confessed, contrite in heart and truly penitent--we remit to such twenty days of the penance enjoined on them, and grant it to them to share in the prayers and benefactions made in the church of Winchester and other churches erected by the grace of the Lord in the diocese of Winchester. Ever in the Lord. Farewell.” The Prior of St. Mary Overy assisted in the good work, and several popes confirmed the acts of their subordinates, and thus St. Thomas’s Hospital was founded on the site now occupied by part of the London Bridge Railway Station--a site which was its home from 1228 to 1862. In 1535 there were forty beds at St. Thomas’s Hospital. In 1507 the hospital was enlarged and repaired, “the void ground,” called the “Faucon,” and afterwards the “Tenys Place” and “Closshbane” (probably connected with the game of skittles), was acquired, and the following was the bill: “Paid to Mr. Scott of Kent, and Ann, his wife, for the land forty marks, and for a gown cloth of damask for the said Ann £3 16s. 8d.--in all £31 13s. 4d.” When this land, or very nearly the same, was sold to the South-Eastern Railway Company in 1862 it fetched £296,000. The total cost of land and buildings erected in 1507, with the legal expenses, was £311 6s. 1½d. About the year 1527, James Nycolson, of “St. Thomas’s Spyttell in Southwark,” had a printing press within the precincts of the hospital, and among other notable books produced the Bible known as “Nycolson’s Coverdale.” THE ROYAL HOSPITALS. When the religious houses were suppressed by Henry VIII., these hospitals and asylums, which were part and parcel of them, were suppressed also, and for a time the poor found themselves deprived of much assistance to which they had become accustomed. It was therefore found necessary to re-establish these institutions on a new footing. This was done by Henry VIII. and Edward VI., and when we speak of these monarchs as founders we must remember that they refounded in a better form that which Henry had previously destroyed. St. Bartholomew’s was refounded in 1548, and St. Thomas’s in 1553; and in 1557 the four Royal hospitals--St. Bartholomew’s, St. Thomas’s, Christ’s Hospital, and Bridewell--were, in a sense, incorporated together for purposes of management. Dr. Payne has kindly permitted me to inspect a little book bearing the date 1557, and entitled “The Order of the Hospitalls of K. Henry the viii.th and King Edward the vi.th--viz., St. Bartholomew’s, Christ’s, Bridewell, St. Thomas’s. By the Mayor, Cominaltie, and Citizens of London, Governours of the Possessions, Revenues and Goods of the sayd Hospitals.” From this it appears that “one Hospital, called St. Bartholomew’s the little,” was founded by King Henry VIII., and the other three by his successor. The governors were to be sixty-six at least, fourteen aldermen and fifty-two grave commoners, whereof four were to be scriveners, “to the intent that in every house may be one or