Volume II 1603-1660 - The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple

xii INTRODUCTION.
and he was in other respects dealt with as a conspirator. No further
steps were taken against the other Treshams or the Vavasours, and
no further references to them or their affairs appear in our books.
An order was made, in commemoration of the escape of the king and
the parliament, that henceforth no case should be argued as heretofore
p. 26 on Sunday night, or on the sth of November, " being the day of the
King's Majestie's deliverance that now is," and for many generations
a bonfire was lighted at the inn gate on each succeeding anniversary
of gunpowder day. The expulsion of non-conforming papists was
PP. 49, 82 also enforced from time to time.
Shortly after the commencement of the new reign the two
Temples found themselves in a somewhat anomalous position.
They originally held under a grant from the knights hospitallers.
Of this there remained no existing record, but their title had
been established by prescription, and so long as the religious
order subsisted the claim of the inns was recognized as valid.
vol.i., p, 67 In the 13 Henry VIII. an agreement was made by the benchers
of the Inner Temple, and probably also by those of the Middle, that
the hospitallers' rent of zo marks, or £13 6s. U. should for the
future be reduced to £Io, the inn, in consideration of such reduction,
paying for its own repairs. No record, however, of such agreement
or lease appears among the papers of the society beyond the entry in
the minutes of parliament of that date. After the dissolution of the
monasteries, and the subsequent abolition of the order of S. John of
Jerusalem with the confiscation of its property, including its rents and
profits, to the use of the crown, the two societies of the Temple
continued in undisturbed possession of the New Temple, each paying
the reduced sum of £m yearly to the crown in the place of such
payment to the prior of S. John. That there was some agreement
or understanding with the king that the two societies should continue
their occupation of the New Temple as heretofore I cannot doubt, as
the treasurer and the benchers of the two inns not only paid the same
rent, but expended large sums on building and reparations, the
whole of which expenditure, except for some such understanding,
might at any moment have been claimed by the crown. I am not
aware, however, of any record bearing upon this matter in the
possession of either inn. No lease, grant, or other document
appears to have been executed, and the title of the inns to their land