The Churches of Coventry | Page 5

pray for
deceased members and so (6 Edward VI) they were suppressed along
with the chantries, and their property confiscated, "the very meanest
and most inexcusable of the plunderings which threw discredit on the
Reformation."
Here, the city bought back everything which had belonged to the
Trinity and Corpus Christi Gilds, with various almshouses and the
possessions of the majority of the Chantries; while previously at the
Dissolution it had bought the abbey-orchard, and mill, and the house
and church of the Grey Friars.
In 1340 Edward III granted Licence to the Coventry men to form a

Merchants' Gild with leave "to make chantries, bestow alms, do other
works of piety and constitute ordinances touching the same." This was
St. Mary's Gild. Two years later that of St. John Baptist was formed
and a year later that of St. Katherine, the three being united into the
Trinity Gild before 1359. Of the chapel (now St. John's church) begun
in 1344 by the St. John's Gild and the "fair and stately structure for
their feasts and meetings called St Mary Hall" built in 1394 by the
united Gilds more will be said later. The end of the fourteenth century
and the fifteenth brought to Coventry a full share in the events and
movements of the time. In 1396 the duel between Hereford and Norfolk
was to have taken place on Gosford Green (adjoining the city) and
Richard II made the fatal mistake of banishing both combatants. At the
Priory in 1404 Henry IV held his Parliament known, from the fact that
no lawyers were summoned to it, as the "Parliamentum Indoctorum."
Setting itself in opposition to ecclesiastics, it proposed to supply the
King's needs by taxing church-property. As in the matter of the city
walls, the church contrived to avoid bearing its share of the public
burdens and the chronicler ends thus: "Much ado there was; but to
conclude, the worthy Archbishop (viz. Tho. Arundell) standing stoutly
for the good of the Church, preserved it at that time from the storm
impending." One branch of his argument is noteworthy, that as the
confiscation of the alien priories had not enriched the King by half a
mark (courtiers having extorted or begged them out of his hands), so it
would be were he to confiscate the temporalities of the monasteries.
Henry VIII had reason to acknowledge the fulfilment of the prophecy.
Soon after this, in 1423, Coventry showed its sympathy for Lollardry
when John Grace an anchorite friar came out of his cell and preached
for five days in the "lyttell parke." He was opposed by the prior of St.
Mary's and by a Grey Friar who however were attacked and nearly
killed by the mob.
The royal visits which earned for Coventry the title which it still bears
as its motto 'Camera principis' were frequent in this century. In 1436
we hear of Henry VI being there, and in 1450 he was the guest of the
monastery and after hearing mass at St. Michael's Church presented to
it for an altar-hanging the robe of gold tissue he was wearing. The
record in the Corporation Leet book is interesting enough to quote:
The King, then abydeng stille in the seide Priory, upon Mich'as even

sent the clerke of his closet to the Churche of Sent Michel to make redy
ther hys clossette, seying that the Kynge on Mich'as day wolde go on
p'cession and also her ther hygh masse. The Meyre and his counsell,
remembering him in this mater, specially avast hem to pray the Bishop
of Winchester to say hygh masse afore the Kynge. The Bishop so to do
agreed withe alle hys here; and, Aegean the Kynge coming to Sent
Michel Churche, the Meyre and his Peres, cladode in scarlet gowns,
wanton unto the Kynge Chamber durra, ther abydeng the Kynge
coming. The Meyre then and his Peres, doing to the Kynge due
obeisance ... toke his maze and here it afore the Kynge all his said
bredurn goeng afore the Meyre til he com to Sent Michels and brought
the Kynge to his closette. Then the seyde Bishop, in his pontificals
arayde, with all the prestes and clerkes of the seyde Churche and of
Bablake, withe copes apareld, wanton in p'cession abowte the
churchyarde; the Kynge devowtely, with many odur lordes, followed
the seyd p'cession bare-hedded, cladode in a gowne of gold tissu, furred
with a furre of marturn sabull; the Meyre bereng the maze afore the
Kynge as he didde afore, tille he com Aegean to his closette. Att the
whyche masse when the Kynge had offered and his lordes also, he
sende the lorde Bemond, his chamburlen, to the Meyre, seying to him,
"hit is the Kynge wille that ye and your bredurn com and offer;" and so
they