Laurence Tooler, known as Father Paul in religion, deposeth that he
was one of the brethren at Furness Abbey, and being an apt scribe was
employed by the Prior Ambrose as his secretary, copied lists for him
of the leaders in the “Pilgrimage of Grace,” their contributions, in
money, men, and arms. Sent copies of the same by the hands of a sure
messenger to Abbot Whiting, of Glastonbury; also, at later period,
consigned sums of money by ship to the Bristol Channel and thence
to Glastonbury: supposed it to be for safe keeping on behalf of the
dispossessed brethren. Identifieth the elder prisoner as Prior Ambrose.
Admitteth he was once chastised by the Prior for breach of his monastic
vows.
Jacques Le Fuyard, an English subject, son of an English mother and
French father, speaketh both languages fluently: was employed by the
English Government under Cromwell, to track the political refugees in
Flanders and elsewhere; knew Prior Ambrose of Furness, at Antwerp;
that he, the Prior, often corresponded with Reginald Pole, “the King’s
chief enemy across the seas;” that he was more than once with the Papal
Nuncio, and often closeted with the Spanish Ambassador; understood that
he had given up politics; lost sight of him at Brussels, knew him again
in Sir Walter Trevannion; and recognized him, recently, when tarrying
about the neighbourhood of the manor house at Becky Hall, near Bovey.
Gregory Grigges, deposeth that he was groom to old Sir Arthur
Trevannion; is very old now, nearly eighty years; knew the present Sir
Walter as a boy, remembers his running away, and becoming a monk, as he
heard; the old knight would have nought to say to him afterwards; the
elder brother, Sir Roger, died of decline, and the old man longed for
his only surviving son, sent abroad and spent much money in enquiries;
at length Sir Walter returned. Doth not like Sir Walter so well as his
father: hath been put in the stocks by him for having a very little
drop too much. That is he present, the prisoner.
Nicholas Grabber deposeth that he was a schoolboy at Glastonbury Abbey,
where they got plenty to fill their heads, but little to put into their
stomachs; has felt it ever since in a tendency to boils and blains: the
meat was so rotten it dropped from your fork as you held it, and the
fish stank; hated the Abbot because he was, he thought, an enemy to the
King. Watched him narrowly. One day the Abbot sent for the prisoner at
the bar; he (Nicholas) would fain know why, suspecting treason, and
crept after; heard the Abbot talk to prisoner about papers and a secret
chamber, which was to be disclosed to someone who should present a
ring which prisoner would recognize: prisoner always making up to my
Lord Abbot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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