besought the aid of the abbots of
the Order on behalf of the new house. To such good purpose, indeed, did
he support Beaulieu, that Hugh, the first abbot, was alone his friend,
when Innocent III., in the spring of 1208 placed England under an
interdict. This Hugh went as the King's ambassador to Rome, and having
received promises of submission from the King, who awaited his return
in the mother house of the Order in England, at Waverley,
was successful in reconciling him with the Pope. In return
the King gave him a palfrey among other presents, and the
interdict being lifted, contributed nine hundred marks towards
the building of Beaulieu, to be followed by other even more generous
offerings. Nor was Henry III. neglectful of the place, so that in 1227
upon the vigil of the Assumption, the monks were able to use their
church, though it was not till nineteen years later that the monastery
was completed, and dedicated in the presence of the King and Queen,
Prince Edward and a vast concourse of bishops, nobles, and common
folk, by the Bishop of Winchester. Upon that occasion, Prince Edward
was seized with illness, and, strange as it may seem, we are told that
the Queen remained in the abbey, to nurse him, for three weeks. But the
house was always under the royal protection. Edward I. constantly
stayed there, and the abbots were continually employed upon diplomatic
business. From 1260 to 1341, when he asked to be freed from the duty,
the abbot of Beaulieu sat in Parliament, and in 1368 Edward III.
granted the monks a weekly market within the precincts. One other
privilege, unique in southern England, Beaulieu had, the right to
perpetual sanctuary granted by Innocent III., and this seems to have
been used to the full in the Wars of the Roses, at least we find
Richard III. inquiring into the matter in 1463. There it seems Perkin
Warbeck had found safety, as had Lady Warwick after Barnet, and at the
time of the Suppression there were thirty men in sanctuary in the
"Great Close of Beaulieu," which seems to have included all the
original grant of land made to the abbey by King John. Beaulieu
evidently very greatly increased in honour, for in 1509 its abbot was
made Bishop of Bangor but continued to hold the abbey, and when he died
the abbot of Waverley, the oldest house of the Order in England,
succeeded him, the post being greatly sought after. The Act of 1526
suppressing the lesser monasteries, in which so many Cistercian houses