Henry VIII

Henry VIII ended centuries of Hospitaller wealth and power in England when he seized all their property.

In the middle ages devout Christians throughout Europe gave money and property to the Hospitallers so they could carry out God's work.  They had so much land, that to run it efficiently and fund their hospitals and military operations, the Order divided Europe into 25 regional priories.  The English Priory was set up on a gift of land at Clerkenwell, then just north of London, and visitors to St. John's Gate can still see the wonderfully evocative 12th century crypt of its first church.

The Order was a major power in medieval England and by the 14th century was one of the greatest ecclesiastical landowners in the country.  Priors advised the monarch and often held high government positions.  This was not always to their advantage -  Prior Robert Hales, Treasurer of England, lost his head during the Peasants' Revolt.

In 1511 the young King Henry VIII was named protector of the Order, a role he most definitely failed to uphold.  When he established the Church of England he dissolved all the Roman Catholic orders and took their estates for the crown.  Perhaps he felt some guilt:  the Hospitallers were the last order to be dissolved and the £1,000 pension granted to Prior Weston was a very large sum at the time. 

Although briefly restored by Queen Mary Tudor, the dissolution of 1540 was really the end of the medieval Priory in England.