nificent tombs. But in these researches there were no
appearances which justified even a conjecture that we had discovered
them."[14]

John Paslew, the last Abbot of Whalley, appears, by a reference to his
arms, to have been of the Paslews of Wiswall. The first twenty years
after his election were passed, like those of his predecessors, in the
duties of his choir, in the exercise of hospitality, in attention to the
extensive possessions of his house, or in the improvement of his
buildings; but a storm was approaching, before which either his
conscience or his bigotry prevented him from bending, and which
precipitated his ruin and that of the abbey. The religious houses in
general were now greatly relaxed in discipline, and many of them
dreadfully corrupted in morals. What was the state of Whalley must now
be left to conjecture, though charity should incline us to think no evil
to those against whom no specific evidence appears. The Pilgrimage of
Grace was now commenced, and Paslew seems to have been pushed into the
foremost ranks of the rebellion; when this expedition ended in the
discomfiture and disgrace of its promoters, every art of submission and
corruption was vainly employed to ward off the blow. Paslew was
arraigned for high treason, tried, and condemned, and is supposed to
have been interred in the north aisle of the parish church, under a
stone yet remaining; the ignominious part of his sentence being
remitted, out of respect to his order.

"The attainder of an abbot was understood, however rightly, by the crown
lawyers of that time, to infer a forfeiture of the house; and
accordingly, without the form of a surrender, the abbey of Whalley,
with all its appurtenances, was instantly seized into the king's hands;
and thus fell this ancient foundation.

"Fr. Thomas Holden, younger son of Gilbert Holden, of Holden, gent.,
was, in all probability, the last surviving monk. On the Dissolution he
appears to have returned to his native place. In 1550 we meet with his
name as Sir Thomas Holden, curate of Haslingden; and in 1574 he was
licensed to the same cure at the metropolitical visitation of Archbishop
Grindall, held at Preston, by the style of Thomas Holden, clerk, of
sober life and competent learning. Strange as it may seem, we find the
last surviving monk of Whalley a Protestant minister, thirty-seven years
after its dissolution!"

It was in the dark month of November, when the brown leaves are
fluttering on