It shows, however, the humiliating and submissive circumstances to which the monks were now reduced.  They were indeed fallen from that high estate, when kings were their tributaries, and empires too narrow for the wide grasp of their ambition.  The following is a copy of Thomas Cromwell’s indulgence, taken from the Townley MSS.:—­

“To all estates due honour and reverence, and to all other commendacioun in our Lord everlastyng.  Know ye that we John, abbot of ye monasterie of our blessed Ladie of Whalley, in Com.  Lanc., by ye assente and consente of ye convente, have freely granted untoe ye right honourable Mr Tho.  Cromwell, secretarie, general visitor, and principal official to our most sovereign Lord Kyng Hen.  VIII., an annual rent or fee of vi:  xiii:  iv:  yerele, to be paide at ye nativitie of St John Baptist unto ye saide Maister Thomas Cromwell.  Wee, ye saide abbot and convent have put to ye same our handes and common seale.  Yeven at Whalley 1st Jan. 28 Hen.  VIII.”

But every act of submission, every stratagem and advice, had failed to ward off the blow.  Within ten weeks from the date of this document there was neither abbot nor abbey of Whalley.

After the dispersion, imprisonment, and execution of the principal leaders of the rebellion, the day of reckoning and retribution was at hand.  Shrewsbury, by the king’s orders, sent a herald with a troop of horse, who, taking Paslew, Eastgate, Haydock, and some others of the monks prisoners, they were arraigned at Lancaster, and convicted of high treason.  On the 12th March 1537, Paslew was conveyed back to Whalley for execution, where, in a field called the Holehouses, immediately facing the house of his birth, a gallows was erected, on which Paslew and Eastgate suffered punishment or martyrdom, for the story varies according to the bias of the party by whom it is told.  Haydock was carried to Padiham, and died there the same ignominious death on the day following.  The monks, driven from their asylum, escaped into France, with the exception of a few, who lingered near the scenes of their former enjoyments, hovering like departed hopes round the ruin to which they clung.

[Illustration:  HORNBY CASTLE.

Drawn by G. Pickering.  Engraved by Edw^d Finden.]

FOOTNOTES: 

[14] Whitaker’s Hist.  Whalley.

SIR EDWARD STANLEY.

    “Why, then, the world’s mine oyster,
    Which I with sword will open!”

     “God never wrought miracles to convince atheism, because His
     ordinary works convince it.”—­Bacon.

     “No man doubts of a Supreme Being, until, from the consciousness of
     his provocations, it becomes his interest there should be
     none.”—­Government of the Tongue.

     “Men are atheistical because they are first vicious, and question
     the truth of Christianity because they hate
     the practice.”—­South.