He was, in fact, a scion of an ancient and powerful house; but it was one of those houses that had suffered sorely in the recent strife, and whose members had been scattered and cut off.

He had no powerful relatives and friends to turn to now for promotion to rich benefice or high ecclesiastical preferment, and he had certainly never lamented this fact.

In heart and soul he was a follower of the rules of poverty laid down by the founder of his order, and would have thought himself untrue to his calling had he suffered himself to be endowed with worldly wealth.
Even such moneys as he received from Sir Oliver for the instruction given to his sons were never kept by himself.

All were given either to the poor by his hands direct, or placed at the disposal of the Prior of Chadwater, where he had been an inmate for a short time previous to his installation as chaplain at Chad.

He had not sought this office; he would rather have remained beneath the priory walls.