A CENTURY IN THE KING'S MANOR AT YORK. BY A. BUCKLE, B.A. (Read during the Congress at York.) THE hundred years, which I have undertaken to speak of, in connection with the Manor House, or "King's Manour", as originally named, were eventful years for the house in regard to its structure; and eventful ones, indeed, in the history of our land, when we remember they comprised part of the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, James I, and the unfortunate Charles I. This palace of the Tudor and Stuart monarchs was originally the palace of the mitred Abbot of St. Mary's. Abbot Sever or Sevyer, who died in 1502, is the last one who is supposed to have taken part in the structure of the palace; very little of his work remains. When, in 1538, the Abbey of St. Mary was suppressed, the Abbot's house was not dealt with, as was usual in such cases, viz., handed over, with the demesne, to some royal favourite, but was retained by the Crown, and remained in the possession of the Crown for a period of three hundred and fifty years, until purchased in 1888 by its present owners, the Trustees of the School for the Blind at York. It was about this time (1538) that the Council of the North was formed by a Royal Commission, and as the King's Manor, during the period I have undertaken to speak of, was the official residence of the Lord President and Council of the North, a word or two as to the constitution of this vice-regal Council and its powers may not be out of place. Drake tells us "That upon the suppression of the lesser monasteries in the 27th Henry VIII, there arose many insurrections in the northern parts, especially one under Lord Hussey, in Lincolnshire, and that under Sir Robert Aske of Aughton, in York shire. The King, intending also the suppression of the greater monasteries, which he effected in the thirty-first year of his reign, for the preventing of future dangers, A CENTURY IN THE KING'S MANOR AT YORK. BY A. BUCKLE, B.A. (Read during the Congress at York.) THE hundred years, which I have undertaken to speak of, in connection with the Manor House, or "King's Manour", as originally named, were eventful years for the house in regard to its structure; and eventful ones, indeed, in the history of our land, when we remember they comprised part of the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, James I, and the unfortunate Charles I. This palace of the Tudor and Stuart monarchs was originally the palace of the mitred Abbot of St. Mary's. Abbot Sever or Sevyer, who died in 1502, is the last one who is supposed to have taken part in the structure of the palace; very little of his work remains. When, in 1538, the Abbey of St. Mary was suppressed, the Abbot's house was not dealt with, as was usual in such cases, viz., handed over, with the demesne, to some royal favourite, but was retained by the Crown, and remained in the possession of the Crown for a period of three hundred and fifty years, until purchased in 1888 by its present owners, the Trustees of the School for the Blind at York. It was about this time (1538) that the Council of the North was formed by a Royal Commission, and as the King's Manor, during the period I have undertaken to speak of, was the official residence of the Lord President and Council of the North, a word or two as to the constitution of this vice-regal Council and its powers may not be out of place. Drake tells us "That upon the suppression of the lesser monasteries in the 27th Henry VIII, there arose many insurrections in the northern parts, especially one under Lord Hussey, in Lincolnshire, and that under Sir Robert Aske of Aughton, in York shire. The King, intending also the suppression of the greater monasteries, which he effected in the thirty-first year of his reign, for the preventing of future dangers, and keeping those northern counties in quiet, he raised a President and Council at York, and gave them two several powers and authorities under one great seal of oyer and terminer, within the counties of York, Durham, Northumberland, and Westmoreland. The officers of this court were-Lord-President, Vice-President, four or more learned counsel, Secretary, King's Attorney, two examiners, fourteen attorneys, one registrar, one clerk of attachments, two clerks of seal, one clerk of tickets, one sergeant-at-arms, one pursuivant, ten collectors of fines, and two tipstaves." During the century of the existence of the Council there were twelve Lord-Presidents, viz., Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, Archbishop Holgate, Francis, Lord Salisbury, Henry, Earl of Rutland, Henry, Earl of Huntingdon, Cecil, Lord Burghley, Emanuel, Lord Scrope, Thomas, Lord Wentworth, Thomas, Viscount Saville. And amongst the other members of the Council we find such Yorkshire names as Sir M. Constable, Thomas Fairfax, Robert Challoner, Sir R. Bowes, Sir W. Vavasour, F. Frobysher, William Tancred, F. Wortley, Sir R. Maleverer, Sir Thomas Reresby, Frans. Boynton, R. Hutton, Sir W. Ellyss, Sir A. Ingram, Sir Jno. Lowther, Ed. Manwaring. Bishop Tunstall had a Council of eight members; Lord Sheffield had one of twenty-eight. Of the twelve Presidents, only four are of importance to us as having to do with the structure of the palace. What the Abbot's palace consisted of, when it was handed over by the King for the official headquarters of the Lord-President and Council of the North, it is difficult to say. There are three or four walls, or pieces of walls, which are said by competent authorities to belong probably to this date; and the handrail of the stone |