Aspects of Kentish Local History

THIS draft sermon, briefly indicated by Professor Gairdner in Letters and Papers of Henry the 8th for 1534 (No. 523, 8, ii) is among the papers which were confiscated from Henry Gold, an adherent of the Holy Maid of Kent, at the time of his arrest. As is well known, he was executed with her in 1534. It has not been printed before, and for four reasons at least has a certain interest. In the first place, Gold himself enjoys the uncomfortable eminence of those who came to a violent death, which is unaffected by whatever sympathy (or otherwise) one has for his case. Secondly, in the year 1522 during a distinguished career at Cambridge he was chosen as one of the university preachers: we thus have here a fairly good specimen of pulpit eloquence of that period. Thirdly, it contains very valuable criticism of the state of the monasteries in his time, free from the unscrupulous and covetous exaggerations of the Cromwellian visitators, yet strong and courageous. Lastly, apart from Gold's own connections with Kent, the sermon was probably delivered before Archbishop Warham, whose secretary he was, at the visitation of a Kentish monastery. In another sermon of a similar kind he refers to the visitor before whom he is preaching as a "venerable prelate" and as having reached "impotent old age" (Ibid., No. 523, 8 iii). It is extremely probable that

this was Warham.
   One of the most remarkable things about Elizabeth Barton was the friendship and esteem in which she was held by educated men. Gold was no exception to this rule. Born probably at St. Neots in Huntingdonshire, he was a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge from its inception. The distinctions he gained at the university may be traced in the Cambridge Grace Books. On June 11th, 1525, he was presented to the vicarage of Ospringe in Kent (being the first vicar nominated by St. John's) and was instituted by Archbishop Warham on June 17th of the same year. He resigned on September 17th, 1527, and was succeeded by Dr. Longforth, the President of the college, having in the meantime become one of Archbishop Warham's chaplains. According to Fuller in his History of Cambridge University the living of Ospringe was worth £10 a year. This is the valuation in the King's Books.
   On December 10th, 1526, the Archbishop made him Rector of the important parish of St. Mary Aldermary, London, and later Vicar of Hayes in Middlesex (December 23rd, 1529), both of which were "peculiars" of Canterbury, i.e. in the gift of the archbishops though outside their territory. Both these benefices he held until his death. Three