Colne Priory, Earls Colne, Essex

This Benedictine priory, initially a dependent cell of Abingdon Abbey, Berkshire (modern Oxfordshire), was founded by Aubrey de Vere

Aubrey De Vere

Aubrey De Vere may refer to:* Aubrey de Vere I * Aubrey de Vere II , master chamberlain of England* Aubrey de Vere III , first earl of Oxford* Aubrey de Vere IV , second earl of Oxford...

 I and his wife Beatrice in or before 1111. Their eldest son Geoffrey had died at Abingdon about seven or eight years earlier and was buried there. On his deathbed, Geoffrey had bequeathed to Abingdon the church and lands at Kensington, Middlesex, and his parents and brothers had confirmed that grant, as had King Henry I

Henry I of England

Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106...

. Aubrey and Beatrice became very attached to Abingdon, but as they lived primarily in Essex, the aging couple found it difficult to journey there. They founded Colne Priory, the only cell of Abingdon, in order to have monks of that house close to them and as a family mausoleum. About 1112 Aubrey I retired to the priory, joined by his youngest son, William de Vere, both of whom died there shortly thereafter.

Colne Priory became the principal burial place of the earls of Oxford, with all but a few buried there to 1703. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

, the Priory was granted to John de Vere (1482-1540), 15th Earl of Oxford, by King Henry VIII on 22 July 1536 . The surviving tombs at Colne, some with effigies, were much later removed to the parish church of Bures, Essex, where they are currently. A late 12th-century cartulary exists.

The relations between Abingdon and its priory were occasionally rocky, and in the 13th century Colne Priory became an independent priory.