John the Baptist's Chapel is usually ascribed to Abbot John Browne (or Newton), from the similarity of his initials to those of the saint. The eastern bay of the chapter-house dates back to Abbot Hanley's time--_i.e._ between 1457-1472. In 1540 Henry VIII. sent his commissioners, and they demanded the surrender of the Abbey to the king. This cannot have been a surprise to any of the monks who were in the Abbey at the time. As far back as 1534 they had all been compelled to take the oath by which they acknowledged the king as supreme head of the Church of England, and denied that any foreign bishop had any authority in these realms. The monks, too, had seen the smaller monasteries in Gloucester dissolved two years before, and the more thoughtful of them must have foreseen that it was a mere question of time for the greedy king to absorb the larger monasteries as well. Abbot Parker's tomb, and also that of King Osric, practically date themselves, and of the same period are presumably the gateway into Palace Yard, and part of the Abbot's lodging on the site of the present Bishop's Palace. From Leland we learn that the south gate--_i.e._ King Edward's gate--is of the same date, having been rebuilt by Osborne the cellarer. The library, and the set of rooms beneath it, now used as vestry and practice-room for the choir, are perhaps the latest additions to the buildings. At the Dissolution the Abbey which had "existed for more than eight centuries under different forms, in poverty and in wealth, in meanness and in magnificence, in misfortune and success, finally succumbed to the royal will. The day came, and that a drear winter day, when its last mass was sung, its last censer waved, its last congregation bent in rapt and lowly adoration before the altar there; and, doubtless, as the last tones of that day's evensong died away in the vaulted roof, there were not wanting those who lingered in the solemn stillness of the old massive pile, and who, as the lights disappeared one by one, felt that there was a void which could never be filled, because their old abbey, with its beautiful services, its frequent means of grace, its hospitality to strangers, and its loving care for God's poor, had passed away like a morning dream, and was gone for ever." (Hart, iii. 49.)