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THE ABBESSES OF ROMSEY

A complete list of the abbesses who ruled the religious house at Romsey is not in existence; there are several gaps of many years in the succession. The exact dates of the election of some of those whose names have been handed down to us are not known. The following list is as complete as possible. The names printed in ordinary type are taken from a board suspended in the retro-choir, those printed in italics are added from a list given in the “Records of Romsey Abbey,” by the Rev. H. G. D. Liveing, 1906, which embodies the result of the most recent research. Whenever the date is uncertain c. for “circa” is prefixed; the date of death when known is added, marked with o. for “obiit.” The spelling of many of the names is uncertain; in the list below the spelling follows that given by the authorities quoted above:

About the majority of the abbesses little or nothing is known; some, indeed, were women of exemplary piety, others were remarkable for their administrative abilities, and did good work in their own way; but of many all that can be said is that

In this chapter will be narrated any incidents connected with the lives of the abbesses and the nuns over whom they ruled that seem to the writer likely to be of interest to the general reader. It is noteworthy that the story of the nunnery is, for the most part, pre-eminently credible; with a few exceptions we hear nothing about visions or miracles; here and there we have touches of romance, which show that the life of discipline within “narrowing nunnery walls” is not always able to quell human passion, especially when pressure had been brought to bear by friends and relations upon women scarcely more than children, to induce them to take the veil. And as time went on grave scandals arose, which even the energetic action of reforming bishops was not altogether successful in stopping, so that although the greed of Henry VIII and his courtiers was, no doubt, the prime factor leading to the suppression of the religious houses, yet the unholy lives of the inmates gave them some valid reasons, or at rate excuses, for their action in closing nunneries and monasteries.

A story is told of King Eadgar which, indirectly, has some bearing on the Abbey of Romsey. About the year 960 he heard of the surpassing beauty of one Ælfthryth, [7] daughter of Ordgar of Devon, and possibly never having heard of the mischief that befell Arthur when he sent Launcelot to ask at her father’s hands his fair daughter Guinevere, or to Mark when he sent Tristram on a similar errand to Iseault’s father, he sent his trusted and hitherto trustworthy friend Æthelwold to Ordgar. But Æthelwold as soon as he saw Ælfthryth fell hopelessly in love with her, and so hid the king’s message, and wooed and won the fair damsel for himself; and on his return told the king that the accounts of her beauty were altogether false, that she was vulgar and commonplace. So the king, believing his friend, turned his thoughts to other ladies; but before long some rumours of the way in which he had been deceived came to the king’s ear, and he, dissembling his purpose and not telling him of what he had heard, simply told Æthelwold that on a certain day he intended to visit the lady himself. Æthelwold, in alarm, hurried to his wife and begged her to conceal her beauty and clothe herself in unbecoming attire, so that she might not win the king’s admiration; but she did just the reverse, and enhanced her natural beauty by donning handsome raiment and jewellery. Her plan succeeded, the king fell in love with her and, according to one account, slew Æthelwold with his own hand while they were hunting, and when no man was by; or, according to another version, he sent him to hold a dangerous command in the north and slew him by the sword of the Northumbrians. It is, however, doubtful if Eadgar compassed his death at all, but two years after it he married his widow, whose beauty was her chief recommendation, for though it has nothing to do with Romsey, it may be mentioned in passing that it was she by whose order Eadgar’s eldest son by his first wife, Eadward the Martyr, was murdered at Corfegate, where the well-known castle afterwards rose and where its ruins remain until this day. Now Æthelwold had previously had to wife one Brichgyfu, a kins-woman of Eadgar, and had had by her many sons and daughters, the last born of them was named ÆthelflÆd; according to other accounts, ÆthelflÆd was born after her father’s death, and therefore must have been Ælfthryth’s child. Be this as it may, she was in any case akin to the king or queen, and was by them entrusted to the care of St. Merwynn of Romsey. A true mother in God the abbess proved, and a dutiful and loving daughter was ÆthelflÆd. In due time she took the veil, and the sanctity of her life was shown in various ways, and was attested by miracles. She made no display of her austerities, pretended to eat and drink with the other nuns but hid the food in order to give it to the poor, and used to leave her dormitory at night, even in winter time, to plunge naked into one of the streams and there remain until she had chanted the Psalms of the day. Once in her younger days, when the abbess was cutting some switches from the river banks wherewith to chastise the girls under her charge, the stone walls of the nunnery became clear as transparent glass to the eyes of ÆthelflÆd, and she saw what the abbess was doing, and when she came in she besought her with many tears not to beat her or her companions. The abbess, much astonished, asked her how she knew that she was going to beat them; to which ÆthelflÆd replied that she had seen her cutting the switches, and that they were even now hidden under her cloak. Another miracle is recorded which, for the saint’s reputation, one would hope was a pure invention of the chronicler, since if it were true it might lay her open to the charge of performing an easy trick with phosphorus in order to gain credit for miraculous power. It is said that one night when it was her turn to read the lesson the lamp which she held in her hand went out, but that her fingers became luminous and shed sufficient light upon the book to enable her to read the lesson to the end. Other miracles are related of her, and though she was not elected abbess on the death of St. Merwynn she obtained that honour three years afterwards on the death of Abbess Ælwynn. The next sainted woman who calls for mention is Christine, daughter of Eadmund Ironside, and sister of Eadgar the Ætheling, and of St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland, who became a nun at Romsey, and is supposed by some to have been Abbess, though this is very doubtful. The Scotch king Malcolm Canmore and Margaret his queen, sent their two daughters Eadgyth and Mary to be educated by their aunt Christine. Aunt Christine acted on the principle of the proverb, “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” and Eadgyth spoke in after days of the whippings she had received because she refused to wear a nun’s veil. Professor Freeman tells us how on one occasion the Red King came to Romsey to woo Eadgyth, for it must be remembered that she was now the eldest female representative of the old Wessex kings, and a marriage with her would do much to weld together Normans and English. But, although he was admitted to the nunnery, Christine persuaded Eadgyth to put on a nun’s garb as a disguise—she was at the time about twelve years old—and told her to go into the choir; to allow time for the change of raiment she invited the king to come and see the flowers in the cloister garden. As he went thither, he caught sight of Eadgyth in her veil, and imagined that he was too late, for even he, bad as he was, would not care to press his suit, especially as it was prompted by policy, not by love, and a marriage with a nun would be counted illegal and so would fail to have the result he desired.

This took place in 1093. Later in the same year it is said that another king, her father Malcolm of Scotland, came to see her and was vexed to see her wearing a veil and tore it from her head, saying he did not wish her to be a nun but a wife.

Another suitor in due course came to woo her, a more eligible one than Rufus, namely his brother Henry I. In this case the union was dictated not only by policy but by love. But there were certain difficulties. There was no doubt that Eadgyth had worn a veil, but whether simply as a disguise or a professed nun was open to argument; so a solemn assembly was called by Anselm to hear evidence on the subject. The decision it came to was that she was not a nun, and, to use Mr. Freeman’s words, Anselm “gave her his blessing and she went forth as we may say Lady-Elect of the English.”

On her marriage she laid aside her English name Eadgyth, and assumed that of Matilda or Maud. Robert of Gloucester calls her “Molde the gode quene.” And Peter de Langtoft says of her

Henry and Matilda were benefactors to many abbeys, and naturally the queen was not forgetful of Romsey when the days of her girlhood had been passed. She was the mother of the prince who perished in the White Ship, and of Matilda who married the Count of Anjou, and carried on warfare against Stephen on behalf of her son Henry. Matilda of Romsey died in 1118 and was buried at Winchester.

The next abbess worthy of notice was Mary, daughter of King Stephen, of whom a true and romantic story is told, and who, by breaking her vows and marrying caused a great scandal at the time. She was the youngest daughter of the king, and a granddaughter on her mother’s side of Mary, whom Christine had brought up with her sister Eadgyth. She was educated at Bourges, then was transferred with other French nuns to the abbey at Stratford le Bowe, but as the original English nuns and the imported French ones did not agree, the latter went to a Benedictine house near Rochester, which had been founded by Stephen, and later on, about 1155, Mary became Abbess of Romsey. Her brother William, Count of Boulogne, died about 1159, and his estates passed to his sister. Matthew of Alsace cast covetous eyes on her broad lands and encouraged, it is said, by Henry II, who thought thereby to gain a powerful friend on the continent and, at the same time, annoy Thomas Becket, sought the abbess’s hand in marriage. He persuaded her to leave Romsey and become his wife: it is thought that Henry II may have brought some pressure to bear upon her to induce her to take this step. Anyhow, she was married in 1161. Her new people gladly received her, and her kindness of heart won and held their affection. For ten years Matthew and Mary lived happily together, or would have been happy if it had not been for the ban of the church. Then either on account of conscientious scruples about their past conduct, or on account of the disabilities imposed on them by the church, they separated, and Mary once more took on her the religious life, but not at Romsey. No doubt she thought it better to go to a convent entirely new to her, that at Montreuil, where she would not be constantly reminded of her former misconduct. Here she died in 1182, aged forty-five. It is noteworthy that her two daughters were legitimatized, their names were Ida and Maud. Ida, the elder, married first Gerard of Gueldres, and then Reginald of Damartin, and the younger, Maud, married the Duke of Brabant, so that it would seem that the pope did not take a very serious view of the Abbess Mary’s broken vows.

The thirteenth century abbesses followed one another in quick succession, no good thing for the discipline of the abbey. When Matilda died in 1219, the old gallows on which the abbess had had the right of hanging offenders condemned by her court, fell into disuse, but the right was restored by the King to Amicia. Towards the end of the century, episcopal visitations began, and the Bishop of Winchester looked into various disorders that had grown up among the abbesses and sisters. The various methods of procedure and the things forbidden give us some idea of the abuses that prevailed. The abbess was required in the injunction issued about 1283 not to exercise an autocratic power but only a constitutional one, being guided by the advice of her chapter. It was forbidden to any men except the confessor, and the doctor in case of illness of a nun, to enter the convent; all conversation with outsiders was to take place in the presence of witnesses and in an appointed place. The nuns were forbidden to visit the laity in Romsey, and other like ordinances were enjoined.

Philippa de Stokes and Clementia de Guildeford were infirm, and Clementia’s successor, Alicia de Wynterseshull, was poisoned soon after her election, but no evidence could be produced to convict the murderer.

Many episcopal visitations took place during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. The injunctions issued at many of them are in existence: these deal only with what is blameworthy, not with that which calls for no reproof. Some of the things objected to seem to us very trivial. On one occasion the nuns were forbidden to keep pet animals, as the abbess was charged with giving her dogs and monkeys the food intended for the sisters. Sometimes the abbess was forbidden to take into the convent more than a certain number of nuns. In 1333 there were ninety-one, but after a time the numbers decreased, and at the dissolution there were only twenty-six. The injunctions of 1311 were very strict, some of them deal with the locking of doors, forbid the presence of children, whether boy or girl, in the dormitory or in the choir.

Romsey, like many other religious houses, suffered severely at the time of the Black Death. The number and names of the ninety-one nuns voting in 1333 at the election of Johanna Icthe has come down to us. The pestilence reached Weymouth from the east in August, 1348, and of it died the abbess Johanna, two vicars, one prebendary, and no doubt many of the sisters, as in 1478 the number of nuns had dropped from ninety-one to eighteen, and after this there were never more than twenty-six nuns at Romsey. The reduction in the nuns not only decreased the importance of the abbey but led to a terrible relaxation of discipline.

The worst scandal arose when Elizabeth Broke was abbess. The evidence given before Dr. Hede, Commissary of the Prior of Canterbury, is still extant. There were various charges against her, that she allowed some of the sisters to wear long hair, did not prevent the nuns going into the town and drinking at the taverns, treated some with great severity, did not keep the convent accounts accurately, suffered sundry roofs to get out of order, and that she was much under the influence of the chaplain, Master Bryce. Some years before this she had been charged with adultery; this she seems to have denied with oaths, and finally, when she could brazen it out no further, she confessed to adultery and perjury and resigned her office, the only thing she could do; but the most remarkable part of the story is still to come: the sisters being required to fill the vacant post by the election of an abbess, almost unanimously re-elected Elizabeth Broke. Two only, Elizabeth herself and one other, did not vote for her. The bishop thereupon restored her to her position as abbess, but to mark his displeasure with her he forbade her to use the abbatial staff for seven years. The remaining years of her rule were not satisfactory. The sisters took advantage of the scandal she had caused to act in an insubordinate way towards her. The next abbess was Joyce Rowse, but she was utterly unable to reinstate the old discipline—we hear of her revelling with some of the sisters in the abbess’s quarters. Bishop Fox in his injunctions in 1507 forbade sundry priests to hold any communication with the abbess or with any of the nuns. William Scott was forbidden to gossip with the nuns at the kitchen window. Nature it would seem was much the same in the sixteenth century as it is now, and the convent servants loved gossip as much as ours do.

The abbess, finding that she could not maintain her authority in the abbey, resigned, and Anne Westbrooke, formerly mistress of the convent school, was appointed to succeed her in 1515. She died in 1593, and was succeeded by the last abbess, Elizabeth Ryprose; she seems to have been a capable woman, and tried hard to do her duty. But it was too late to purify the abbey. Various nuns were reprimanded or punished in 1527 by the vicar-general. Alice Gorsyn confessed to having used bad language and having spread false and defamatory stories about the sisters; on her confession she was admitted to penance, but it was ordered that if she transgressed again in like manner she was to wear a tongue made of red cloth under her chin for a whole month, and the abbess was ordered to see the sentence carried out.

Clemence Malyn was deposed from her office of sub-prioress and sextoness on account of the careless manner in which she had performed the duties of these offices, and she also, in answer to questions asked by the vicar-general, acknowledged that she had frequently hidden a key of the abbey church in a hole so that a certain Richard Johans might find it and enter the church, and might drink in the sacristy wine with which she provided him, though she denied having ever drunk with him or otherwise misconducted herself. Margaret Doumar confessed that she had been guilty of incontinence with Thomas Hordes, and she was severely punished: she was to be imprisoned for a year, to hold no conversation with any sister save her gaoler, she was to eat no food except bread and water every third and sixth day of the week, and to receive chastisement on those days in the Chapter House.

The nunnery was suppressed in 1539, and the fact that no pensions were given to the abbess or sisters seems to point to the fact that the abbess did not voluntarily surrender. Where this was done the monks or nuns were generously treated by the King’s commissioners, but when they refused to surrender they were expelled without any provision being made for them. What became of the majority of these expelled monks and nuns we do not know, possibly any of those who were in priest’s orders found work in parish churches, but the case of the nuns was harder. We hear nothing of the after life of any of the Romsey nuns save Jane Wadham, who married one John Forster, who had been the collector of the abbey rents. She declared that she had been forced to take the veil against her will, and he said he had been similarly forced to enter the priesthood.

After the suppression the domestic buildings of the abbey disappeared—but the church was sold to the people of Romsey by Henry VIII for the small sum of £100. The deed of sale may still be seen in the clergy vestry at Romsey. Queen Mary, at the beginning of her reign, restored some of the church plate.

And so the history of the religious house at Romsey ends. In one respect it was more fortunate than the neighbouring nunneries at Shaftesbury, Wilton, and Amesbury. The abbey church remains until this day, and enables us to form an idea of the arrangements in force in the churches of Benedictine sisterhoods. Many monastic churches remain, some having become cathedrals, as Gloucester, some parish churches, as Sherborne, but few of the churches belonging to nunneries survived the suppression of the religious houses; one at Cambridge, now used as the chapel of Jesus College, and the church at Romsey, are, however, among the few exceptions. We could wish that we knew more about the history of this religious house, but sufficient is known to show us that it was once a very famous abbey, and a place of instruction for many royal and noble ladies, in its early days the discipline of the Benedictine rule seems to have been well maintained, though in later years faith grew cold and worldliness prevailed within its walls, as indeed it did in many another monastery and nunnery, so that when the old order changed giving place to new, the people of the country, especially in what was once the original kingdom of the West Saxons, saw them suppressed without any great feelings of regret. The architectural student and the archaeologist, indeed, regret that so many of the abbey churches have become little more than picturesque ruins such as Glastonbury, or mere grass-covered foundations such as Bindon and Shaftesbury, and when so many have perished we cannot be too thankful that the splendid abbey church at Romsey still stands in all its pristine beauty and interest.

VICARS OF ROMSEY

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As given in a list suspended in the Retro-choir