Ashridge Priory

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ashridge Priory was a medieval abbey of the Brothers of Penitence.

The seventeenth century historian Polydore Vergil said that Edmund (son of Richard, Earl of Cornwall who had a palace there) founded in 1283^[1] a monastery at Ashridge, Hertsfordshire, for a rector and twenty canons of "a new order not before seen in England, and called the Boni homines".^[2] It was finished in 1285.

At the foundation of the abbey the Earl of Cornwall donated, among other things, a phial of Christ's blood, in honour of which the convent adjacent to the abbey was founded. This deposit proved fruitful for the abbey and convent, as pilgrims from all over Europe flocked to see the phial of blood. The abbey grew quite wealthy as a result.^{[citation needed]}

One such visitor was King Edward I. In 1290 he held parliament at the abbey while he spent Christmas in Pitstone.^{[citation needed]}

However in 1538 , during the Dissolution of the Monasteries the "blood" was publicly declared to be nothing more than honey with colouring added.^{[citation needed]} The last rector was Thomas Waterhouse, who surrendered the house to Henry VIII. The building ceased to be used as an abbey shortly afterwards.

The suppressed college was granted first to the king's sister Elizabeth Tudor.^[3] It later became the private residence of Princess Elizabeth, younger daughter of King Henry VIII. It was here that she was arrested in 1552, under suspicion of treason.^[4]

It later went to the Egertons, later created Earls and Dukes of Bridgewater. The church was destroyed under Elizabeth I; but in 1800 the last duke was living in a portion of the old college. He sold the great hall piecemeal, and pulled down the cloisters.