RICHELIEU
47
RICHELIEU
but then and more than once during the next few
years he was assured ihat there was no intention of
suppressing the abbey.
By January, 1539, Glastonbury was the only mon- astery left in Somerset, and on 19 September in that year the royal commissioners, Layton, Pollard and Moyle, arrived there without warning. Whiting hap- pened to be at his manor of Sharpham. Thither the commissioners followed and examined him according to certain articles received from Cromwell, which ap- parently dealt with the question of the succession to the throne. The abbot was then taken back to Glastonbury and thence sent up to London to the Tower that Cromwell might examine him for himself, but the precise charge on which he was arrested, and subsequently executed, remains uncertain though his case is usually referred to as one of treason. On 2 October, the commissioners wrote to Cromwell that they had now come to the knowledge of "divers and sundry treasons committed by the Abbot of Ghistoii- bury", and enclosed a "book" of evidoncos thereof with the accusers' names, which however is no longer forthcoming. In Cromwell's MS., " Kememl)rances", for the same month, are the entries: "Item, Certayn persons to be sent to the Towre for the further exam- enacyon of the Abbot of Glaston . . . Item. The Abbot of Glaston to (be) tryed at Glaston and also executyd there with his complj'cys. . . Item. Councillors to give evidence against the Abbot of Glaston, Rich. Pollard, Lewis Forstew (Forstell), Thos. Moyle." Marillac, the French Ambassador, on 25 October wrote: "The abbot of Glastonbury . . . 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." If the cliarge was high treason, which appears mo.st ])robahlc, thiMi, ;is a lucinher of the House of Peers, Whiting should have lieeii at- tainted h>- an Act of Parliament passed for the pur- pose, but his execution was an accomplished fact be- fore Parlianiciit even met. In fact it seems clear that his doom was <lelil)erately wrapped in obscurity by Cromwell and Henry, for Marillac, writing to Francis I on 30 November, after mentioning the execution of the Abbots of Reading and Glastonbury, adds: "could learn no particulars of what they were charged with, except that it was the relics of the late lord mar- quis"; which makes things more perplexing than ever. Whatever the charge, however, Whiting was sent back to Somerset in the care of Pollard and reached Wells on 14 November. Here some sort of trial ap- parently took place, and next day, Saturday, 15 No- vember, he was taken to Glastonbury with two of his monks, Dom John Thome and Dom Roger James, where all three were fastened upon hurdles and dragged by horses to the top of Tor Hill which over- looks the town. Here they were hangeil, drawn and quartered. Abbot Whiting's head being fastened over the gate of the now deserted abbey and his limbs ex- posed at Wells, Bath, Ilchester and Bridgewater. Richard Whiting was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in his decree of 13 May, 1S95. His watch and seal are still preserved in the museum at Glastonbury.
Hearne, History and AnliquilieK of Glastonbury (Oxford, 1722) ; Adam de Dombrham, Hist, de rebus . . . Glastoniensibus, ed. Hearne (Oxford, 1727); Leland, Collectanea, ed. Hearne (Oxford, 1715), VI, 70; Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII., ed. Brewer and Gairdner (London, 1870, 1902), IV-XVIII; Sander, tr. Lewis, Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism (London, 1877), 141, 142; Wright, Letters relating to the Suppression of the Monasteries, in publ. Camden Soc. (London, 1843); Burnet, History of the Reformation, ed. Pollock (London, 1875); Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries, II (London, 1888), 325-86; Idem, The la.-it Abbot of Glastonbury (London, 1895); see also review of this work by Dixon in English Historical Review (Oct., 1897), 782; Baumer, Die Berie- dictiner-Martyren in England unter Heinrich VIII in Studien 0. S. B., VIII, 502-31; IX, 22-38, 213-34; Archbold, Somerset Religious Houses (Cambridge, 1892); Collinson, History of Somerset, II (Bath, 1791). See also bibliography to article
GLASTONBURy Abbey. g. Roger Hudleston.
Richelieu, Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal,
Duke de, French statesman, b. in Paris, 5 September,
1 585 ; d . there 4 December, 1 642 . At first he intended
to follow a mihtary career, but when, in 1605, his brother
Alfred resigned the Bishopric of LuQon and retired to
the Grande Chartreuse, RicheUeu obtained the see
from Henry IV and withdrew to the country to take
up his theological studies under the direction of Bishop
Cospean of Aire. He was consecrated bishop on 17
April, 1607; he was not yet twenty-two years old, al-
though the Brief of Paul V dated 19 December, 1606,
announcing his appointment contains the statement:
"in vigesimo tertio a^tatis anno tantum constitutus".
Mgr Lacroix, the historian of Richelieu's youth, be-
ToMB OF Richelieu
Church of (he Sorbonne, Paris
lieves that in a journey made to Rome at the end of 1606, Richelieu deceived the pope as to his age, but the incident is still obscure. In his diocese, Richelieu showed great zeal for the conversion of Protestants and appointed the Oratorians and the Capuchins to give missions in all the parishes. Richelieu repre- sented the clergy of Poitou in the States General of 1614, when his political career began. There he was the mouth-piece of the Church, and in a celebrated discourse demanded that bishops and prelates be sum- moned to the royal councils, that the distribution of ecclesiastical benefices lo the laity be forbidden, that the Church be exempt from taxation, that Protestants who usurped churches or had their coreligionists interred in them be punished, and that the Decrees of the Council of Trent be promulgated through- out France. He ended by as.suring the young king Louis XIII that the desire of the clergy was to have the royal power so assured that it might be "comme un ferme rocher qui brise tout ce qui le heurte" (as a firm rock which crushes all that opposes it).
Richelieu was named secretary of state on 30 Novem- ber, 1616, but after the assassination of Concini, fav- ourite of Maria de' Medici, he was forced to leave the ministry and follow the queen mother to Blois. To escape the political intrigues which pursued him he re- tired in June, 1617, to the priory of Coussay and, during this time of leisure caused by his disgrace, pub- lished in October, 1617 (date confirmed by Mgr La- croix), his " Les principaux points de la foi de I'eglise catholique, ddfendus contre I'ecrit adress6 au Roi par les quatre ministres de Charenton"; it was upon reading this book half a century later that Jacques de Coras, a Protestant pastor of Tonneins, was converted to Catholicism. Richelieu continued to be represented
