page_title: Lapley Priory
section_title: Confiscation and decline
hierarchical_section_title: Lapley Priory / Confiscation and decline
context_page_description: Lapley Priory was a priory in Staffordshire, England. Founded at the very end of the Anglo-Saxon period, it was an alien priory, a satellite house of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Remi or Saint-Rémy at Reims in Northern France. After great fluctuations in fortune, resulting from changing relations between the rulers of England and France, it was finally dissolved in 1415 and its assets transferred to the collegiate church at Tong, Shropshire.
context_section_description: As an alien priory, Lapley was vulnerable to royal intervention in time of war, particularly when the war was against the King of France. In 1204, after the loss of Normandy to Philip Augustus of France, King John seized the alien priories - or at least declared them seized in the hope of recouping some of the costs of his campaign. Prior Inganus was forced to accept that he must pay the price of three palfreys to regain legal control over Lapley Priory. In 1205–6 it was recorded that he had paid ten marks as the price of two of them. and the following year he made a final payment of 5 marks. Thereafter, the prior was required to pay for a licence to go overseas. In 1324 it was seized again on the outbreak of war with France. This time the priory was restored only on the understanding that it would pay the Crown 55 marks per annum. In 1327, Edward III came to the throne, vowing to wipe the slate clean by restoring all the alien houses and abolishing the annual payments.
  Edward's resolution was not to last. The Hundred Years War, beginning in 1337, was to result in repeated seizures and, ultimately, the dissolution of nearly all the alien houses, including Lapley. The Crown seized Lapley immediately, like the other alien houses, but in this case it was able to play a game of divide and rule with the competing leadership contenders, who were still awaiting a resolution to their dispute. On 27 September 1337 the priory was rented back to Gobert and Robert de Shareshull, who were recognised as proctors of the abbey of St. Rémy, for a farm of 55 marks. On 1 May 1338 it was given to Baldwin at greatly reduced farm, on the claim that the previous regime had run the property down, and under guarantees of good conduct from Roger Northburgh, the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. On 16 July the rent was further reduced to just 10 marks as it was found that the situation was so bad that the priory could no longer support Baldwin or function liturgically. On 8 March 1341 Baldwin agreed to a rent increase to 20 marks, promising, as before, not to remit any of the revenue of the priory abroad. Only a few weeks later, on 12 April, the king announced that others had bid 30 marks for the farm of the priory: he declared himself unwilling to remove the priory from Baldwin's hands, so long as he was prepared to pay the going rate. It seems that the king was being disingenuous. Baldwin felt unable to meet the new demand and gave up the farm of the priory, asking for some other arrangement to be made to support him. On 16 June the king transferred the farm to his relative, Henry of Grosmont, Earl of Derby, one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom. The rent was still 20 marks, but with on condition that Henry maintain the monks and pay their usual stipends. By 1342, Robert of Shareshull was again in control, and in December of that year the king had to set up an inquisition into irrecoverable wastes committed in the priory.
   
  Baldwin now seems to have found favour elsewhere in the royal family, and this led to a significant shift in his fortunes, bringing short term improvements in the position of Lapley Priory. On 17 June 1346, the priory was again committed to him, on the request of Isabella of France, the king's influential mother, once again at 20 marks. However, this time he was ordered to pay the money directly to Henry of Grosmont, now Earl of Lancaster, probably in settlement of a royal debt. The king decided to summon Baldwin to France on some special mission and on 1 January 1347 ordered the sheriff to postpone collection of his rent for three months. Mysteriously, three days later, he sent confidential instructions to the bailiffs of Sandwich to expedite Baldwin's transit. Presumably, however, Baldwin was back in England by the summer, when he was summoned with other heads of alien priories to appear before the king's council at Westminster. On 1 June he was excused payment of £18 of the rent he owed.
  By 1354, the Black Death had ravaged the region, with great human cost and consequent falls in the value of land. By 28 February of th
caption: Henry V.
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