Elizabeth Lord

  Notes:

From: 'Houses of Benedictine nuns: Priory of Wilberfoss', A History of the County of York: Volume 3 (1974), pp. 125-26. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=36232;
Little is known of the subsequent history of the nunnery. In 1526 its clear annual value was returned as only £12, the smallest of any monastery in the East Riding except Nunburnholme. (fn. 14) There were at the Dissolution eleven nuns (fn. 15) including Elizabeth Lord, the prioress, ' all of good conversation.' Against all the names, except that of the prioress and the three younger nuns whose names come last, is written the word ' religion,' indicating that they desired to keep their vows. The prioress received a yearly pension of £8, the others either 33s. 4d. or 26s. 8d., two however only receiving 20s. Elizabeth Lord after the Dissolution went to live at York, where her sister had married George Gale, goldsmith and Lord Mayor of the city in 1534 and 1549. Elizabeth Lord died in 1550-1. In her will (Test. Ebor. vi, 307) she directed that her body was to be ' buried in the grownde within the churche of the Holie Trinitie in Gotheromgate, in the ladie quere, nyghe unto my broder's stall in the said churche.' In 1553 the site of the priory of Wilberfoss was granted to her brother-in-law, George Gale; Reg. of Corpus Christi Guild, York, 174 n.