Witham. There Henry II. founded and endowed a monastery. The London
branch of the establishment at Witham was founded by Sir Walter de
Manni, seigneur de Manni in Cambrai, France, who was made a knight
of the Garter by Edward III., in reward for gallant services. Manni
founded the house in pious commemoration of a decimating pestilence,
on which occasion not fewer than fifty thousand persons are said
to have been buried within the thirteen acres which he bought
and enclosed, and a gentle eminence known as the "hill" in the
play-ground, separating what was called "Upper Green" from "Under
Green," is said to owe its shape to the thousands of bodies buried
there. Manni died in 1371: his funeral was conducted with the utmost
pomp, and attended by the king and the princes of the blood.

A hundred and fifty years rolled on without aught very momentous to
interrupt the daily routine of the monks of Charter-House, who, had
there not been a woman in the case, might possibly be the occupants of
the ground to this day. When, however, Henry's fancy for Anne Boleyn
led him to look with favor on the Reformation, the Charter-House, in
common with other such establishments, came in for an ample share of
Thomas Cromwell's scrutinizing inquiries. And a sad fate its occupants
had. Required to take the oath of allegiance to Henry VIII., they
refused. Froude, who gives them an extended notice, says: "In general,
the house was perhaps the best ordered in England. The hospitality
was well sustained, the charities were profuse. Among many good, the
prior, John Haughton, was the best. He was of an old English family,
and had been educated at Cambridge. He had been twenty years a
Carthusian at the opening of the troubles of the Reformation. He is
described as small of stature, in figure graceful, in countenance
dignified: in manner he was most modest, in eloquence most sweet, in
chastity without stain."