But Carthusians! Was it not this
Order which Henry II. had brought into England as part of his penance
for the murder of St Thomas? Was it not this Order which had first been
established in my own Somerset, and alone of all Orders in England by a
Saint, and which there at Witham and at Hinton, still so fair and
lovely, built its first two houses in England, of which all told there
were but twelve? Was it not this Order that had faced and outfaced
Henry Tudor to the last so that the monks of the London Charterhouse
were burnt at the stake at Tyburn?
Well is this monastery dedicated in honour of St Hugh. And if you do
not know why let me write it here. It is well known that after the
murder of St Thomas and Henry II.'s public repentance for his part in
all that evil, Pope Alexander III. gave him for penance a crusade of
three years in the Holy Land, but when that was found not to be
convenient he commuted it for the building of three monasteries of
which one was to be Carthusian, for the Carthusians at that time had no
house in England. This Order had been founded at Grenoble in 1086 by St
Bruno, who had been sent by St.
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