St. Oswald or Nostel, near Pontefract, had fallen into great pecuniary difficulties under Adam de Bilton, an improvident Prior, and to relieve themselves from the temporary pressure they borrowed money on annuities. Morton advanced to them the large sum of £250., for which the convent agreed to pay eight marks per annum, to the chaplain of the Bawtry Hospital and his successors, who were to celebrate in the chapel, and pray for the good estate of Robert Morton and Joan his wife, while they lived, and for their souls when dead, and for the souls of his father and mother, and of all his relations and benefactors.

Such a foundation was undoubtedly tainted with what, in the days of the Reformation, would be accounted superstition. Yet it lived through the storm, which, in the reigns of Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth, swept away so many foundations of its class, where acts of charity to the poor were united with religious services framed in the spirit of the old Christianity of England. I have not been

able to recover any particulars of the means which were used to preserve it; but we may remark that the Archbishop of York had an interest in maintaining it, since the nomination of the master had been placed in him. We know, however, that it did live through the storm, that it continued to enjoy the estate in the lands which from ancient times had belonged to it, and also the annuity which the Canons had been accustomed to pay, and which was paid, on the dissolution of the House, by the Crown. Every thing which savoured of Popery was removed from the service and a Protestant clergyman was appointed master. Dr. William Clayborough, and after him John Houseman, were the masters who immediately preceded James Brewster, who was presented to the mastership by Archbishop Sandys in 1584; the first known event which brings the names of Sandys and Brewster into connection. There were at that time one or two alms people whose dwellings, with a house for the master's residence, and a chapel, which, having long been in ruins, has of late been restored, constituted the whole establishment.

It must always have been a matter notorious that the same law by which so many other foundations of this

mixed kind were subverted, must really have been intended to bear against the Bawtry Hospital. Indeed there were many equivocal cases, and many more where lands (usually small portions) which had been given for religious purposes in the old time, were in lay hands, through the neglect or ignorance of the persons who were commissioned to attend to the carrying out the purposes of the acts of suppression. Lands so circumstanced were technically called Concealed lands, as if furtively kept out of the notice of the Crown to which the acts had given them. In the reign of Elizabeth a strict inquiry was instituted into these abuses. Commissioners were sent into all parts of the kingdom. To a body of these commissioners it was, that some persons, with the connivance and approbation of Brewster, the master, presented the Hospital and its possessions, and the commissioners forthwith reported it as a concealment. The foundation was overturned and the whole property seized by the Crown. There was thus an end to his duties and office, and Brewster left Bawtry and went to reside at Chelmsford in Essex.

But the Hospital and its lands, which were certain closes near adjoining, were no sooner in the hands of

the Queen, than they were granted out again as a private possession to Brewster and other persons.

In all these proceedings, which appear to be of very questionable propriety, we do not find that the Archbishop who had presented Brewster made any opposition. He was then an old man, and he died in 1588, four years after Brewster's appointment, on the 8th day of August.

Sandys was succeeded by John Piers, a prelate of another spirit. He took a very different view of the duty of the Archbishop in respect of this foundation, which was under his care in his character of diocesan, and in which he had a special interest as patron. He formed the determination to endeavour to set aside all the proceedings of the Commissioners for Concealed lands; and in this he was supported by another body of Commissioners who were then beginning to act with vigour against every species of canonical irregularity-the Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical.

The first step taken by the Archbishop was formally to depose Brewster from the Mastership. This he did. on the ground that he had suffered the overthrow of the Hospital, and had removed himself a hundred miles or more from the place at which he was bound

to residence. His next step was to nominate a new Master, who was John Cooper, M.A. We soon find the Ecclesiastical Commissioners addressing a warrant to the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire to attach James Brewster, Thomas Short, Thomas Robinson, and others, and to cause them to appear before the Commissioners at York. The charge, that they had profaned and ruinated the house and chapel. This warrant bears date March 6th, 1590.

We have but imperfect notices of what was done by the Commissioners; but it is of the less importance, as the cause was soon removed into a higher Court, and there after many hearings and long argument determined.

A Bill was filed in the Exchequer in Easter Term, 1591, the Archbishop of York against Robinson and others, in which is set forth the right of himself and his successors in the see to the patronage, the attempt of Brewster pretending himself to be Master, to overthrow and dissolve the foundation and to take to himself or to others for his use, the possessions belonging to it, and to free himself from attendance and residence, having, as the Bill sets forth, "wickedly and ungodly combined and confederated himself to

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