AND HIS BRETHREN
Dom Stephen Marron
Douai Magazine 7:3 (1933) 130
It is with a certain dramatic suddenness that D. Sigebert Buckley appears in our history in the early years of James I.'s reign as the sole survivor of all the monks of England, and hands on to the English monks of Italy in unbroken succession all the rights and privileges of the ancient English Benedictine body. I have no intention of touching on that interesting episode a careful study of which by Dom Hugh Connolly appeared recently in the pages of the Downside Review. My present purpose is rather to trace Dom Sigebert backward through the haze of Elizabethan history to his home at Westminster among his brethren.
In the first volume of his English Black Monks of St. Benedict, Fr. Taunton gathers from contemporary records much interesting detail of the restoration of Westminster Abbey in Mary's reign and also of its Abbot John Howman alias Feckenham, but of the members of the community " owing to the present difficulty of obtaining access to the Westminster Abbey records" he regrets he can say nothing1. Of D. Sigebert Buckley previous to his sudden appearance in James' reign, he catches just one solitary glimpse in Wisbeach castle. It is true that we are not much better off now—the said Westminster records still remain to be explored—but since he wrote, a certain amount has been published that enables us to give at any rate a fairly complete list of Abbot Feckenham's community and some details concerning its members and in particular Dom Sigebert Buckley.
First of all there are two lists published by Dr. Pearce and Dr. Frere respectively. The former, in his volume entitled The Monks of Westminster, though dealing with the abbey only up to its suppression under Henry VIII., prints in an appendix a paper from the muniment room at Westminster Abbey, which for certain reasons he suggests is a list belonging "to an early date of the revival, and so is perhaps what it looks like, a list of those whom the new Abbot proposed as his first set of colleagues "2 At any rate it is clearly, by comparison with Dr. Frere's list, a list of Abbot Feckenham's community in 1556.
Dr. Frere's list is one drawn up, from various episcopal registers up and down the country, of all those who received Holy Orders during Mary's reign 3. On gathering from it the Westminster Benedictines one finds that it includes some of the younger members of Dr. Pearce's list and so supplements that list down to the end of Mary's reign and therefore one may say, to the end of the Abbey's existence. Consequently from the two we get a fairly complete list of all Feckenham's monks.
I propose giving the two lists with a few comments and suggestions. The earlier list of course is composed for the most part of monks surviving from Henry's reign and who re-assumed the habit under Feckenham. With the aid of Dugdale, Gasquet and other authorities I have endeavoured to identify as many of these as possible. It would take too long to detail my reasons for identification in each case so I leave that aside for the present, and simply insert them tentatively in brackets in the list, as a sort of corpus vile for anyone interested therein to work upon. Two or three of Feckenham's new community I have ventured to identify with former monks of Westminster. In this regard it may be noted that at the time of the Henrician suppression the Westminster community numbered about forty members. In the early years of Mary's reign there were five names still on the pension list including John Foster who (I suggest) joined Feckenham's community. This does not mean of course that there were only five survivors. The seven monks who had received prebends at the time of the suppression including the Abbot and the Prior were all dead with the exception of Humphrey Charity (Perkins) who was still alive and resumed his prebend under Elizabeth. Some of the other monks too are dead as we know, e.g., D. Richard Empson. The survivors all told would number possibly about a dozen. This however by the way, and here is Dr. Pearce's list:—
The names under the second heading are apparently of those who had not yet been formally enrolled as members of the community. Some of them (e.g., Mr. Phagane) were certainly monks of the old monasteries, and this applies, I should say, at least to those who have the title Mr. attached. As for the officials, besides the prior as above, Dr. Pearce finds from other documents that Mr. Edon was cellarer (1557), and Marshall was treasurer (1557-1559). From a list of servants which I have omitted, one finds that the prior, the archdeacon, the cellarer, the sub-cellarer and Mr. Redborne had each his special servant.
As for Dr. Frere's list it was sufficient for his purpose to give just a list of names together with the date of the first order received in Mary's reign. Desirous however of more details concerning the Benedictines mentioned and D. Sigebert Buckley in particular, I have examined the original register from which the entries were taken and which is in the muniment room at St. Paul's Cathedral. It was brought over for me to a neighbouring registry office when I went through it as carefully as time and circumstances permitted. My main quest was D. Sigebert Buckley but I copied all entries of Westminster monks that I came across. The results I give in the following list and it will be sufficient to give the dates of the first and the last orders received. I include in italics from Dr. Frere's list one or two details which apparently I missed. The list is as follows :—
The reader will note how this list is linked to the former one by certain names, Anderson, Prince, Johnson, etc. I have included Clerke and Fysther in this list because they appear in Dr. Frere's list as monks, although I noticed no sign of monasticism in their various entries in the register. The same is true of Mynevere until his priesthood where he appears as " ad titulum monastcrii St. Petri Westm : ", which I presume means that he was a monk. The rest generally appear in groups presented and commended by some official of the monastery, as on one occasion (March 13, 1556/7) by " Dom William East, prior of the monastery of St. Peter, Westminster " : on another (Dec. 17, 1557) by " Dom Hugh Phillips, cellarer there " : on another (June 4, 1558) by " Dom John Neote, sub-prior there."
Although these two lists furnish between them a fairly complete list of the Westminster community under Feckenham, it is not quite complete since neither list seems to contain for instance the name of D. Henry Style who is known from various other sources to have been a monk there, and in particular from a notice among the papers at Westminster Abbey which Dr. Pearce gives thus: " Style, Henry mun. 38945 is an acquittance to George Burden, Receiver, for £6 : 13 : 4 ' the fyrst payment dewe by obligacion ' to H. S. late monk of Westm : 1 Nov. : 1570."4
I have made some efforts to trace these monks after their dispersal in 1559 but it would be too lengthy an affair to go into that now, and moreover I have since discovered that much the same ground has been traversed by Mr. Wainewright in an article in the Downside Review to which I refer the reader.5 For the present it will be sufficient for us to keep to D. Sigebert Buckley. And first of all there can be no doubt of his identity with Robert Seabertte (or Sebarte) of the ordination lists. In the papal brief of 1612 Buckley is called " Sebert alias Sigebert, who in the world was named Robert Buckley."6 Hence he would be known at Westminster as Robert Sebert, since it was not customary for monks to use their surname except perhaps as an alias, as is abundantly exemplified in the ordination register. In my list I have for convenience sake and following Dr. Frere's example, placed the surname first and the religious name, when given, as an alias, but it is not usually so in the register. Curiously enough D. Sebert in none of his ordination entries appears with an alias, and in this he is singular. Hence his surname never appears. I noted all his entries from tonsure to priesthood and may as well give them here.
On December 17, 1557, Robert Seabertte and William Fakenham " monachi professi " etc., presented by Dom Hugh Phillips, cellarer, received tonsure and minor orders. William Gardyner received the order of acolythe with them and then all three the subdiaconate that same day (folio 67). On March 4, " secundum computationem Ecclesiae Anglicane 1557 " i.e. 1557/8, Robert Sebarte and William Copynger alias Gardyner monachi, were ordained deacons (fol: 69 dorso). On June 4, 1558, Robert Sebarte together with William Gardyner alias Copynger, Thomas Matthewe alias Ebden, and Anthony Estneye alias Anderson monachi monasterii S. Petri Westm: received the priesthood (fol: 74).7
According to the above it would seem that some alterations are required in his obituary notice in our Obit Book where he is entered as " Born 1517. A secular priest. Professed at Westminster by Abbot Feckenham 1558. Was imprisoned for refusing the oath of supremacy in 1559, and remained in prison during the whole of Elizabeth's reign." What happened to him at the suppression of the monastery I do not know, except that he like the rest of the monks was forbidden to leave the country.8 The first record of imprisonment that I find is that for refusing the oath he was committed to the Marshalsea prison September 13, 1582 and was still there in July, 1585.9 Apparently he was again at liberty before December, 1586, when Berden names him among priests then at large whom he considered more ' perilous ' than those in prison, viz. : " Buckley, late prysoner in the Marshallsea. An ould priest most meete for Wisbiche."10 However he does not appear in a list of " Priests in prison " of March, 1588, which gives the names of priests in Wisbeach and other prisons. In 1588 he seems to have come into Topcliffe's clutches for that individual in a letter undated but written about 1592 says that priests returning after banishment " wil be founde bloodelye minded as I founde Burklay the owlde Monke in anno 1588."11 I presume therefore that Fr. Buckley must have been put into prison again about 1588 and indeed in Wisbeach. Fr. Morris, S. J., prints a list of Wisbeach prisoners (undated, but sometime in the 1590's), which contains Fr. Buckley.12 Prefixed to his name is Staff:, whence Fr. Taunton suggests "that he was either a native of Staffordshire or worked there as a priest."13 In the same list the word Staff: is also prefixed to Dr. Christopher Bagshawe's name and he was not a native of Staffordshire but of Derbyshire. Hence I suggest that this signifies the locality in which they were taken.
This juxtaposition of Fr. Buckley and Dr. Bagshawe is noteworthy for the latter was very interested in the old monk and in the English Benedictine movement which at that time had begun among the English students in Italy. A few years later when a similar movement had begun in Spain he wrote an enthusiastic letter to the General of the Benedictines there in which he says : " Our English nation owes to your Order of St. Benedict nothing less than its conversion from idols to the living God. Hence I believe it is by a great providence of God that Fr. Buckley the last survivor of those monks that once lived in Catholic England (for many years fellow prisoner with myself and others) should still be living on in prison, ready to meet death with Holy Simeon's joy because he has seen his Order reviving once again, a thing which he earnestly prayed for with many sighs as I myself know and which he even protested with tears as I have been told."14
From this it is clear that Fr. Buckley had early information of the English Benedictine movement in Italy and that it was discussed by the priests in Wisbeach, for Dr. Bagshawe goes on to say that one of the priests Fr. Thules intended to become a Benedictine but " died in our prison a true martyr." Probably it was from Wisbeach and perhaps from Dr. Bagshawe that the English monks in Italy were informed about Fr. Buckley as the last surviving monk. However that may be it is certain from Fr. Anselm Beech's own account that they made a great point of it when petitioning Pope Clement VIII. for missionary faculties early in 1601.15 At that time he was not really the last surviving monk and when he became so is not quite clear. As late as 1603 there was an old monk of Evesham D. William Littleton still surviving in England.16 Moreover Mr. Wainewright identifies Fr. Thomas Bramston who died at Doway College, December 23, 1606, with Dom Thomas Brampston one of Fr. Buckley's fellow monks at Westminster. Dodd is more chary about this identification. In his brief notice of the monk he merely remarks : " One of the same name was a member of the English College, Doway and Rheims."17 Still it is possible that D. Thomas Brampston who does not appear in the ordination lists beyond minor orders gave up the habit and later continued as a secular priest at Rheims, It is also to be noted that Fr. Thomas Bramstone from Rheims was a fellow prisoner with Dr. Bagshawe and Fr. Buckley at Wisbeach, and if he, as well as Fr. Buckley, was an old monk of Westminster, it ill accords with Dr. Bagshawe's letter (undated) to the Spanish General of the Benedictines,18 However that is a problem I cannot solve and as Mr. Wainewright does not indicate his precise authority for this point, I leave it at that.
About the year 1599 Fr. Buckley was transferred from Wisbeach to Framlingham Castle whence he was liberated at the beginning of James I.'s reign. The English monks from Italy sought him out and took care of him and on Nov. 21, 1607 (by which time, at any rate, Fr. Thomas Bramstone had passed away) he did " receive and admit as brethren and monks " of Westminster two of the English Cassinese monks " and to them did grant, impart and assign all rights, privileges, ranks, honours, liberties and graces which in times past the monks professed and dwelling in the said monastery did enjoy."19