At the beginning of the seventeenth century the town of Royston had entirely lost its monastic character. For more than half a century its venerable priory had been dissolved; the solemn chant was no longer heard within its walls; the holy brotherhood had been dispersed, and the youngest among them before this time had probably paid the debt of nature. A new era had arrived. The site of the priory, with the buildings upon it, and a manor, including a great part of the town, had been sold to Mr. Robert Chester, one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber to King Henry VIII., and the conventual edifices had been converted into a private mansion. About the same time as the priory, the free hospital of St. James and St. John of Jerusalem, and the free chapel of St. Nicholas, had been secularized; and the hermitage at the cross, beneath which lay the long-concealed but since celebrated cave or oratory, had been transformed by the lord of the manor into a market house and a prison, designed for the use of both sides of the parish, then newly created.