THE MONASTIC FOUNDER

The short reign of Henry V, which in more than one respect marks an epoch in English church history, was distinguished by the establishment of two monastic houses notable both on their own account and because they were to all intents and purposes the last monasteries to be founded in medieval England. Each owed its existence directly to the king, and their endowment and subsequent fame were not unworthy of the royal munificence.

When Gregory XII in 1408 officially exonerated Henry IV from responsibility for the execution of Archbishop Scrope of York, the king undertook, so the report went, to found three religious houses of strict life in expiation of the ‘martyrdom’. He himself, either from lack of funds or from lack of zeal, got no further than the first movements in the matter, but his son took up the liability, and from 1414 onwards pressed on with the work. Recent experience in the country and contemporary opinion in general would have led anyone in quest of strictly-living religious to turn to the Carthusian order; this Henry did, and his application to the German (i.e. Low Countries) province for seven monks showed that he was alive to the good report of that region for fervent piety. One of the seven was, however, an Englishman specified by name, and the first prior was English. The community was to number forty, and the foundation charter was signed on 1 April 1415; the site was in what is now the Old Deer Park, near the Observatory, on the south bank of the Thames near West Sheen or, as it is now called, Richmond, where Henry IV had built himself a palace.