.
1333 Ioane Jacke (or _Icthe_).
1349 Iohanna Gervas (or _Gerneys_).
1352 Isabella de Camoys.
1396 Lucy Everard.
1405 Felicia Aas.
1417 Matilda Lovell.
1462 Ioan Bryggys.
1472 Elizabeth Broke, _o._ 1502.
1502 Joyce Rowse, resigned 1515.
1515 Ann Westbroke, _o._ 1523.
1523 Elizabeth Ryprose, dispossessed 1539.

[5] Christina is mentioned as abbess in 1190, in the list suspended in the
church, but it is uncertain if she was an abbess.

About the majority of the abbesses little or nothing is known; some,
indeed, were women of exemplary piety, others were remarkable for their
administrative abilities, and did good work in their own way; but of many
all that can be said is that

In due time, one by one,
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,
Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.[6]

[6] "A Toccata of Galuppi's," R. Browning.

In this chapter will be narrated any incidents connected with the lives of
the abbesses and the nuns over whom they ruled that seem to the writer
likely to be of interest to the general reader. It is noteworthy that the
story of the nunnery is, for the most part, pre-eminently credible; with a
few exceptions we hear nothing about visions or miracles; here and there
we have touches of romance, which show that the life of discipline within
"narrowing nunnery walls" is not always able to quell human passion,
especially when pressure had been brought to bear by friends and relations
upon women scarcely more than children, to induce them to take the veil.
And as time went on grave scandals arose, which even the energetic action
of reforming bishops was not altogether successful in stopping, so that
although the greed of Henry VIII and his courtiers was, no doubt, the
prime factor leading to the suppression of the religious houses, yet the
unholy lives of the inmates gave them some valid reasons, or at rate
excuses, for their action in closing nunneries and monasteries.

A story is told of King Eadgar which, indirectly, has some bearing on the
Abbey of Romsey. About the year 960 he heard of the surpassing beauty of
one AElfthryth,[7] daughter of Ordgar of Devon, and possibly never having
heard of the mischief that befell Arthur when he sent Launcelot to ask at
her father's hands his fair daughter Guinevere, or to M