King's Langley Priory

[1] The king in March 1312 gave the brothers 700 marks for building expenses, and in the summer of that year the conventual church was dedicated and a cemetery consecrated.

Possibly, however, the church was not yet finished, for the body of Piers Gaveston, who was killed about this time, was not buried there until the end of 1314, when the ceremony took place with much state, the Archbishop of Canterbury and four bishops as well as many other ecclesiastics taking part in the funeral rites.

[1] In October 1311 the king increased the annual income of the house to £150 to provide for fifteen friars added since the foundation, so that his grant in September 1312 of 500 marks during pleasure may have been intended for building purposes.

To overcome the difficulty that friars-preachers could not own property he proposed to found a house of Dominican nuns, who were to hold lands in trust for the brothers, and in 1318 he sent two friars to the pope for his authorization.

[1] The drawback to allowances is shown in the complaint of the friars to Edward III in 1345 that owing to the irregularity of the payments from the Exchequer they had not wherewith to live, carry on the works they had begun, and pay their debts.

In 1346 he granted the friars part of a quarry in Shotover for their works, and in 1347 gave them leave to enlarge the ditch round their close 3 ft. in breadth and 2,000 ft. in length.

The king in October 1363 granted to the convent of twenty brothers 200 marks a year of his alms and in March 1371 ordered that the money should be paid to them from the issues of the alien priory of Burstall.

In October 1376 Edward III made over to John Duke of Lancaster, Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, and others in trust for the convent at Langley, the hundred and manor of Preston and the manors of Overland in Ash, Elmstone, Wadling in Ripple, Packmanstone in Newchurch, Harrietsham, 'Godmeston', Beaurepaire, Waldeslade in Chatham, Ham and Westgate in the Isle of Thanet, Kent, and these were granted to the friars from Easter 1382 for forty years, with the idea that during this term they might be secured to them in frankalmoin.

Five years earlier they had acquired in the same way from Richard II the advowson of Willian, Hertfordshire, and from John Waltham, Bishop of Salisbury, and Warin Waldegrave that of Great Gaddesden, with leave in both cases to appropriate the churches to their own uses.

In his last illness he desired that the sum should be paid, and in further recompense of charges on the priory caused by his episcopal dignity he bequeathed to the convent his crozier and mitre worth £40.

After his death his executors sued the prior and convent for some of his property — a silver ewer and holy water stock, a counterpane and a dozen napkins.

Richard Yngworth, the prior, on 16 December sent him a present of apples, and thanked him for his help and counsel to the provincial superior, John Hilsey, by which he himself was enabled to serve God quietly and keep his study and office without trouble.

In April 1534 he went on a visitation to the eastern counties to secure the acknowledgement by the friars of the king's claim to be supreme head of the English Church, and later made himself useful to Hilsey elsewhere in the same business.

When Hilsey was made Bishop of Rochester, Thomas Bedell wrote to Cromwell recommending that the Prior of Langley, 'who had taken great pains in the king's matters,' should have the office of provincial; Russell also urged his appointment.

He was commissioned by the king in February 1538 to visit all friaries in England, and in May he was ordered to put their goods into safe custody and take inventories of them, evidently in preparation for suppression.

Yngworth begged for the house immediately, and in February 1540 it was granted to him with most of its lands, to be held until he obtained ecclesiastical benefices worth £100 a year.

[1] The priory of King's Langley was refounded by Philip and Mary in June 1557 as a house of Dominican sisters, at the request, and for the benefit of seven nuns, formerly at Ingress Abbey, Dartford, Kent.

[1] On 8 September 1558 the king and queen granted to the Prioress and convent of Langley the reversion of certain tenements in Dartford, formerly demesne lands of the nuns of that place, and until the expiration of the lease, the rent of £30 7s.

Queen Mary died in November of that year, and by an Act passed in Elizabeth's first Parliament all restorations or foundations of monasteries since the death of Edward VI were made void, and their possessions given to the Crown.

Priors of King's Langley were:[1] A 15th-century seal of the house, in shape a pointed oval, bears a representation of the Annunciation in a niche of very elaborate design, below which the royal founder kneels in prayer.