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CHAPTER I.

SIGNS IN THE HEAVENS-SIGNS

IN THE COURT-THE COMMIS

SIONERS' VISIT-IMPRISONMENT-A GREAT CONCESSION.

CHAUNCY tells us that in 1533, the last year of tranquillity for the London Charterhouse, a comet of extraordinary brilliancy was seen in the sky; and it seemed to cast its rays right upon the monastery. On one occasion, as the religious were returning from the night Office, the bright beams from this strange comet were noticed to descend upon a lofty tree in the cemetery; and the light, glancing off from the tree, fell full upon the Church and bell

tower.

Later in the same year, the Prior, who, being pressed with business, had left the Church after the second nocturn,' entered the cemetery to offer up a short prayer for his departed brethren. To his

1 There are two nocturns of six psalms each in Ferial Matins, according to the Carthusian rite. The three lessons are read after the first nocturn. Procurators always, for the reason given on p. 98, priors, and other officers, when very busy, are allowed to leave the choir after the nocturns; and by reciting in privato the remainder of the Office they save about half an hour.

great surprise he beheld, suspended in mid-air, above the Charterhouse, a huge blood-red globe. Fear overcame him, and he fell to the ground. Another monk, on returning from the Office, happened to go into his cell garden; and from thence he, too, beheld this ball of fire. This must have been about an hour later than when the Prior saw it, and it seems to prove that something was really there.

Whatever these things were, and whatever they meant, the monks looked upon them as harbingers of some great calamity that would shortly befall their house and its inmates, and they united in prayer that the evil might be turned into good.

Leaving for a moment the Charterhouse, we must glance very briefly at what had happened in and about King Henry's court since Sebastian Newdigate had found that it was no longer the place for a conscientious man. This was about 1525, and ever since the state of affairs had been growing worse and worse.

Cardinal Wolsey, who, whatever his personal faults may have been, always exercised a good influence upon the king, had been disgraced; and, after uttering the well-known complaint, "Had I served God as diligently as I have served the king, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs," he had departed this life.

Wolsey was succeeded in the office of Chancellor