CHAPTER VII.
THE ABBOT'S OFFER The Nunnery at Blossholme was a peaceful place, a long, grey-gabled house set under the shelter of a hill and surrounded by a high wall.
Within this wall lay also the great garden--neglected enough--and the chapel, a building that still was beautiful in its decay.
Once, indeed, Blossholme Priory, which was older than the Abbey, had been rich and famous.

Its foundress in the time of the first Edward, a certain Lady Matilda, one of the Plantagenets, who retired from the world after her husband had been killed in the Crusade, being childless, endowed it with all her lands.

Other noble ladies who accompanied her there, or sought its refuge in after days, had done likewise, so that it grew in power and in wealth, till at its most prosperous time over twenty nuns told their beads within its walls.

Then the proud Abbey rose upon the opposing hill, and obtained some royal charter that the Pope confirmed, under which the Priory of Blossholme was affiliated to the Abbey of Blossholme, and the Abbot of Blossholme became the spiritual lord of its religious.

From that day forward its fortunes began to decline, since under this pretext and that the abbots filched away its lands to swell their own estates.
So it came about that at the date of our history the total revenue of this Nunnery was but L130 a year of the money of the day, and even of this sum the Abbot took tithe and toll.