deeply cut upon it the stump of a tree reguled.  This I conjecture to have been a thorn, intended as a rebus upon the name of Christopher Thornber, the fifteenth abbot, who died in 1486.  In this search we narrowly missed the fragments of the grave-stone of Abbot Lindley, which were casually turned up on this very spot, A.D. 1813.  On one, in the Longobardic character of Edward the Third’s time, were the letters IOP, and on the other AJ PVIV.

“From these data, slender as they may seem, I arrive at my conclusion, thus:—­First, None but abbots were interred in the high choir; secondly, The characters cannot be later than the latter end of Edward the Third, when the old English black letter was substituted in its place.  From the foundation to this time three Johns had been Abbots of Whalley; Belfield, Topeliffe, and Lindley.  The termination of the surname must have immediately preceded the word hujus, but the letters AJ can only have formed the termination of Lindelai, the old orthography of the word.

“The remains of the Lacies, wherever deposited, after their removal from Stanlaw, had undoubtedly been preserved with religious reverence, and enclosed in magnificent tombs.  But in these researches there were no appearances which justified even a conjecture that we had discovered them."[14]

John Paslew, the last Abbot of Whalley, appears, by a reference to his arms, to have been of the Paslews of Wiswall.  The first twenty years after his election were passed, like those of his predecessors, in the duties of his choir, in the exercise of hospitality, in attention to the extensive possessions of his house, or in the improvement of his buildings; but a storm was approaching, before which either his conscience or his bigotry prevented him from bending, and which precipitated his ruin and that of the abbey.  The religious houses in general were now greatly relaxed in discipline, and many of them dreadfully corrupted in morals.  What was the state of Whalley must now be left to conjecture, though charity should incline us to think no evil to those against whom no specific evidence appears.  The Pilgrimage of Grace was now commenced, and Paslew seems to have been pushed into the foremost ranks of the rebellion; when this expedition ended in the discomfiture and disgrace of its promoters, every art of submission and corruption was vainly employed to ward off the blow.  Paslew was arraigned for high treason, tried, and condemned, and is supposed to have been interred in the north aisle of the parish church, under a stone yet remaining; the ignominious part of his sentence being remitted, out of respect to his order.

“The attainder of an abbot was understood, however rightly, by the crown lawyers of that time, to infer a forfeiture of the house; and accordingly, without the form of a surrender, the abbey of Whalley, with all its appurtenances, was instantly seized into the king’s hands; and thus fell this ancient foundation.