The beauty of the scenery and the richness of the soil seem to have been the chief delight of these pampered canons. They were accused (how justly it is now difficult to decide) of luxurious living and great relaxation of discipline; and their last dean, Guido Rufus, was suspended from his office by Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury, the immediate successor of Thomas Becket. The king was at this time seeking opportunities of appeasing the church of Rome for the murder of Becket, and, influenced by the persuasions of the archbishop, he went to Waltham on the eve of Pentecost, in the year 1177, and having expelled the secular canons, he established in their place sixteen regular canons of the order of St. Augustin, taken out of three of the older English monasteries, namely, six from Cirencester, six from Oseney, and four from Chiche. Walter de Gaunt, a canon of Oseney, was elected the first Abbot of Waltham. The Abbey itself was declared, as formerly, free from all episcopal jurisdiction; and a few years afterwards the abbot was allowed the use of the pontificals, and Waltham was raised to the rank of a mitred abbey. King Henry, judging, as he states in the charter, that the church thus reformed, “as a new spouse of Christ, ought to have a new dower,”[218] added to its former possessions the manors of Siwardston and Epping. From this period the Abbey of Waltham was, during several reigns, a favourite resort of the English monarchs; and, separated by its woods from the “busy hum” of the world around, it seems to have escaped the troubles and turmoils of baronial strife. Henry’s son and successor, the lion-hearted Richard, gave the monks a new charter, confirming all their possessions and privileges; and by a separate charter he bestowed on the church the whole of his manor of Waltham, with the great wood, and the park called Harold’s Park, three hundred acres of assart land, the market of Waltham, and the village of Nasing (a member of Waltham), with three hundred and sixty acres of assart land there, for all which they were to pay yearly to the king’s exchequer sixty pounds. King Richard also gave them the manor of Copt Hall, which afterwards became a favourite residence of the abbots. Henry III., who frequently visited Waltham, was also a munificent benefactor; and among other favours he granted them the privilege of holding a fair during seven days annually. In this reign considerable alterations appear to have been made in the buildings of the Abbey, The church was re-dedicated in the year 1242, by the Bishop of Norwich, in the King’s presence; [Illustration] and it has been conjectured, that at that time was built Our Lady’s Chapel on the south side of the present church: this chapel still exists, although it has been long converted into a school-room. It has been supposed also that the <g>Inner Porch</g>, under the present steeple, was built about the end of this reign, or early in that of Edward I.