In 1414 Henry V of England founded at Sheen this priory, known as the House of Jesus of Bethlehem, 'for forty monks of the Carthusian order'.
[1] Authorised by the Parliament of Leicester, this expropriation of French interests saw strong protest: the Benedictine abbot and convent of St. Evroul, Normandy, wrote an earnest appeal to Sheen in the year 1416, to restore the property which had belonged to them for centuries.
Owing to frequent wars between France and England they had of late obtained nothing from this source, and had so been obliged to reduce their choir monks from forty to less than twenty.
[1] An authentic Latin set of abstracts of charters and other particulars relating to the possessions of the alien priories of Ware and Hayling and the rest of the endowments have been kept in London at the British Library.
If these were answered satisfactorily, the candidate retired, and the prior addressed the chapter:— Venerable Fathers, you have heard his humble petition, you see with what earnest desire he solisets [solicits] to be receaved [received] to our order.
[1] By his will of 1415 Henry V. left 1,000 marks for the completion of the house of Sheen for forty monks and bidding his executors see that the number was sustained.
[1] An inspection and confirmation were granted to Sheen by Edward IV in 1461 of the foundation charter and of the further grant by Henry VI in 1442 of 64 acres (0.26 km2) in Sheen and that they might pray for the good [e]state of the king and Cicely his mother and for their souls after death, and the souls of the king's father Richard, late Duke of York, and his ancestors.
[1] It is related of Godwin, a monk of this convent, that in the latter end of March 1502 he murdered the prior of the house in a cellar of uncertain name.
When he began to suffer 'sweating sickness' he retired to Sheen, 'spending the little remainder of his days in devotion and "surrendered up at length his last breath to Him that first gave it on the 16th of September 1519."
In March 1530 the prior was one of three parties to an indenture (in this instance a sort of apprenticeship) devised for finding two secular priests for All Angels Chapel beside Breynford Brygg (Brentford Bridge) in the market town on the opposite bank of the Thames across its tributary, the Brent some way to the north.
In July 1480 the prior in conjunction with Robert Houglot, Richard Newbryge, clerk, and four others, obtained licence to found a perpetual guild or fraternity for themselves and other persons, both men and women.
The brethren and sisters were to elect from themselves yearly a warden for the governance of the guild and the custody of its possessions; the fraternity was to have a common seal and to be termed the G[u]ild of St. Mary in Bagshot.
Licence was also given to acquire in mortmain lands and rents to the value of £10 yearly, to find a chaplain to celebrate in the chapel there for the good [e]state of the king and queen and of the brethren and sisters of the gild, and for their souls after death, and to do other works of piety according to the ordinance of the founders.
[1] In common with other English Carthusians, Sheen was very reluctant to take the oath of supremacy in favour of Henry VIII which was generally enforced in 1534.
Secretary,' for, though many of them were ready to conform with the king's wishes, 'others I think will rather die from a little scrupulosity of conscience, and would not give way for sorrow and despair of salvation, losing peradventure both body and soul which were greatly to be lamented.'
'To be brief,' wrote Singleton, 'the sermon seemed to be to blaspheme against the king and you that be of his council, and to seduce the people from the Son of Man to the abomination standing in the Holy Place.'
The prior's complacency was further rewarded by his being made dean of Chester, and in 1546 he was promoted to be Bishop of the Isle of Man, retaining his deanery in commendam.
The Carthusians, who were for a short time gathered together under Prior Maurice at Sheen during Mary's reign, were the scattered remnant of the various English charterhouses.
On 26 January 1557, Queen Mary replaced the Carthusian monks in their house of Sheen, making Maurice Chauncy their new prior, and granting them a moderate endowment.
[1] The fifteenth century pointed oval seal represented the Nativity of Our Lord, with the star of Bethlehem above, and a demi-angel holding a scroll.