Hibbert

“ Hibbert mentions a case of imagination, which in a man is probably the strongest and most unaccountable on record. It is that of a person—an invalid—who imagined that at a certain hour of the day a carter or drayman came into his bedroom, and, uncovering him, inflicted several heavy stripes upon his body with the thong of his whip ”

“ Presently Jack Hibbert drifted again into hearing—
“That? Oh yes, there’s a very remarkable story connected with that picture. A great deal in the girl’s face, as you say. Well, Everitt happened to have painted it from a model; he doesn’t always, you know. No, you’re quite right; we do our best things entirely out of our own heads; it secures originality. Just so. However, sometimes Everitt has to fall back on a model, and we heard afterwards that this one was in disguise; there’s was a hint that she was a duke’s daughter—”
“Oh, Mr Hibbert, how delightfully romantic! ”

“ What had become of Hibbert's father? Again and again the question came to him, and he could not dismiss it from his thoughts. He thought of the strange circumstance under which he had last seen him—of that weird scene in the cave with the man Brockman. All that had happened at that interview was fixed indelibly on his memory. He could see Zuker tracing with his finger on the chart the passage of the Dutch to the Medway—could hear his voice as he described all that had happened as they broke the chain on the river and advanced on Upnor Castle. ”

“ Philip Fonnereau, by whom he had a large family. Mr. Hibbert died on the 8th of October 1837, at Munden House, near Watford, Hertfordshire, and was buried in the churchyard of Aldenham, in the same county. ”

“ Captain Hibbert will be there. He is very handsome and well-connected. I hope he will take you down. Then there will be the Honourable Mr. Burke. He is a nice little man, but there's not much in him, and he hasn't a penny. His brother is Lord Kilcarney, a confirmed bachelor. Then there will be Mr. Adair; he is very well off. He has at least four thousand a year in the country; but it would seem that he doesn't care for women. He is very clever; he writes pamphlets. He used to sympathize with the Land League, but the outrages went against his conscience. ”

“ Hibbert was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1811, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in the following year. He was also a Fellow of the Linnæan Society, and formed at his residence at Clapham a large collection of exotic plants, many of which were first introduced into this country by the agents he employed in almost every part of the globe. He married Elizabeth Margaret, daughter of Mr. ”

“ What reduction do you intend to give?'
Lord Dungory, who had no intention of showing his hand, said:
'The Land League has, I believe, advised the people to pay no more than Griffith's valuation. I do not know if your lands are let very much above it?'
'If you have not seen the Evening Mail you have probably not heard of the last terrible outrage,' said Captain Hibbert; and, amid a profound silence, he continued: 'I do not know if anybody here is acquainted with a Mr. Macnamara; he lives in Meath.'
'Oh! you don't say anything has happened to him? I knew his cousin,' exclaimed Mrs. Gould. ”

“ Dr. Hibbert wouldn't let us see Dicky. "He's asleep again," he called out from the Ringdove's poop. "Don't you come aboard, bothering round. He'll do all right." He had a lot of work to do, because one of the "Ringdoves" had been very badly smashed "up" by that shot which had hit her, and four or five of Mr. Trevelyan's men had been more or less badly wounded, and had come across with Jim in the whaler. Dr. Hibbert, and the Paymaster, and the sick-berth attendant were busy in the ward room patching them up.
They had got up steam in the Ringdove's little steam cutter, and Mr. Rashleigh and Mr. ”

“ The situation and character of the various possessions can be found, and the income derived from each, but the acreage is seldom given, and no attempt has been made to reckon the extent from the value. ”

“ The Staffordshire friaries were without exception poor places in every respect, and the Bishop cleverly made that a strong argument against them. In spite of poverty, the friars clung to their old homes and work, although he invariably offered them money payments to depart. Writing from Lichfield, he told Cromwell that “divers of the Friars are very loath to forsake their houses, and yet they are not able to live.” ”

“ I had, besides, an inseparable companion named Mark Hibberd, whose father followed the calling I thought I should so much adorn, and who delighted equally with me in pottering about among the engines and men, or riding short distances whenever the opportunity occurred. The elder Hibberd was an extremely daring and clever driver, a first-rate workman; but unfortunately like too many of our very best artizans, given to occasional fits of drunkenness. ”

“ Strete for the suppression of St. Thomas’s, but I would your lordship should write to my Lord Privy Seal (Cromwell) for your own matter, and to thank him, for he told me he would move the King for you and your heirs to have St. Thomas’s, and no doubt the King will be content, and, indeed, it is all one. Remember to write to my lord to put away sinister suspicion, and be not light of credit against me: mistrust without cause is very unpleasant. ”

“ The lay owners of livings were found appointing clergy of even lower calibre than the monasteries had placed in their appropriated benefices; they often appointed their servants, men who by habit and training were utterly unfitted for the position, and not seldom on the understanding that much of the endowment should be surrendered.
The information which is available for Staffordshire throws little light on the much-discussed question of monastic charity. ”

“ Lights and masses were endowed. The monks had command of ready money and were able to lend to those who required cash, it might be to those overtaken by sudden necessity or to some desirous of making a pilgrimage. When a verderer of Cannock, in the thirteenth century, rendered himself liable to the severe penalties of the Forest Laws, he fled for his life beyond the seas and sold his manor to St. Thomas’s Priory at Stafford. [7] Corrodies originally were a form of life assurance. [8] For a lump sum Dieulacres sold a corrody to a Jew, consisting of food and clothing for life. ”

“ No explanation is vouchsafed as to why the alms of the monks were more demoralising than those of the nobles.
This is a good illustration of the way the whole subject of the Dissolution of the Monasteries has been often treated.
Sentiment and prejudice enter largely, and perhaps inevitably, into the whole subject. Even so prosaic [2] an aspect as the financial one has given occasion for the most contradictory opinions. ”

“ The history of the Staffordshire monasteries in previous centuries shows abundantly that whenever the King desired he could exercise the most arbitrary control over the religious houses in all sorts of ways. ”

“ For the age was one in which expediency had supplanted principle, and worldly prosperity was the one thing that mattered. The Dissolution of the Monasteries was to a very large extent prompted by cupidity. Their wealth was an irresistible attraction to the Government; to emphasise their shortcomings was a useful after-thought, and the question of justice was hardly raised by anyone. In all the correspondence connected with the fall of the Staffordshire houses there is no hint of immorality or even unworthiness. ”

“ The value of mills, whether water-mills for grinding corn, or fulling-mills, for fulling or milling cloth by beating it with wooden mallets and cleaning it with soap or Fuller’s earth, is often small, and there is no mention of any revenue from tolls or markets. ”

“ From Tutbury they proceeded, along the road by the banks of the swift and winsome Dove, to Rocester. There the canons, who seem to have been living simple, harmless lives among neighbours who respected them, were speedily forced to sign the Deed of Surrender. ”

“ These were the Returns, known as Valor Ecclesiasticus, which have been already examined in detail. Such evidence of abuses as is extant by no means allows us to draw such an arbitrary line and to say that the lesser houses were blameworthy and the greater innocent. Yet that is what the Act did, making it more emphatic by pointing to the contrast between the “manifest sin, vicious, carnal, and abominable living” in the houses to be dissolved, and the character of “divers great and solemn monasteries of the realm, wherein, thanks be to God, religion is right well kept and observed.” ”

“ The total amount of wealth brought to the Royal Treasury is quite incalculable. Besides the whole annual income of the monasteries, there was the value of the contents of the houses, plate, furniture, stores, grain, cattle, etc. The former was enormous, but the latter was no despicable figure. We have figures of some of the sales at the Dissolution:
Besides the above figures we know of much lead at other places. ”

“ From the inventories and surrenders, supplementing Valor Ecclesiasticus, we are able to form some idea as to the mode of living in the monasteries, and the standard of comfort which was reached. Doubtless the obligation to perform manual work had in most cases been forgotten, otherwise the large number of servants and labourers cannot well be accounted for. ”

“ But there is a good deal of material for arriving, approximately at any rate, at such things as annual income and expenditure, and if we can discover those we shall obtain [7] figures and facts which will be of great service in many ways.
Many counties had far wealthier monasteries than Staffordshire. The richest counties in England in this respect were Yorkshire and Middlesex, but both of these are exceptional, the former by reason of its disproportionate area, and the latter because it contains the City of London and many of its suburbs. ”

“ A new visitation of the religious houses was set on foot. The visitors whose names are best known were Doctors Legh and Layton. They were young lawyers in holy orders, with all the arrogant characteristics of the new age, determined to do their work thoroughly and to [134] the satisfaction of their master and patron, and deterred by no qualms of delicacy or reverence for persons or institutions. They started together from Lichfield on a tour through the North. ”

“ There being such difficulty in obtaining the payment of money legally due within anything like reasonable time, it is not surprising to find that speculators arose and did a brisk business. The abuse became so marked that in Edward VI’s reign Parliament had to pass an Act (2–3 Edward VI, Cap. VII) “against the craftie and deceitful buying of Pensions from the late Monasteries,” but without much success in providing a remedy. ”

“ Indeed, one is tempted to go further and to argue that it is incredible that no other endowed alms (which the instructions permitted to be reckoned) existed in the county. At [208] any rate this much may be said: that if the charity of which we have positive proof represents all that was distributed by the Staffordshire houses the strictures which have been so often passed on the monks for excessive and demoralising almsgiving are quite undeserved: the monasteries of Staffordshire, at any rate, were not “nurseries of dishonest mendicancy.” ”

“ There were many material interests to be considered, for it must not be forgotten that the monks and nuns, friars and canons, were not the only people affected by the changes we have been considering. The King, the clergy, the tenants, the lay people employed, maintained, and assisted at the monasteries, all had interests more or less important. ”

“ The presence of such outsiders in what professed to be religious communities must have been exceedingly embarrassing to any who were trying to live in the spirit of the rules, and most prejudicial to spirituality and discipline. It was, however, difficult to oppose the royal commands. Burton tried to do so in 1310 and failed ignominiously. [74] Thomas de Bannebury, who had long served Edward II and his father, was sent to the Abbot and Convent to receive the necessaries of life in food and drink, clothing, etc., according to his estate. ”

“ The “household” is a large one in comparison with the number of monks, even when we take into account the sheep-runs of the Abbey. Still more excessive is the staff of twenty-nine servants at Stafford for the seven canons; for the Priory of St. Thomas, though it had scattered possessions, employed in 1535 nine or ten stewards and bailiffs. Their baker was a person of sufficient importance to receive a pension of 10s. a year. The four nuns at Brewood had eight servants, although their house and income were alike small. ”

“ The skill of Henry VIII and his ministers was shown in the way they won public opinion to their side or crushed it away out of sight. English history, and continental too, has shown again and again that the civil power can never be permanently restrained by “immunities” and “concordats.” The force of circumstances is always liable to be too strong for such artificial arrangements: the power of Parliament must, as a force majeure, be the final arbiter. ”

“ The investigation was a contest between the two parties—the Commissioners, whose primary object was to make the income as large and the expenditure as small as possible, and the monks who naturally desired to reverse the proportion. The result was that there were serious omissions on both sides of the account, and the Valor Ecclesiasticus is, accordingly, a very incomplete statement of the accounts of the religious houses. The omissions as regards income are many, but the information as to expenditure can only be described as altogether inadequate and incomplete. ”