Whiting presided over Glastonbury Abbey at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536–1541) under King Henry VIII of England.

[1] After the death of the Abbot of Glastonbury, Richard Beere, in February 1525, the community elected his successor per formam compromissi, which elevates the selection to a higher ranking personage – in this case Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.

About one hundred monks lived in the enclosed monastery, where the sons of the nobility and gentry were educated before going on to university.

[2] However, the 1535 Suppression of Religious Houses Act brought about the dissolution of the lesser monasteries and provided a warning of what the future might hold.

Abbot Whiting refused to surrender the abbey, which did not fall under the Act for the suppression of the lesser houses.

[5] The precise charge on which he was arrested, and subsequently executed, remains uncertain, though his case is usually referred to as one of treason.

Cromwell clearly acted as judge and jury: in his manuscript Remembrances are the entries: Item, Certayn persons to be sent to the Tower for the further examenacyon of the Abbot, of Glaston...

has lately, been put in the Tower, because, in taking the Abbey treasures, valued at 200,000 crowns, they found a written book of arguments in behalf of Queen Katherine.

Here they were hanged, drawn and quartered, with Whiting's head being fastened over the west gate[4] of the now deserted abbey and his limbs exposed at Wells, Bath, Ilchester and Bridgwater.