The Staffordshire monasteries were, however, sufficiently varied in situation and character to make their history worth studying. They were by no means all of one type, nor were they all, in the sixteenth century, similarly circumstanced. They represented the four great orders of monks: Benedictine, Austin, Cluniac, and Cistercian, and there were houses of Dominican and Franciscan Friars, as well as of the later Austin Friars. Burton Abbey was a house large enough to be involved in national politics; Calwich was so insignificant that the Government was able to suppress it illegally without protest or remark. Between these were some dozen houses, small enough to come within the scope of the Act for the dissolution of the lesser monasteries, yet nearly all able to purchase exemption from its provisions. Some, like Stone, stood close to busy highways; some, like Croxden, in its secluded valley, lay remote from towns and even villages; others stood near the well-to-do market towns of Stafford, Leek, and Lichfield. They had originated in various ways. St. Modwen’s Abbey at Burton-on-Trent was the foundation of Wulfric Spot, patriot and soldier, in 1004; where the road crossed the Trent he founded and richly endowed the Benedictine abbey on a site which already had sacred associations. Beside it grew a flourishing town. In its Scriptorium was compiled one of the most valuable of the English monastic chronicles. Kings and prelates lodged within its walls. Burton Abbey played a part in national history more than once. Another Benedictine house arose before the Norman Conquest. Burchard, the third son of Algar, whose other sons were the traitors Edwin and Morcar, accompanied Archbishop Aldred to Rome when he went to fetch his pallium and to obtain papal authorization for the privileges of the Confessor’s new abbey at Westminster. Returning, Burchard fell ill at Rheims, and, dying, was buried within the precincts of the Abbey of St. Remigius there. In gratitude Algar gave to St. Remigius the “_villa_” of Lapley in Staffordshire, and a priory was built there as a cell dependent on the house at Rheims. In acknowledgment of the help which the Norman invaders had received from the prayers of the Norman monks, Henry de Ferrers established near his castle at Tutbury a priory dependent on the great Abbey of St. Peter-sur-Dive. More worldly motives caused the erection of other houses. Trentham was founded by Hugh, Earl of Chester, as a help towards re-establishing the authority and pre-eminence he had lost in Staffordshire when the Palatine Earldom of Chester was created. Robert de Stafford re-founded Stone as an Austin Priory in order to assist in the building up of a great estate in the district (_c._ 1130). Trentham became an Austin Priory when Earl Ralf of Chester left, on his death-bed, 100 solidates of Trentham Manor to restore it. The vicar of the parish, John, who was the Earl’s Chaplain, became Prior, and for thirty years the endowment continued to