Sheen Proiry later also known as Richmond Priory (1414-1539) was a priory in Surrey, England, restored as a national gathering of Carthusians by Maurice Chauncy at Sheen under Mary I of England during part of her reign from 1553 to 1558.
Context and location
Sheen was one of nine English medieval priories of the Carthusian order, a generally silent, enclosed order as with other orders promoting Christian theology and values in an age of frequent wars and occasional famine, providing charity for the destitute and natural medicine. The London Charterhouse a few miles ENE was particularly less reclusive order, not merely caring for the sick but founding a school, Charterhouse School, which is today a large fee-paying, selective school of pre-17th century date. Today its site in Richmond, Surrey is in Greater London and the site occupied by housing and businesses. Charterhouse School has moved to a rural part of Surrey. The next and extant Catholic foundation in the county is Chilworth Friary, built in 1892, near to Guildford. The site adjoined existing Richmond Palace to its south.
Evolution
Endowment and war with France In 1414 Henry V of England founded at Sheen this priory, known as the House of Jesus of Bethlehem, 'for forty monks of the Carthusian order'. 'House of Carthusian monks: Priory of Sheen': A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 2, ed. H E Malden (London, 1967), pp. 89-94 Accessed 15 April 2015
The foundation charter describes the site in detail: built on the north side of the royal manor house, on a piece of land 3,125 feet by 1,305 feet 8 inches extending from 'Hakelok' by 'Diverbussh' on the south to the cross called 'Crosasshe' on the north. The buildings were large with thirty sets of chambers around the great court or cloister, which suggests the planned scale was reduced. According to the Carthusian rule each monk lived and fed apart, they only met in common in choir and chapter.
The considerable endowments in this royal foundation largely consisted of the possessions of the suppressed foreign priories, archaically also called 'alien': Ware Priory, Hayling Priory, Carisbrooke Priory, Lyre Abbey (parent abbey of Hinckley Priory) and Lewisham Priory; the dispossessed manors of East Greenwich and East Combe — or 700 marks out of the royal revenue if these should ever be recovered; the weir of neighbouring Petersham with fishery rights; and the Crown-administered manor of East Hendred.
The spiritualities included the right to appoint vicars and benefices including churchlands and rectorial tithe of the four churches of the town of Wareham in Dorset; the market towns of Ware and Lewisham and village-size parishes of four rural parishes in Northamptonshire; Marden, Kent; three in Hampshire; seven in the Isle of Wight; four in Berkshire; seven parishes with tithes of various other lordships in Herefordshire; three parishes with tithes of other lordships in Gloucestershire; three parishes and tithes of the forest of Malvern; Elmdon in Essex; Hellingly, in Sussex; and Padbury in Buckinghamshire all named in the fully cited County History of 1911.
Another royal gift of the founder was that of four pipes of red wine annually at Candlemas.
Authorised by the Parliament of Leicester, this expropriation of French interests saw strong protest: the Benedictine abbot and convent of St. Evroul, Normandy, wrote an earnest appeal to Sheen in the year 1416, to restore the property which had belonged to them for centuries. In their case, as they stated in this letter, their English possessions had been their chief source of income, and at one time had supplied them with £2,000 a year. Owing to frequent wars between France and England they had of late obtained nothing from this source, and had so been obliged to reduce their choir monks from forty to less than twenty. They appealed to justice and ecclesiastical traditions, stating that no state policy or fear of foreign wars could justify Sheen in retaining that property. Eleven years they protested and in 1427 carried their case to Rome but failed.
Illustrative example of lifestyle An authentic Latin set of abstracts of charters and other particulars relating to the possessions of the alien priories of Ware and Hayling and the rest of the endowments have been kept in London at the British Library.British Library Manuscript: Registrum privilegiorum et terrarum monasterii de Shene. Among the Lansdown manuscripts, is one on small 15th century vellum: a Formulare et Consuetudinarium Carthusianorum de Shene in com. Surr.No. 1201 It opens with the form of receiving postulants and novices, in English, inserted on paper. On the postulant seeking admission the prior first asked four questions, as to whether the candidate had been professed in any religious order, whether he had any impediment to taking holy orders, whether he was suffering from any incurable disease, or whether he was in debt or owed any money? If these were answered satisfactorily, the candidate retired, and the prior addressed the chapter:
The candidate was then recalled if the decision of the chapter was favourable. On re-admission the following was the procedure:
The old book has 8 other Latin sections and the procedure for receiving lay brothers set out by the chapter of the Victoria County History of 1911 dealing with such institutions.
Expansion and visits By his will of 1415 Henry V. left 1,000 marks for the completion of the house of Sheen for forty monks and bidding his executors see that the number was sustained.
In 1416 an 'anchorage' or hermitage for a recluse was founded, endowed with an annual rent of twenty marks issuing out of the manors of Lewisham and Greenwich; the first recluse or chaplain to occupy it was John Kingstone.
An inspection and confirmation were granted to Sheen by Edward IV in 1461 of the foundation charter and of the further grant by Henry VI in 1442 of in Sheen and that they might pray for the good [e]state of the king and Cicely his mother and for their souls after death, and the souls of the king's father Richard, late Duke of York, and his ancestors.
Licence was granted in June 1466 to the prior and monks to make a subterranean conduit from a spring called 'Welwey,' alias 'Pickwelleswell,' and to repair the pipes when necessary; Henry V had granted them leave to make a conduit from a spring called 'Hillesdenwell,' but the supply of water was insufficient.
In July 1474 the prior obtained [royal] licence for it to repossess upon mortmain land, tenements and rents to the value of £50 yearly.
Edward IV in 1467 granted to his Queen Elizabeth (Woodville) the manor and lordship of Sheen to hold for life, and she by letters patent of 1 April 1479 granted to the prior and the monks in West Sheen, parcel of the manor to hold for her life whereupon the king by letters patent of 25 May confirmed this estate and granted it to them in free alms for ever.
On 4 August 1480 the priory obtained licence for the acquisition in mortmain of lands, tenements and rents to the value of £100 yearly.
It is related of Godwin, a monk of this convent, that in the latter end of March 1502 he murdered the prior of the house in a cellar of uncertain name.
On Sunday, 12 January 1510, Henry VIII was here and made an offering of 33s. 4d (). Among the alms of Katharine of Aragon for the year 1529 was £7 6s. 8d. to Sheen.
In 1516 licence was obtained by Thomas Pygot and Richard Broke, serjeants-at-law, and others to add to it possessions to the annual value of £15 15s. including the manor of Portpole and lands in St. Andrew's, Holborn.
Dr. John Colet, a learned dean of St. Paul's, was allowed to build himself lodgings within the precincts. When he began to suffer 'sweating sickness' he retired to Sheen, 'spending the little remainder of his days in devotion and "surrendered up at length his last breath to Him that first gave it on the 16th of September 1519." His body was taken back to St. Paul's for burial.
On 28 April 1528 the prior as visitor of the order agreed to exchange with convent "the Salutation, near London" the City of London tenement of late Sir Robert Reede, chief justice of the Common Pleas for other lands more profitable.
In March 1530 the prior was one of three parties to an indenture (in this instance a sort of apprenticeship) devised for finding two secular priests for All Angels Chapel beside Breynford Brygg (Brentford Bridge) in the market town on the opposite bank of the Thames across its tributary, the Brent some way to the north.
On 1 November 1530, the prior granted to the king the convent's possessions in Lewisham and East Greenwich, and in 1531 exchanged with the King these manors for the site and precinct of the late priory of Bradwell with lands in nine parishes of Buckinghamshire and two of Northamptonshire, together with seven advowsons, as held by John Ashby, the late prior; also the chantry lands of Beddington, and other lands lately from Cardinal's College (Christ Church), Oxford.
Guild in Bagshot In July 1480 the prior in conjunction with Robert Houglot, Richard Newbryge, clerk, and four others, obtained licence to found a perpetual guild or fraternity for themselves and other persons, both men and women. The brethren and sisters were to elect from themselves yearly a warden for the governance of the guild and the custody of its possessions; the fraternity was to have a common seal and to be termed the G[u]ild of St. Mary in Bagshot. Licence was also given to acquire in mortmain lands and rents to the value of £10 yearly, to find a chaplain to celebrate in the chapel there for the good [e]state of the king and queen and of the brethren and sisters of the gild, and for their souls after death, and to do other works of piety according to the ordinance of the founders.
Tomb (lost) According to Stowe's history of the battle, the body of James IV of Scotland was emtombed above ground here in lead after the Battle of Flodden in 1513. This statement is supported by a passage in a book called The Flower of Fame, printed in 1575. A line of Scottish historians has steadily maintained that the body found and conveyed to London and then to Sheen was not his.
Measures against the priory under Henry VIII In common with other English Carthusians, Sheen was very reluctant to take the oath of supremacy in favour of Henry VIII which was generally enforced in 1534. The Carthusians were almost as zealous in opposing the royal action as were the Friars Observant. On 7 May 1534 agents Roland, Bishop of Lichfield, and Thomas Bedyll wrote to Thomas Cromwell that they had accomplished the business at Sheen, the prior, convent, and novices having taken the oath. The prior and proctor had shown themselves honest men and faithful subjects, and exhorted the Observants of Richmond to do the same. A letter to Lord Lisle, of 13 May, mentions however that the priors of the Charterhouses of London and Sheen were both [imprisoned] in the Tower.
There is also a letter of this year, apparently of the month of August, from one John Pyzaunt, a monk of Sheen, to Sir John Alayn, alderman of London, which though loyal to his house and order, shows that there was difference of opinion amongst the brethren. He asked for Sir John's intercession with 'Mr. Secretary,' for, though many of them were ready to conform with the king's wishes, 'others I think will rather die from a little scrupulosity of conscience, and would not give way for sorrow and despair of salvation, losing peradventure both body and soul which were greatly to be lamented.' He besought the alderman to speak some good word for the obstinate ones that they might be suffered and borne with. Henry Man, proctor of the house, which was the title of the third official, was the leader of those who were apparently ready to comply with the king's wish.