st. He was of an old English family, and had been educated at
Cambridge, where he must have been the contemporary of Latimer. At the
age of twenty-eight he took the vows as a monk, and had been twenty
years a Carthusian at the opening of the troubles of the Reformation.
He is described as "small in stature, in figure graceful, in countenance
dignified." "In manner he was most modest; in eloquence most sweet; in
chastity without stain." We may readily imagine his appearance; with
that feminine austerity of expression which, as has been well said,
belongs so peculiarly to the features of the mediaeval ecclesiastics.

[Sidenote: The monks espouse the side of Queen Catherine.]

[Sidenote: They are required to take the oath of allegiance, and
refuse.]

[Sidenote: The prior is persuaded to submit, _sub conditione_.]

[Sidenote: The prior's dream.]

[Sidenote: The monks hesitate,]

[Sidenote: But at last yield.]

Such was the society of the monks of the Charterhouse, who, in an era
too late for their continuance, and guilty of being unable to read the
signs of the times, were summoned to wage unequal battle with the world.
From the commencement of the divorce cause they had espoused
instinctively the queen's side; they had probably, in common with their
affiliated house at Sion, believed unwisely in the Nun of Kent; and, as
pious Catholics, they regarded the reforming measures of the parliament
with dismay and consternation. The year 1533, says Maurice,[427] was
ushered in with signs in heaven and prodigies upon earth, as if the end
of the world was at hand; as indeed of the monks and the monks' world
the end was truly at hand. And then came the spring of 1534, when the
act was passed cutting off the Princess Mary from the succession, and
requiring of all subjects of the realm an oath of allegiance to
Elizabeth, and a recognition of the king's marriage with Queen Anne. Sir
Thomas More and Bishop Fisher went to the Tower, as we saw, rather than
swear; and about the same time the royal commissioners appeared at the
Charterhouse to require the submission of the brethren. The regular
clergy through the kingdom had bent to the storm. The conscience of the
London Carthusians was less elastic; they were the first and, with the
exception of More and Fisher, the only recusants. "The prior did answer
to the commissioners," Maurice tells us, "that he knew nothing of such
matters, and could not meddle with them; and they continuing