"Changes of habit"

     "In the summer of 1538 the order was put out for former regulars to remove habits or face the capital punishment of felons. Anecdotally, Cromwell met Alexander Barclay – formerly a monk, now a friar – at a bookstall by St Paul’s and told him that if he did not take off his habit he would be hanged, 'for example to all other'. Beyond London and the vicegerent’s gaze, it proved more difficult to prevent. Sir Piers Edgcumbe caught up with two Plymouth Franciscans still clothed as friars. 'Wolde [they] by them new hobyts or naye?', he challenged them. 'They bowthe sayed that they wolde not for a yere or tow and by that tyme perchance ther wylbe aouther change and then oure olde hobyts wyll serve agayne.' One Sir Robert Elys, resolutely uncooperative, was 'carried hym to the joyell [gaol]', declaring, 'he trustyd within tow yeris he mought weer his clothyng  agayne . . . [and] that he had red in a pronunsticacion that ther shulde be a kyng in yglond that shulde do gret wrong to his comynaltie to ther semyng and that within tow yeris after he shulde take gret repentance for the same.'"

      James G. Clark, The dissolution of the monasteries:  a new history (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 2021), chap. 9 ("Changes of habit").  Image:  Wikimedia Commons.