In 1539 the House was suppressed, the canons were put out, and the
place was given to Sir Anthony Brown, whose son became Viscount Montague
and gave his new name to the ancient close of the Monastery. In the
following year the Church was made a Parish Church, including the church
of Mary Magdalene, which stood beside the Priory Church, as St.
Peter-le-Poor stood beside St. Austin, St. Gregory beside St. Paul's,
and St. Margaret beside Westminster Abbey Church together with the
Parish Church of St. Margaret in the High Street. The nave gradually
became ruinous and was taken down in 1838, when a new nave, the memory
of which makes the whole Borough shudder when it is mentioned, was put
up. Its floor was raised above that of the transepts, and it was treated
as a separate building, divided from the transepts by a brick wall. This
terrible building has now been taken down and a nave rebuilt after the
pattern of the original structure of the fourteenth century. Thus
reconstructed, the church will soon, it is hoped, become the Cathedral
Church of the Diocese of Southwark. At present it has not the Cathedral
organisation, being without a Dean, or Canons, or a Chapter. The Church
can boast of more monuments and of a more distinguished company of the
dead than can be found in most London churches. Here are buried,
probably, Mary herself, the original founder, if she is not a legendary
person: Pont de l'Arche and d'Auncey, the founders: a long line of
unknown and forgotten Priors and Canons of the Augustinian House: John
Gower, on whose monument can still be read the prayers he wrote for his
own soul:
En toy qui es Filz de Dieu le Père
Sauvé soit qui gist sous cest pierre.
[Illustration: CRYPT OF ST. MARY OVERIES]
The monument was repaired and painted in 1832 by the first Duke of
Sutherland. Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, is buried in the
Lady Chapel, where his monument can be seen in black and white marble;
Dyer the poet, who died 1607; Edmund Shakespeare, 'player,' poet and
writer, buried somewhere in the Church, 1607; Laurence Fletcher, one of
the shareholders in the Globe, also buried in the Church, 1608; Philip
Henslow, the manager, buried in the chancel, 1616; John Fletcher, buried
in the Church, 1625; Philip Massinger, a 'stranger,' _i.e._ belonging to
some other parish, buried in the Church, 1639. There are three stones in
the chancel, inscribed with the names of John Fletcher, Edmund
Shakespeare, and Philip Massinger, but merely to record that they are
buried somewhere in the Church.
[Illustration: GATEWAY OF ST. MARY'S PRIORY, SOUTHWARK, 1811
(_From a Drawing by Whichelo_)]
Other monuments and tombs there are: one a figure, commonly found in
mediæval churches, of a body wasted by death: a wooden effigy of a
knight: a monument to a quack of Charles the Second's time, and
monuments to certain persons now forgotten; on one some lines in
imitation of Herrick:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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