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"And a fine encouragement I have!" said the abbot; "to be called out of my bed at midnight, in this raw weather, to undergo the examination of a knight, who is the youngest, perhaps, of his own honourable rank, and who will not tell me the subject of the interrogatories, but detains me on this cold pavement, till, according to the opinion of Celsus, the podagra which lurks in my feet may be driven into my stomach, and then good-night to abbacy and examinations from henceforward."
He had renounced high prospects in the church, and contented himself with the simple abbacy of Clairvaux, in order that he might have the leisure he desired, to raise his powerful voice against abuses wherever he found them. Vice met in him an austere and uncompromising reprover; no man was too high for his reproach, and none too low for his sympathy.
The youth answered he was resolved "to renounce the church for the salvation of his soul," upon condition that he retained his beneficed abbacy. It may be added, he kept this resolution. A soldier he therefore became, and subsequently a courtier.
But he was chiefly disposed to prefer the Kilwinning road, though it was several miles more of bout-gait, on account of the rich abbacy in that town, hoping he might glean and gather some account how the clergy there stood affected, the meeting with Dominick Callender having afforded him a vista of friends and auxiliaries in the enemy's camp little thought of.
After viewing the contents with some surprise, he read aloud, "The undersigned, late residing in the house of Saint Bride, do you, father Jerome, the abbot of said house, to know, that finding you were disposed to treat me as a prisoner and a spy, in the sanctuary to which you had received me as a distressed person, I have resolved to use my natural liberty, with which you have no right to interfere, and therefore have withdrawn myself from your abbacy.
The Jerusalem Chamber and Jericho Parlour, which were formerly the Abbot's withdrawing-room and guest-chambers, date from the abbacy of Litlington at the end of the fourteenth century.
But he was ignominiously expelled in four days, and was permitted, upon paying a large sum of money to the king, to resume his abbacy. He became Bishop of Rochester, and died in 1124. In 1116 nearly the whole town was consumed by a fire that lasted nine days. Abbot John died in 1125; and again the King kept the abbey in his own hands for more than two years.
The political relations, both of the people of the abbacy and of the Toggenburgers remained in an unsettled state. Had the Five Cantons known it, they never would have approved of conditions, by which the abbot could be deprived of his territorial rights. During the campaign he had fled to Bregenz and Ueberlingen, carrying along the archives and jewels of the monastery.
"Then, for God's sake, worshipful Master Tressilian," said honest Gosling, "look well to yourself. This Varney is the protector and patron of Anthony Foster, who holds under him, and by his favour, some lease of yonder mansion and the park. Varney got a large grant of the lands of the Abbacy of Abingdon, and Cumnor Place amongst others, from his master, the Earl of Leicester.
Not even in their hour of triumph could they shake off their awe of the trembling black-robed masters who stood before them. A compromise was patched up. The charters should be surrendered till the popular claimant of the abbacy should confirm them. Then, unable to do more, the great crowd ebbed away.
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