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The Holy Maid of Kent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 June 2009

A. Denton Cheney
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Abstract

On the range of Quarry hills, midway between Lympne and Aldington, overlooking the vast expanse of Romney Marsh, lies the little hamlet of Court-at-Street, and in the fields below, belonging to the manor farm, the considerable remains of the ancient chapel. It is as quiet and pastoral a spot as you will find in all England, yet the scene of an event which has made an indelible mark upon the history of our country.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 18 , December 1904 , pp. 107 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1903

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References

page 107 note 1 ‘In the 15th Iter of Richard of Cirencester, Lymne is approached from the west by way of Chichester and Pevensey (Anderida). The station, or resting-place, next to Pevensey, is written “ad Lemanum,” at the distance from the haven of Anderida of twenty-five miles, and to the port of Lymne (or, as written, the Lemanian Port) ten miles. Facing the entrance (to Studfall Castle) in the western wall, opposite to the Decuman gate, runs a straight ridge of land westward, which may possibly be the line of the ancient road to the Ad Lemanum of Richard of Cirencester.’—Antiquities of Lymne, by Charles Roach Smith.

page 108 note 1 In the reign of Edward II., John de Hadlow had license to fortify and embattle his house here. (Ireland's History of Kent.)

page 108 note 2 See appendix, note A.

page 108 note 3 Hasted gives lists of the rectors of these churches for centuries (even after they had been in ruins), but no mention is made of any incumbents of Court-at-Street, nor does its name appear in the inventories of church goods of 1552.

page 109 note 1 Tanner's, Notitia, ed. 1787, p. xviiiGoogle Scholar .

page 109 note 2 History of Abbeys, fol. 351.

page 109 note 3 Taylor, Index Mon., Intro. Cf. Note B in the appendix.

page 109 note 4 On the south side of the ruined chapel may still be seen remains of what may have been the cell of this anchorite. (See descriptions of these cells in Anchoresses of the West.)

page 109 note 5 Cobb Hall still stands; a picturesque half-timbered house, retaining in its interior some vestiges of its former importance.

page 110 note 1 Appendix, note C.

page 110 note 2 ‘Sir William, priest of Our Lady chapel at Court-at-Street.’ Cal. of State Papers, vi. No. 1468.

page 110 note 3 Calendar, vol. xiii. pt. i. No. 85.

page 111 note 4 History of England, i. 312.

page 112 note 1 Calendar of Spanish Papers, 1531–3, No. 1154.

page 112 note 2 Cranmer's Remains, letter xxx.

page 112 note 3 Appendix, note D.

page 112 note 4 Cal. vi. No. 1468.

page 112 note 5 Cal. vi. No. 1511.

page 112 note 6 Cal., Spain, 11 20, 1533Google Scholar .

page 113 note 1 Cal. State Papers, Spain, 1531–1533, Nos. 1153–1154Google Scholar .

page 114 note 1 Stow in his Annals and Strype in his Memorials represent Richard Masters, rector of Aldington, as having suffered death with them, and this statement has naturally been accepted as accurate by modern historians; it is, however, quite erroneous. Masters received a free pardon (see Grants, in 07 1534, no. 10, vol. vii. Cal. of State PapersGoogle Scholar ), and was restored to his rectory. He was presented to Cranmer for adherence to the old faith in 1543 (Cal. vol. xviii. pt. ii. p. 301); appears as rector in the inventory of church goods of 1552; and continued to be parish priest there until his death about the year 1558. See article upon ‘Richard Masters’ in the Journal of the British Archæological Association for April 1904 (vol. x. pt. i.)

page 114 note 2 History of England, ii. 95.

page 115 note 1 History of England, i. 313.

page 115 note 2 Ibid. p. 314.

page 116 note 1 In the inventory of the goods at his parsonage we find ‘42 great books covered with boards, 33 small books covered with boards, 38 books covered with leather, and parchment’ (Cal. vi. no. 521), a good-sized library for a pre-Reformation country parson.

page 116 note 2 Vol. vi. No. 1470.

page 117 note 1 History of England, i. 325.

page 117 note 2 Cal. vi. No. 835.

page 117 note 3 For example: the Marchioness of Exeter sent for her to Horseley. Her children had all died in childbirth; she was expecting another, and she desired her to pray to Our Lady that she might have issue that would live. Also, her husband was likely to go to the wars, and she begged her prayers for his safe return. The marchioness gave her 20s.

page 118 note 1 Appendix, note E.

page 118 note 2 Cal. vii. No. 48.

page 118 note 3 B. Mus. Arundel MSS. 152, fol. 49.

page 119 note 1 Lingard's, History of England, v. 13Google Scholar .

page 119 note 2 Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, by Hook, Dean, vi. 354Google Scholar , note.

page 120 note 1 Hall in political matters was a staunch supporter of Henry VIII., and his parents seem to have been important personages among the more advanced reformers. His Chronicle is a glorification of the House of Tudor, especially a justification of the action of Henry VIII. (See note F, Appendix.)

page 121 note 1 Cal. vol. No. 287.

page 121 note 2 Wright's Suppression of the Monasteries.

page 122 note 1 Maunder's, Treasury of English History (Longmans, 1882)Google Scholar .

page 123 note 1 There is a curious letter in Cal. vii. No. 303, which may possibly bear upon this subject. John Rudd appeals to the bishop elect of Chester to get him liberated from prison. The fault of which he is accused is that in a sermon at St. Paul's Cross, alluding to those impostors who had been condemned, he said that their wickedness had merited even greater punishment; nevertheless that what was imputed to them upon published confessions, in violation of the sacrament of penance and confession, was altogether a calumny, and that he was assured by persons worthy of credit that they were not convicted of that matter before the King's Council; further, that this was evident because no mention was made of it in the abbot's sermon in which their misdeeds were denounced. From this he took occasion to inveigh against slanderous tongues. Dr. Gasquet regards this letter as referring to confessions of duplicity and falsehood which according to the act of attainder had been made before ‘divers of the King's Council’ (Henry VIII. ana the Monasteries, pp. 186–7).

page 124 note 1 See Lecky's, England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. iGoogle Scholar .

page 124 note 2 Pall Mall Magazine, January 1903.

page 126 note 1 Dr. Wickham Legg, F.S.A., in his paper on The Sherborne Mass Book, read before the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society in November 1896, declared that the Sarum Use was ‘a Roman book from top to toe.’ St Augustine, with the approbation of the Pope, drew up the English Use founded on the Roman, with daily offices derived from the Gallican, ‘thus giving to the English Church its own national Use’ (History of the Book of Common Prayer, by Proctor).

page 127 note 1 Preface to the Book of Common Prayer.

page 127 note 2 I Eliz. c. ii.

page 127 note 3 Cal. vii. No. 11.

page 127 note 4 History of Kent.

page 127 note 5 Ibid.

page 128 note 1 MS. Cotton, Cleop. E, iv. fol. 84.

page 129 note 1 See Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, xiii. 97–98.

page 129 note 2 England in the Eighteenth Century, iii. 88.

page 129 note 3 See this very curious history in the Journal, 1768. The substance was taken down by Wesley from the lips of the visionary. Ibid. p. 90.