Richard Whiting (abbot)
Blessed Richard Whiting O.S.B. | |
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Abbot of Glastonbury, Martyr | |
Born | c. 1461 Roman Catholic Church |
Beatified | 13 May 1895 by Pope Leo XIII |
Feast | 15 November |
Attributes | Noose in neck, holding a miniature St. Michael's Church tower from Glastonbury Tor, martyr's palm, pastoral staff |
Patronage | Glastonbury |
Richard Whiting (1461 – 15 November 1539) was an English Catholic priest and the last Abbot of Glastonbury.
Whiting presided over
Early life
Richard Whiting was born near Wrington. He was educated at Glastonbury Abbey, and then at the Monk's Hostel at Cambridge,[1] graduating with an MA in 1483.[2]
Career
Whiting was ordained deacon in 1500 and priest in 1501.[2] He returned to Cambridge in 1505 to take his doctor's degree. He served as camerarius at Glastonbury in charge of managing the dormitory, lavatory, and wardrobe of the community.[1]
After the death of the Abbot of Glastonbury,
The abbey over which Whiting presided was one of the richest and most influential in England. About one hundred monks lived in the enclosed monastery, where the sons of the nobility and gentry were educated before going on to university.[4] As Abbot of Glastonbury, Whiting was a peer of the realm and administrator of vast estates.
Whiting signed his assent to the
Death
By January 1539, Glastonbury was the only monastery left in Somerset. Abbot Whiting refused to surrender the abbey, which did not fall under the Act for the suppression of the lesser houses.[4] On 19 September of that year the royal commissioners, Layton, Richard Pollard and Thomas Moyle, arrived there without warning on the orders of Thomas Cromwell, presumably to find faults and thus facilitate the abbey's closure. The commissioners had expected to find considerable treasure at Glastonbury and finding comparatively little, they proceeded to a more thorough search, finding money and plate walled up in secure vaults. There also was heard rumour of other items relocated to other estates and manors belonging to the Abbey.[1]
Whiting, by now feeble and advanced in years, was sent to the Tower of London to be examined by Cromwell himself. The precise charge on which he was arrested, and subsequently executed, remains uncertain, though his case is usually referred to as one of treason. Cromwell clearly acted as judge and jury: in his manuscript Remembrances are the entries:
Item, Certayn persons to be sent to the Tower for the further examenacyon of the Abbot, of Glaston... Item. The Abbot, of Glaston to (be) tryed at Glaston and also executyd there with his complycys... Item. Councillors to give evidence against the Abbot of Glaston, Rich. Pollard, Lewis Forstew (Forstell), Thos. Moyle.
Marillac, the French Ambassador, on 25 October wrote: "The Abbot of Glastonbury. . . has lately, been put in the Tower, because, in taking the Abbey treasures, valued at 200,000 crowns, they found a written book of arguments in behalf of queen Katherine."[2]
As a member of the House of Lords, Whiting should have been
Blesseds John Thorne and Roger James O.S.B. | |
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Benedictine Monks, Martyrs | |
Died | 15 November 1539 Glastonbury Tor, Glastonbury, England |
Beatified | 13 May 1895 by Pope Leo XIII |
Feast | 15 November |
Attributes | Thorne: knife, holding a noose, arrow, book, martyr's palm James: noose in neck |
Patronage | Glastonbury |
Legacy
Whiting was
Whiting was the subject of a novel, The Last Abbot of Glastonbury (1883), by Augustine David Crake.
When Frederick Bligh Bond (1864–1945) excavated Glastonbury Abbey, he removed bones he believed belonged to Richard Whiting.[dubious ]
In 2023, a pastoral area of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton was named in honour of Whiting.[6]
See also
- Hugh Faringdon, last Abbot of Reading Abbey
- Thomas Marshall, last Abbot of St John's Abbey, Colchester
- Carthusian Martyrs
Notes
- ^ a b c Camm OSB, Bede. Chapter IX "The Blessed Richard Whiting, Abbot of Glastonbury", Lives of the English Martyrs, Longmans, Green and Co., 1914 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ a b c d e Huddleston, Gilbert. "Blessed Richard Whiting." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 13. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 23 Mar. 2013
- ^ ISBN 9780752493299.
- ^ a b c Richard Stanton, A Menology of England and Wales (Burns & Oates Ltd., London, 1892), p. 538
- ^ "Saint of the week". Diocese of Shrewsbury. Retrieved 23 May 2017.
- ^ "Parishes". Clifton Diocese. Retrieved 10 February 2024.
References
- The Last Abbot of Glastonbury and Other Essays, Francis Aidan Gasquet, 1908, Internet Archive (retrieved May 2023)
- King Arthur's Avalon: The Story of Glastonbury, Geoffrey Ashe, 1957.
- Remember Richard Whiting (The Glastonbury Documents: 1) by J. F. Cousins, Glastonbury, 2007
- 'Re-Membering Richard Whiting' by Zoé d'Ay, Avalon Magazine, No. 37, Winter 2007