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Priors of Ellerton

John Golding

In 1536, during the first large-scale revolt in the North against the break with Rome and the Dissolution of the Monasteries, styled ‘The Pilgrimage of Grace’, the Prior of Watton was Robert Holgate. Holgate was previously a protégé of Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, becoming his chaplain, and had become Master of the Gilbertine Order in 1536.

The Pilgrimage of Grace caused division at Watton; most of the monks there were accused of taking part, but the prior, Robert Holgate, was for Cromwell, and the King. Surrounded by enemies on all sides, Holgate fled to Cromwell

After the rebels took Hull, they installed John Hallam as governor. Hallam came with a number of his heavily armed soldiers to Watton, where the monks were sitting for dinner; and in the presence of the Priors of Ellerton and of St. Andrew's, York, ordered the brethren to elect a new Prior. They replied that it was against their statutes, their Prior being alive and not lawfully removed. He then said, that if they did not he would spoil their house, and he would nominate one himself. Faced by this threat, the canons nominated James Lowrance, the Prior of Ellerton, but he would not assume the title and they themselves wanted him to bear the name only for fear of spoilation.

Shortly before the second insurrection (Bigod’s Rebellion, January 1537), Sir Francis Bigod went with Hallam to Watton and ‘kindled him’ to move the brethren to a new election of a prior in Holgate's place, 'saying they might lawfully do so'. Bigot even drew up a nomination of the Prior of Ellerton, and the canons apparently accepted this, thinking it would safeguard their property and be shown to the commons for the saving of the house goods.

Following the crushing of the second insurrection and the execution of its leaders, Robert Holgate was elevated first to Bishop of Llandaff, then to Archbishop of York, in 1545. He never forgot his loyal friend, John Golding, who first occurs as Prior of Ellerton about a month before the Dissolution (Conventual Leases, Yorks. (TN), no. 187). The fate of the previous Prior, James Lowrance, remains a mystery.

John Golding was a canon of Watton before he became prior of Ellerton. While there he was ordained sub deacon 17 December 1519, deacon 15 March 1522 and priest 20 December 1522.

Following Golding’s surrender of Ellerton priory he obtained a dispensation to hold a benefice with change of habit, 25 March 1539 (Fac. Office Reg. p. 181). Shortly afterwards he was instituted to the vicarage of Wigton. He obtained, out of the Archbishop Holgate’s gift, the prebendaries of Sepulchre Chapel in 1547, and Givendale in 1551. He was also collated to the rectorships of North Tidworth in 1544, Burghwallis in 1545, and Birkin in 1551, and the Mastership of St Mary Magdalene Hospital in York.

During the Survey of Chantries in 1548, Golding was described as “52 years of age, indifferently well learned, of honest conversacion and qualities, having for his porcion one prebende in the sayde chapel to the yerely value of £9 11s. 3d., and in other livings to the yerely value of £68 11s. 3d., in all, £79 15s. 10d.”

When Archbishop Holgate wrote his will in April 1555, John Golding was a witness and named as one of the executors. Holgate died in Nov 1555, and his will was proved on the 27th April 1556, however, Golding himself died just one month later, in May 1556.

No will has been found for Golding, but it is certain that he left one as Anthony Swynbank, Ralph Duffeld and John Dawson are all named as executors of his will in a chancery case brought against Anthony Swynbank.

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