about half the year, namely from Sept. 14 to Easter, consists of dry bread, with water, beer, or wine, to which they can get leave to add cheese or fruit saved from their dinner.

SICKNESS.

No infirmary is needed in a Carthusian convent. The sick father is nursed in his own house, which contains ample room both for himself and his attendant. The rooms of the brothers are sufficiently spacious to afford accommodation for the sick, without requiring a separate building.

THE BURYING OF THE DEAD.

The cemetery is usually a small square in the great cloister garth. There the fathers and brothers lie side by side. No useless coffin confines their bones, but they lie each in his habit as he lived; taking their rest in death in the dress with which they were clothed when they sought rest in life in the rule which the piety of St. Bruno provided for them more than eight centuries ago.

HISTORY OF THE PRIORY.

BY WILLIAM BROWN, F.S.A.

The Priory of Mount Grace' lies six miles north-east of Northallerton, at the base of the Arncliffe Woods, where the Cleveland Hills become merged in the Hambletons. Down to the close of the fourteenth century the place was known as Bordelby, or Borthelby. At this time it was in the possession of Thomas de Holand, Duke of Surrey, the founder of the priory. How he acquired it is unknown. In 1366 the manor of Borthelby, with rents and services in other parts of Yorkshire, was conveyed by John de Bentle to Richard de Ravenser, provost of Beverley, Marmaduke Constable, and Robert de Elkyngton.2 As Ravenser constantly appears at this date as an intermediary in conveyances made by licences under the Mortmain Acts, it is very possible that the grantees were trustees for some pious object, which is not disclosed. However that may have been, nothing more is heard of the place till the foundation of the priory. Later on it will be shown that the duke's title was most probably imperfect.

1 Further information relating to the history of this place prior to and after the time when there was a priory here,

will be found in vol. vii. of this Journal, PP. 473-494.

2 Lansdowne Charters, No. 411.

The duke was a man of very considerable importance, as well from his wealth and high rank as from his near relationship to the King. His grandmother, Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent, was daughter of the lord Edmund, Earl of Kent, Lord Wake, and Lord Woodstock, the third son of Edward I. Her first husband, Sir Thomas de Holand, Lord Holand, was the grandfather of the Duke of Surrey; and her second, Edward, Prince of Wales (the Black Prince), by whom she became mother of Richard II. The following brief pedigree will show the founder's near relations :

Sir Thomas de Holand, Joan, the Fair The Black Prince;

Lord Holand;
died 1360

=

Maid of

Kent; died 1385

died 1375

In right of his grandmother, who represented the Wakes and Stutevilles, the duke was possessed of considerable estates in Yorkshire, the chief seats being Kirkby Moorside and Cottingham. He was twenty-four years old at the time of his father's death, in 1397. He soon became a recipient of some of the honours which Richard II. showered on his maternal relatives. On 29th September, 1397, he was created Duke of Surrey, and on the same day his uncle, the Earl of Huntingdon, was made Duke of Exeter. The next year other dignities were conferred upon him, including the offices of Marshal of England and Lieutenant of Ireland.

The exact time when the Priory of Mount Grace was founded is uncertain, as the charter of foundation is undated. It must have been shortly after 18 February, 1397-8, when the King granted licence to his most dear nephew, Thomas, Duke of Surrey, to found a house of the Carthusian Order, called Mount Grace, in his manor of Bordelby, which was held in chief, and to grant the same to the monks there for a dwelling-place.1

1 Patent Roll, 21 Ric. II. part ii. m. 14.

In the foundation charter' the founder, there styled Thomas de Holand, Duke of Surrey, Earl of Kent, and Lord Wake, begins by pointing out what a pious and meritorious act it is to do works of charity for one's kindred and those faithful to God, and states that from a very early age his determination and wish had been to increase the worship of God. He then further adds that he believed and knew of a truth that all conditions and orders of Holy Church were good and devout, yet by God's inspiration he bore a special devotion and most peculiar affection to the most holy Order of the Carthusians, and entertained a great admiration for their holy and peculiar observances, and for the persons living in that Order, whose number, by God's grace, he heartily desired to increase. For these reasons and for the honour and reverence of God, and His holy mother, the Virgin Mary, and St. Nicholas, and for the affection he bore to the feasts of the Assumption of the same glorious Virgin and St. Nicholas, and to the above-named holy Order, he had founded by royal licence a house of monks of the Carthusian Order, within his manor of Bordelby, near Cleveland, and willed that it should be called the house of Mount Grace of Ingelby, in honour and everlasting memory of the aforesaid blessed feasts. One of these monks was to be styled prior, and by the assent of the prior of the Carthusians of the Greater Order (that is the Grande Chartreuse), he nominated Robert Tredwye as the first prior. He gave them his manor of Bordelby, and commanded them to pray for King Richard II., Queen Isabella, himself and his wife and his heirs, and for the heirs of John de Holand, Duke of Exeter, his uncle, John de Ingelby and Eleanor, his wife, during their lives; and to say masses for them after their deaths, and for the souls of Anne, late Queen of Richard II., Edmund, late Earl of Kent, and Margaret, his wife, Joan, late Princess of Wales, his (the grantor's) grandmother, Thomas de Holand, late Earl of Kent, his grandfather, and Alice, his mother; and for the souls of his ancestors and heirs; and for the souls of Thomas de Ingelby and Katherine, his wife, and of

1 "Cum pium et meritorium sit pro parentibus cunctisque Dei fidelibus opera caritatis administrare, et jam a primæva ætate in mente habuimus et desideravimus, Deo inspirante, cultum divinum augmentare; et quia credimus et veraciter scimus quod omnes status et ordines sanctæ ecclesiæ boni sint et devoti, tamen, inspirante Deo, specialem devotionem et potissimam affectionem gerimus ad sanctissimum ordinem Carthusiensem, cujus observancias sanctas et peculiares,

atque personas in eodem ordine degentes, sed valde miramur, quorum numerum, gratia divina co-operante, augere cordialiter peroptamus.'

2 The house was called the House of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin in Mount Grace. The dedication to St. Nicholas was soon forgotten.

3 Edmund of Woodstock, the son of Edward I., his great-grandfather, and Margaret, sister and heiress of Thomas, Lord Wake of Lidell.

William and Margaret de Aldeburgh; of William, Eleanor, Magol' Authorp; of Richard, Alice, Walter, Gilbert, Thomas, Margaret, Alice, Richard, Margaret, John, and Walter Walksted; Walter, Joan, and Joan (sic) Wrigge; John, Joan, and Richard Wakhurst; and for the souls of all faithful persons.

The original of this charter is in the possession of Sir H. D. Ingilby, of Ripley, Bart. It has an illuminated initial letter, and appended to it is a fine impression of the seal of the founder. This is circular, 2 inches in diameter, and bears an equestrian figure of the duke riding to the sinister. The duke is in armour, with his crested helm on his head, and wears an armorial surcoat with long sleeves, a very unusual feature. In his right hand he brandishes his sword, and slung from his neck is his shield of arms. The horse has a chamfron of plate and an armorial trapper of the Duke's arms, which were England within a silver bordure, impaled with those of King Edward the Confessor, within a bordure ermine, probably by grant of his half-brother, King Richard. The field of the seal is powdered with groups of three rings conjoined in triangle, and the letters ay in monogram. The legend is: sigillum: thome: holand: ducis: surr . . . [com]itis . . . . warrwik.

It has, unfortunately, not been possible to see this deed, so as to give a fuller account of the noble seal attached to it. The English abstract of the foundation charter, given by the gentleman who made the report, is in substantial agreement with the copy in Dugdale, which may be regarded as fairly accurate.

The Carthusian Order, for which the Duke of Surrey expressed such a profound love and admiration, never possessed many houses in this country. The first foundation was at Witham, in Somersetshire, in 1181. Although this house enjoyed the prestige of having St. Hugh, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, as its first prior, during the next 160 years only one other priory of this Order was established, Hinton, in the same county, in 1222. The remaining seven Carthusian houses in England were all founded between 1343 and 1414, of which the Charterhouses at Kingston-upon-Hull and at Beauvale, in Nottinghamshire, were in the diocese of York. There were no Charterhouses in Ireland, and only one in Scotland, near Perth, called "Domus vallis virtutis," or, in the vernacular, "Wale of Wertew" (Fourteenth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, iii, 24). The popularity of the Carthusian Order during this period is more

1? Magota.

2 In Willement's Roll of Arms of the reign of Richard II. (p. 5), which was

compiled between 1392 and 1397, Holand, Earl of Kent, bore gules three golden leopards and a silver bordure.

remarkable, when it is remembered that the other religious orders, such as the Benedictine and Cistercian, and the Regular Canons, had been supplanted in popular favour by collegiate establishments, peopled with secular canons, and that from the time of Edward I. the stringency of the Statutes of Mortmain had made it very difficult to found any new religious houses.

During the brief remainder of his reign King Richard II. continued to show his interest in the lately founded priory. On 20th March, 1399, he granted the monks here a charter of liberties and franchises in general terms, including a right to mine lead1; and on 22nd May in the same year he gave, on the prayer of his nephew, the Duke of Surrey, to Edmund, prior of Mount Grace, the alien priories of Hinckley in Leicestershire, Wareham in Dorsetshire, and Carisbrooke in the Isle of Wight, and all the lands belonging to the alien priory of St. Mary of Lire, in the department of Evreux, in Normandy, to hold as long as the war should continue between England and France.2

With the deposition of Richard II., the founder's uncle, the fortunes of the house received a decided check. In the first Parliament of Henry IV. the Duke of Surrey and his uncle, the Duke of Huntingdon, were deprived of their dukedoms. For the purpose of avenging this loss, they engaged in a plot, in the winter of that year (1399), to murder the new King at a tournament, which they invited him to attend. This plot was unsuccessful, as the King was informed of their treason, and an attempt to surprise him at Windsor was defeated by his departure thence earlier than had been expected. The conspirators advanced as far as Brentford, with the hope of exciting a rising in the city of London in King Richard's favour, but, receiving no support, they were obliged to retreat, and got as far as Cirencester, where they endeavoured to make a stand. Here, in a fight in the streets with the people of the town, the Duke of Surrey was killed by an arrow, or, according to another account, beheaded by the same people. Froissart, mentioning his death, adds, "Great sorrowe was made (for him) in dyvers parts of England: for he was a fayre yong man, and was there in maner against his wylle, but his oncle and the erle of Salisbury brought him thereto." Froissart expresses far too good an opinion of the duke. It is possible that

1 Charter Roll, 21-23 Ric. II. No. 2. 2 Patent Roll, 22 Ric. II. part iii. m. II. Printed in Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, vi. 23. Wareham would seem to be an error for Ware. (See p. 258.) Nothing more is heard of Carisbrooke, so it is to be presumed that when peace came to be declared between

England and France, Mount Grace had to surrender possession of it. The grant of Hinckley was confirmed in 1412. (See p. 258.) Ware, Wareham, and Carisbrooke all became the property of the Carthusian Priory of Sheen. (Monasticon Anglicanum, vi. 1040, 1047, 1049.)