iours, upon land
she had obtained from William of Ypres, Stephen's favourite captain,
in exchange for her manor of Littlechurch in this county. At the end
of April 1152 she fell sick at Hedingham Castle in Essex, and dying
there three days later, was buried in the abbey church at Faversham.
In August of the following year her eldest son, Eustace, was laid
beside her, and in 1154 Stephen, the King, was also buried here. The
abbey was, as I have said, dedicated to Our Saviour, and this because
it possessed a famous relic of the True Cross which had been the gift
of Eustace of Boulogne; the abbey was thus founded "In worship of the
Croys," and one might have expected some such dedication as "Holy
Cross." As founder, the King, for he and his Queen had been equally
concerned in the foundation, claimed after the death of the abbot
certain toll such as the abbot's ring, drinking cup, horse and hound.
The abbot was a very great noble, held his house "in chief" and sat in
Parliament. At the Suppression Henry VIII. granted the place to Sir
Thomas Cheynay. Now mark the almost inevitable end. The Cheynays were
living on Church property obtained by theft; at the least they were
receivers of stolen goods. Do you think they could endure? They
presently sold to a certain Thomas Arden, sometime Mayor of
Faversham. Upon Sunday, 15 February 1551, this man was foully murdered
in the abbey house he called his own, by a certain Thomas Mosby, a
London tailor, the lover of Alice Arden, Thomas Arden's wife. This
tragic affair so touched the imagination of the time that not only
did Holinshed relate it in detail, but some unknown writer who, by not
a few, has been taken for Shakespeare himself, used the story as the
plot for a play. Arden of Faversham, according to the dramatist, was a
noble character, modest, forgiving, and affectionate. His wife Alecia
in her sleep by chance reveals to him her adulterous love for Mosby;
but Arden forgives her on her promising never again to see her
seducer. From that moment she plots with her lover to murder her
husband, and succeeds at last, after many failures, by killing him in
the abbey house by the hands of two hired assassins, while he is
playing a game of draughts with Mosby. All concerned in the affair
were brought to justice, but the abbey of Faversham was no longer
coveted as a place of abode.

Almost every stone has disappeared of the abbey church in which lay
Stephen, his Queen, and their son. It