By the 1520s the ancient borough of Reading — the home of royal servants and ranking ninth among England’s thirty most prosperous provincial towns — had already been for four centuries under the domination of one of the realm’s wealthiest and most powerful monastic communities, founded there by King Henry I in 1121. 1 Royal visitors, prelates, scholarly priests and pilgrims frequented the abbey and town, their presence adding buoyancy and lustre to the area’s social and economic life. Yet apparent local satisfaction with the status quo had long been marred by undercurrents of political and religious discontent. In 1539 the enforced religious changes begun by Henry VIII led not only to the dissolution of the great royal abbey but also to the humiliation and public execution in Reading of the abbot, Hugh Cook Faringdon, and with him two priests — one of them a former Reading vicar. They died as traitors, being found guilty of denying the Royal Supremacy over the English Church.
Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.