Holywell Priory
Holywell Priory or Haliwell, Halliwell, or Halywell (various spellings),[1] was a religious house in Shoreditch, formerly in the historical county of Middlesex and now in the London Borough of Hackney.
More generally, there were few benefactions from magnates before the reign of Henry VII when as almost the last great benefactor, Sir Thomas Lovell, Chancellor of the Exchequer appeared on the scene and virtually refounded the house.
From an earlier period, we know the name of one of the brothers, Peter, whose father was Odo, a smith who in 1275 gave rents in London to the priory for his son.
[9] She was the third daughter of William Montagu, 2nd Baron Montagu of the first creation (died 1319) and Elizabeth Montfort (died 1354), daughter of the knight Sir Peter de Montfort, who survived her first husband and married Sir Thomas Furnivall of Sheffield, without royal licence, for which the groom was fined £200.
Dame Elizabeth's sisters were Alice, Katherine, Mary and Hawise, all of whom married at least once; and Maud and Isabel, who both became successively Abbess of Barking Abbey from 1341-1352.
Odd as this sounds,[14] it is true that Elizabeth's father had died in 1319, her mother had married again before 8 June 1322 and was widowed a second time before 18 April 1332.
It is possible that there may have been a technical requirement for the payment of a dowry for a nun entering the Priory community, which her brother, as a churchman, arranged to be paid in some roundabout fashion.
[5] In any case, Elizabeth's situation was not so precarious as the matter of the pension might make it sound, for by Michaelmas 1340 she is mentioned as Prioress of Holywell in a lawsuit.
[14] Finally, perhaps the intricate interconnections between social and economic status, dynastic marriages and convent life explain why, in response to a complain lodged by "Elizabeth, prioress of Halewell", King Edward III on 26 January 1357 ordered an investigation into an incident when a group of men broke violently into the Priory and abducted Joan, the daughter of John of Coggeshall (or Coggeshale), who had been committed to the Prioress's safekeeping by Henry Galeys, Elizabeth having pledged to restore Joan unmarried.
[14] The case may not be concerned so much with romantic elopement as with sordid exploitation of a woman in order to secure economic gain.
[19] Dame Sybil was herself born on the Eve of St Thomas, 2 July 1509 at Harefield, Middlesex, and was the youngest daughter and 12th child of her parents' fourteen children.
Among Sybil's brothers and sisters was Sebastian, almost nine years her elder, who as a young man was a courtier and member of Henry VIII's Privy Chamber, on close personal terms with the King.
However, he later entered the Carthusian Priory or Charterhouse in London as a monk, being also ordained a deacon (on 3 June 1531) and prior to his death, a priest.
[23] It is documented that when Holywell Priory was formally dissolved on 10 October 1539, the convent then comprised 14 nuns, including the prioress and subprioress.
[5] However, it would seem that nothing happened, for it was some years after the Dissolution of the community, that the part which had been occupied directly by the nuns was granted by sale on 23 September 1544, to Henry Webb, then a gentleman usher to Queen Catherine Parr.
Failing to reach an agreement for its extension,[25] James Burbage's son, Cuthbert hired Peter Streete to take down the old Theatre and to build a new one using as much of the salvaged material as possible.
With the help of others, on the night of 28 December 1598, the structure was dismantled and the materials were transported across the River Thames and reassembled there on Bankside in Southwark, as The Globe, which was functioning by the following September.
