fter the accession of Edward VI. the chapter was again dissolved,
and its prebendal, and other estates granted to John, Earl of Warwick,
afterwards made Duke of Northumberland; by him they were sold to John
Beaumont, Master of the Rolls, and coming soon afterwards to the crown,
by escheat, were granted to the favourite Northumberland, who retained
them until his attainder in 1553, when they again reverted to the crown;
and by Queen Mary were restored to the Archbishop of York, in as ample
manner as they had before been holden. It appears from the _Registrum
Album_, a register of the church, that in the latter end of the
reign of William I. there were at least ten prebends. In the office of
augmentation, an estimate of Southwell College, in the first of Edward
VI. states King Edgar to have been the founder of the church, which
consisted of sixteen prebends, and sixteen vicars. There are now
sixteen prebends, of which the Archbishop of York is sole patron, a
vicar-general appointed out of the prebendaries by the chapter, six
vicars, and six choristers. Alfric, appointed to the See of York in
1023, gave two large bells to the church of Southwell (William of
Malmsbury.) This was about the time of bells coming generally into use.
King Stephen granted that the canons of Southwell should hold the woods
of their prebends, in their own hands, which succeeding monarchs, Henry
II. Richard, John, and Henry III. confirmed. There are two fellowships,
and two scholarships, founded in St. John's College, Cambridge, by Dr.
Keton, canon of Sarum, twenty-second Henry VI. to be presented by the
master, fellows, and scholars of that college, to persons having served
as choristers in the chapter of Southwell. In the civil wars nearly all
the records of Southwell Church were destroyed, the _Registrum
Album_ escaping, which contains grants of most of the revenues
belonging to the church, from soon after the conquest, nearly to the end
of Henry VIII. Southwell is supposed by antiquarians to be the "_Ad
Pontem_" of the Romans, one of the stations on the Roman Way from
London to Lincoln, situated at a distance from any route of importance
between the most frequented part of the kingdom. For many centuries it
was hardly known by name--and, till within thirty years there was no
turnpike road to it in any direction. Thus denied access to the rest
of the world, the people of Southwell lived a separate and distinct
society, retaining their own manners u