succeeded by D. Wilfrid Cooper, the great builder of St. Lawrence's, and to whose energy and taste its many beauties are due. D. Maurus Anderson (1863-66) followed, and in the priorship of D. Bede Prest (1866-74) a landslip nearly destroyed the college, and the structure had to be repaired. He added to the estate by the purchase of the adjoining farm-Sotheran's Farm-which had been for many years looked at with longing eyes. He was followed by D. Stephen Kearney, who in turn gave place to D. Placid Whittle. He, with the next prior, D. Basil Hurworth, did much to increase the community, and put the college upon its present satisfactory footing.

Of the work of the present prior, Dom Anselm Burge, who has held office for the last ten years, the time has fortunately not yet come when we may speak of the result of his priorship. To-day his mark is deeply set upon all belonging to St. Lawrence's. But, mindful of Holy Writ, which says, "Before his death praise no man," we will content ourselves with noting that under the present prior St. Lawrence's has advanced by leaps and bounds, so that it is in a more prosperous state than it has ever been. On him, too, has fallen the work of organising the missions, which passed under his care when the provincials ceased to hold office. The prior of St. Lawrence's now wields a jurisdiction such as is possessed by but a few abbats, and rules over some thirty missions in nine dioceses, and

a house at Oxford, just opened for the higher studies of his community.

This, then, is the story in brief of St. Lawrence's and of its growth in our midst. As we think of the monastery up among the Yorkshire hills, in as fair a spot as man's heart could wish for, and we think of St. Benedict's sons carrying on their work manfully, in spite of difficulties which would have broken down men less devoted and earnest than they were, we see the visible signs to-day of their steadfastness. And now that the bull Religiosus Ordo has set each house free, St. Lawrence's will fulfil more adequately its right to carry out its own ideal without let or hindrance, and show a sturdy example of benedictinism as truly such as can be found anywhere. The name of their old home suggests the wish of all who, like the present writer, know and love Ampleforth. Dieu-le-ward. May God ward it!

CHAPTER XVIII

ST. EDMUND'S MONASTERY

FROM Dieuleward and Chelles was evolved the monastic family of St. Edmund's. The Spanish monks at Chelles gave so much edification to the abbess of that royal monastery, "that she resolved to procure for them a settlement in Paris, where, having finished their studies, they might better be sent into the English mission, or live at Chelles in the ministering of her community."

It was, however, as subsequent events proved, that she was so pleased with the Spanish fathers she knew that she resolved to help their brethren; partly for their benefit and partly for her own.

In 1615 the abbess secured for the monks l'Hôtel de St. André in the Faubourg St. Jacques; but before this house was ready for them, six monks, one of whom was the future martyr, D. Alban Roe, had come to Paris, where a temporary shelter was found for them at Montacute College. Besides paying the rent of the new house, the munificent abbess gave them a sum equal at least to £300 a year of modern money, besides frequently sending from her abbey 2 Gallia Christiana, vii. 1071.

1 Weldon, p. 90.

provisions of bread, wine, and meat. The object of the house at Paris was clearly that the monks might profit by the advantages which the great University of Paris had to offer in the way of higher studies. The house does not seem to have been at first intended to be an altogether independent foundation. It was under the jurisdiction of D. Francis Waldegrave, whom the Spanish general had, in 1614, appointed superior of the house at Chelles. But sometime in 1615 D. Bradshaw became its first prior; and in the following year, when he was summoned to reform the cluniac monastery of Longueville in Normandy,' D. Bernard Berington, likewise of the Spanish congregation, succeeded. In 1617 the house in Paris was the place of meeting for the nine definitors charged with the business of the Union. And as D. Waldegrave misliked that affair, the monks of St. Edmund's came in for a share of his opposition. The abbess, who sided with D. Waldegrave, began to give trouble; and it was found difficult to depend upon the vagaries of "a royal abbess." All connection was soon broken with Chelles, and the monks took a house in the Faubourg St. Germain. Weldon thus narrates the event: "D. Gabriel Gifford now become bishop, thinking it derogatory to the prosperity of the Union to have those who had engaged in it at Paris to depend any longer on Father Waldegrave and his

1 He died there, May 4, 1618, having filled the post of sub-prior in that house.

at Chelles, he at his own expense placed them in another house, and the abbess she withdrew her pension and spent it on those she had at Chelles. This was the beginning of the convent at Paris which is now entitled to St. Edmund, king of the East Angles and martyr."1

This was in October 1618. In this house they lived for six years and a half, and when the land was bought over their heads, they moved in 1625 "near the carthusians in Hell Street," and in the March of 1632 they went back into the Faubourg St. Jacques and took possession of an old convent of Feuillantine nuns. But they had to look out for some permanent home of their own. They finally settled down in the Rue St. Jacques in 1642, close by the great convent of carmelite nuns with whom the community always entertained the most friendly relations. And also near the site of the famous benedictine nunnery of Val de Grace founded by Anne of Austria.

D. Waldegrave and his friends at last being dismissed from Chelles in 1627 by the abbess, they went to the college of Marmontier in Paris belonging to the congregation of Clugni, which they joined.

"The old monks got weary of them at the college, and therefore began to seek to get handsomely quit of them, but could find no better expedient than to put them at an old venerable monastery of above 1 P. 136.