Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 53010-h.htm or 53010-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53010/53010-h/53010-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53010/53010-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/lastabbotofglast00crakrich [Illustration: “WHAT HAVE WE HERE? S. JOSEPH HELP US!” _Page 3._] THE LAST ABBOT OF GLASTONBURY. A Tale of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. by the REV. A. D. CRAKE, B.A., Fellow of the Royal Historical Society; Vicar of Havenstreet, I.W.; Author of Fairleigh Hall, The Chronicles of Æscendune, The Camp on the Severn, etc., etc. Oxford and London: A. R. Mowbray & Co. HISTORICAL PREFACE. The Author humbly ventures to offer the ninth of his series of original tales, illustrating Church History, to the public; encouraged by the favourable reception the previous volumes have found. In the tales, “Æmilius,” “Evanus,” and “The Camp on the Severn,” he has endeavoured to describe the epoch of the Pagan persecutions, under the Roman Empire; in the “Three Chronicles of Æscendune,” successive epochs of Early English history; in the “Andredsweald,” the Norman Conquest; in “Fairleigh Hall,” the Great Rebellion; and in the _present_ volume, one of the earliest of the series of events ordinarily grouped under the general phrase “The Reformation,” the destruction of the Monasteries. It is many years since the writer was first attracted and yet saddened by the tragical story of the fate of the last Abbot of Glastonbury, and amongst the tales by which he was wont to enliven the Sunday evenings in a large School, this narrative found a foremost place, and excited very general interest. A generation ago, few English Churchmen cared to say a good word for the unhappy monks, who suffered so cruel a persecution at the hands of Henry the Eighth and his vicar-general, Thomas Cromwell. Many, indeed, confessed a sentimental regret when they visited the ruins of such glorious fanes as Tintern, Reading, or Furness, and reflected that but for the vandalism of the period, such buildings might yet vie with the cathedrals, with which they were coeval, and if not retained for their original uses, might yet be devoted to the service of religion and humanity, in various ways; but the fear of being supposed to betray a leaning to the doctrines once taught within these ruined walls, has prevented many a writer from doing justice to the sufferers under atrocious tyranny.