By the late Fifteenth century; the attitude of most towards the Church was that of mistrust; For whereas the Bishops sat comfortably upon their rich thrones, the common man's lot was a very poor comparison. Also, with the Nation just recovering from the ravages of the War of the Roses, there was very little spare cash to improve the condition of the ordinary person - and at the same time, the Church was draining the people for tithes, in order to enrich themselves. The plight of the Cornish was even worse, especially with the introduction of a levy to finance a war with the far-off Scots; and those who were levying such taxes seemed themselves to be far-off in the Capital.
To stand up for their rights, a rebellious mob of half-armed Cornish men, in the summer of 1497, marched to London, where they were dispersed. When they returned to Cornwall, they flocked around one Perkin Warbeck, proclaiming him as King Richard IV at Bodmin. With him at their head they marched eastwards, but at the sight of fresh reinforcements from the English King, the cowardly Warbeck fled. In desperation, the leaderless Cornish happened to see the luckless Provost of Glasney and Vicar of St Gluvias, Sir John Oby, who had been an assiduous collector of the taxes that had been the cause of the defeated rebellion of the summer months. In the market place of Taunton, Provost Oby was barbarically cut to pieces.
Despite this, the Cornish did not want a change of religion, for as in the last days of the Celtic Church in Cornwall, no matter how much they were dissatisfied and angered at their Church, they would not willingly change it. Even up to the time of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, there was still a strong Roman Catholic element within the county. This was particularly so of Penryn, for with the Reformation she would lose all the religious privileges granted during Medieval times with the founding of Glasney.
Despite the attack and ‘martyrdom’ of Sir John Oby, the inhabitants of Glasney were no more pious than their predecessors. William Carvanyon, a lessee of part of the Bishop's home-farm at Penryn had to bring a Star Chamber action against the penultimate Provost, James Gentle, who, he said, was "a man of great covetousy", one who "hath not only let the College to be in decay so that the service is not ministered as it hath been, but also hath taken the chantries of the same College into his own hands and doth daily occupy them to his own use. And Sir James Gentle and his servants be men of great pleasures; more like temporal men than spiritual, do daily use hawking and hunting and do not only tread and break down hedges, corn and grass of them that be his poor neighbours there nigh him, but also doth kill and slay with his spaniels, some days two sheep, some days three and divers times five in a day, and also do kill, drink and joust ...Sir James is a man of great substance and being well friended, your poor orator can have no redress.”[fn1] With this as an example of a man of the Church, no wonder the times were ripe for a change!
The Vicars of St Gluvias fared no better. 'Bishop' Thomas Chard [mentioned previously] became Vicar of the Parishes in 1508. He was the Bishop of Solubria (Solivri or Silivri, that is: ancient Seymbria in Roumelia) - an office that was granted ’in Parttbus’.[fn2] Chard was also the Suffragan[fn3] Bishop to Bishop Oldham while at Penryn, and during this time he ordained most of those who were ordained in the Diocese at the time. Chard was one of the grand scale pluralists; for apart from St Gluvias and St Budock, and of course the Bishopric of Solubria; he was also Warden of Ottery St Mary, Abbot of Ford, Prior of Carswell; as well as holding the livings of Little Torrington, Holbeton and Thorncombe.
In 1509, Henry VIII became King of England, a King who was a loyal subject to both the Pope himself and to the Roman Catholic Church. So much so, that despite the fact that the air was full of anti-papal views and struggles on the Continent; Henry himself was an unfinching Catholic. He even entered the Lists against Luther, and wrote a treatise "On the Seven Sacraments" which earned him the title `Defender of the Faith' - a direct gift from the Pope himself. But Henry had a problem: he wanted a son, and his Catholic wife, Catherine of Aragon, seemed unable to provide him with this. Also, Catherine was his dead brother's widow, and although the marriage with Arthur had not been consummated, Henry believed that the lack of a male heir, was a punishment due to this.[fn4] Also, Henry had fallen in love with Anne Bolyn; and so it made sense to him to divorce Catherine, marrv Anne and sire a son through her. However, the Church of Rome would not allow him to do this: so one had to go: Catherine or the Church's power.
The people of England realising the implications of this struggle between Henry and the hated Church, took great delight in the struggle; so much so that the "'King's Matter' became an affair touching national pride and independence".[fn5] In 1529, Parliament decided to back their king, and two years later the English clergy were charged with treason under the old statute of ‘Praemunire’, which forbade the receiving of order from a foreign power. This effectively brought to an end the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Pope in this country. In 1532, Cranmer was elected as Archbishop of Canterbury, and his court declared that the marriage between Henry and Catherine was null and void: and so Henry was free to marry his beloved Anne Bolyn.
The more important Act passed was the Supremacy Act, by which the king was declared to be the "Supreme Head of the Church of England" - England was therefore a Protestant Nation, free from the See of Rome.
At first, other than at court, there seemed to be no real change that could be justifiably be called a "Reformation", for there was no dramatic change in the ranks of the clergy; especially at St Gluvias, where the Vicar, William Andrew, remained Vicar under the Royal See just as he had under the Roman See; and Glasney was still in the corrupt hands of "Sir James Gentle and his servants."
Henry had financial problems: the cost of European wars and the huge expenses of his Court had impoverished the country. So he began to look to the great wealth that had once belonged to the Pope and his Church, but now belonged to Henry's Church - i.e the monasteries and their riches. Thus the reason for the dissolution of the monasteries.
In 1535 a general visitation of the universities and the monastic foundations was announced. This was to be carried out by Thomas Cromwell, who was appointed as Vicar-General (a unique office); who was assisted by Dr John Tregonwell, who although was still of conservative Catholic sympathies, was not above turning the change of situation to his own advantage.
All the monasteries in Cornwall., except for Launceston, St Germans and Bodmin, and therefore including Glasney, were officially dissolved in 1536 (the others mentioned, three years later). But over a decade later, which was even after Henry's death, Glasney still seemed unaffected by the dissolution. For when in 1546 (when the College and Penryn's Chapel of the Virgin Mary, were appropriated to the Crown) a new Provost (John Libby) was collated to the College. However, during the 1540s, the new Church of England was gradually evolving: there were to be no more pilgrimages, offering of money or candles to images, saying prayers over beads, and the like. On the other hand, Henry thought that it was wrong to deny transubstantiation, or to allow priests and nuns to marry - this no doubt being a result of the Roman influence on his early life.
Henry's last blow against the old order was the 'Suppression of the Chantries' of these establishments. This was in 1547, following the issue, a year earlier, of a commission for the creating of a survey of all Chantries, Colleges, Gilds, Hospitals and Free Chapels, together with their property. From this we learn that although there had been ornaments, etc., to the value of £153..0..8d; by 1546, they had only amounted to .........£26.
After Henry's death, new Commissions were set up in each county to take an inventory of the Chantry goods and arrange for their sale. The Commissioners for Cornwall were William Godolphin, Henry Chiverton and John Grenville. When the commissioners arrived at Glasney they found that the College was still in a state of decay[fn6], although the last Provost, John Libby had attempted to rectify this. He had spent £40 on repairs, but now was bound to pay this himself. The commissioners also noted that Libby was a man well-learned and that Glasney was "a meet place to establish a learned man to teach a grammar school or to preach God’s Word, for the people thereaboutss be very ignorant".[fn7]
The Commission itself wanted to save Glasney, either as a school or a fortified place to defend the coast; and there were some who wanted to convert it into a parish church. But in 1549, a Giles Keylways purchased the materials of the College for £3,810. The lead from the buildings was taken to the Scilly Isles for the fortifications being erected there; while the tower, bells, vestments, copes of green velvet and gold cloth [with their inscription ‘Pray for the soul of John Bishop’], altar cloths, tabernacles and books were all sold. In time the remaining buildings crumbled and fell: on the land that passed to John Pendarves of Crowan.[fn8]
Many of the stones that were left were quarried away so that by the time of Queen Elizabeth's reign there was very little of Glasney left. In his historical novel about the Elizabethan Falmouth family - the Killigrews, the Cornish novelist Winston Graham mentioned the demise of Glasney: "Half a mile from our gates, and on the river bank near the town of Penryn, was the old Collegiate Church of St Thomas of Glasney. In my great grandfather's time, when England was Catholic, this had been the centre of church life for all the far west. The establishment had been large and wealthy, with a refectory, a chapter-house, dormitories for the canons, a hospital, and many out-buildings. Now, except for the church, it was in ruins. Of the College Chapel, dedicated to Thomas a' Becket, only the tower stood. When you walked through the cloisters you could see how roofs had been robbed of their lead, stones carried away to make farmers' walls, windows broken, coloured glass stolen, doors prised off their hangings. Even many of the big paving stones had gone, and nettles and cow parsley and vipers bugloss grew rankly in their place.”[fn9]
Today, all that remains of the great Catholic College is a pile of stones and a wall [complete with a gargoyle] in a Penryn back garden.[fn10] There are still several of the blocks of Caen stone and mouldings scattered through the Glasney area; and above a shop front in St Thomas Street, there is an incised slab with the Lord's Prayer written, of course, in Latin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
fn1: Taken from "Tudor Cornwall" by A L Rowse
fn2: A term describing a non-existent Diocese, that could be purchased from the Church for incumbents to give themselves seemingly important positions.
fn3: That is, Assistant to the Diocesan Bishop
fn4: His reason for this line of thinking is found in Leviticus 20:21.
fn5: Taken from "The Church in Cornwall" by Miles Brown
fn6: When Bishop Veney visited the College in 1540, he found that it was in a very poor condition, especially the woodwork, and the lead and timber of the roofs. Because of this it was thought to be in serious danger of failing into ruins.
fn7: Taken from "Tudor Cornwall" by A L Rowse
fn8: An interesting point regarding the renouncement of the Roman Church and its effect on Penryn - was that all reminders of St Thomas Becket were destroyed and his name was removed from all Church Calendars and service books. The reason : the Roman Archbishop had opposed his king!
fn9: Taken from "The Grove of Eagles" by Winston Graham [Fontana]
fn10: At the top of St Gluvias Street according to Cousin Ernie's book [1998]. Ernie also mentions that halfway down St Thomas Street, on the right hand side and known as "College Ope" [or passage way] are two large granite upright supports and granite lintel to the opening of the "Ope" which leads to College fields.
