The letters patent authorising the move, which were ratified by a grant by the king dated 1431, make clear that some of the new buildings had already been started and indeed completed: It seems that this building, apparently living quarters or “mansion” must have been started several years before 1431 to have been described as “completed” in the letters of patent issued before 1431 There was however another building, possibly the new Church-building itself, which still had not been completed 11 years later, by 1442, when Henry VI issued further letters patent granting the Abbess and Convent special privileges for the transport of building materials from the king's warren in the royal manor of Sheen across the river to Isleworth: The new site of the church building itself is now believed, after recent archaeological work, to lie partly underneath and to the east of the present Georgian mansion of Syon House (see below).
Dissolution of Dame Agnes Jordan, last pre-Reformation Abbess of Syon Monastery, died 29 January 1546. St Mary's Church,
Denham, Buckinghamshire Following Henry VIII's decision in 1534 to break with Rome, many of the residents of Syon expressed themselves favourable to Henry's supremacy over the English Church, and even converted recalcitrant monks from other monasteries to do likewise. Many, however, refused to acknowledge the King's new title. Due to the actions of one Syon monk named
Richard Reynolds, an eminent doctor in divinity later canonised, the King made Syon an object of special vengeance. Reynolds had facilitated a meeting at Syon between Sir
Thomas More, the King's chief opponent in his assumption of
Supreme Headship, and
Elizabeth Barton, the mystic "Holy Maid of Kent" at which More was fueled with supposed divine revelations further supporting his opposition.
Thomas Cromwell, the king's minister in effecting the Dissolution, had visited Syon in person to obtain expressions of acceptance of supremacy, but seems to have met an antagonistic reception from one of the monks at the front-door grate. He left two of his agents, Thomas Bedyll and Master Leightone, to obtain the required acceptances from the nuns and monks of the King's new status. Bedyll reported that "the bretherne stand stif in thaire obstinacy as you left thaim". Two were sent to the Bishop of London, within whose diocese Syon lay, apparently for a course of conversion, whilst two Church of England clerics were brought in to convert another two Syon monks who were particularly obstinate, Whitford and Little. On the following day the King himself sent four different
Church of England clerics to Syon for the same purpose, again without success. The agent Bedyll then took the recalcitrant Whitford for a walk in the monastery garden to further persuade him "both with faire wordes and with foule" to convert. He then resorted to what appears a classic use of blackmail, accusing Whitford of having "used bawdy wordes to diverse ladys at the tymes of thaire confession", which would bring him "to the greate shame of the world". Still he did not convert, having "a brasyn forehead which shameth at no thing". Whitford and Little were also reported, whilst hearing confessions through a hole in the wall, of persons external to the monastery, to have denounced the king's new title as Supreme Head and his divorce and remarriage, for which reason it was proposed to Cromwell that the confessional grille be bricked up. The nuns were more easily won over, however, and were sat down together in the chapter house of Syon in the presence of the Bishop of London and their own male confessor. All who accepted the king's new title were asked to remain seated, whilst those opposed were asked to leave the chamber. All remained seated, signifying their acceptance, no doubt reluctantly. The nuns thereupon in resignation to their new status sent a special request to Cromwell that he should "be a good maister unto thaim and to thaire house, as thaire special trust is in you". It seems they were then confident in the continuation of their monastery. One nun, however, named Agnes Smythe, "a sturdy dame and a wylful", made a show of some resistance in persuading her sister nuns not to hand over the convent seal, which had been required by Cromwell's agents to seal a declaration of conversion to be signed by the abbess and nuns. On 4 May 1535 Reynolds was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn for denying the king's supremacy, which martyrdom gained him his
canonisation from Rome. The monastery finally surrendered to the king's commissioners in 1539 and the community was expelled. The annual net revenues were then reported to be £1,731. A very large pension of £200 was given to the abbess Agnes Jordan and one of £6 each to the junior nuns. The male Confessor-General received a pension of £15, the junior monks receiving £6 to £8 each. ==Peregrination==