Two years after Flodden old Sir Ralph Bigod died; his will was proved 7 April 1515. He made several charitable and religious bequests, and left a yearly rent of £5 to his younger grandson Ralph[175], who died unmarried in 1551[176]; but there is no mention of Francis who, at the age of seven, was heir to his manor of Seton and all his lands in various parts of Yorkshire[177]. The executors of the will were Agnes, Sir Ralph’s third wife, Sir Ralph Evers, and Thomas and William Constable of Settrington. The supervisor was Lord Darcy. In 1529 Francis Bigod came of age and had livery of his lands; shortly afterwards he was knighted[178]. Before his coming of age he had been in the service of Cardinal Wolsey, and when, on coming into his estates, he found himself in financial difficulties, he applied to his fellow-servant, Thomas Cromwell, for assistance[179]. Sir Francis Bigod married Katherine, daughter of William, first Lord Conyers, and in 1530 they had one daughter, Dorothy[180]. Their home was at Mulgrave Castle in Blackmore, on the coast about three miles north of Whitby. Sir Francis was made the Steward of Whitby Strand by the Earl of Northumberland[181], and in the execution of this office he must soon have come into conflict with the Abbot of Whitby, John Hexham or Topcliffe, who began his career as a Canon of Hexham and became Abbot of Whitby in 1527[182]. Some account of the Abbot’s doings may not be out of place; they are not only interesting in themselves but also give a most spirited picture of the more turbulent phases of life in a little seaport town, and of the feuds and intrigues which agitated a great monastery. The first story is gathered from a fragment of a Star Chamber case; it is undated, and the Abbot of Whitby may have been one of John Hexham’s predecessors. This Abbot lodged a complaint against certain poor mariners and artificers of the town of Whitby for making a riot. Only the townsfolk’s side of the case remains. It had been the custom “tyme out of mans remembrance” in Whitby and all the other haven towns thereabouts, for the fishermen and mariners to keep the feasts of Midsummer Even, St Peter’s Even, and St Thomas’ Even with the following rites. “All maryners and masters of ships accompanied with other yong peple have used to have carried before them on a staff half a tarbarell brennyng and the maryners to follow two and two having such weapons in their hands as they pleased to bring, and to sing through the streets to resort to every bonefire and there to drink and make merry with songs and other honest pastimes.”