Holborn and Bloomsbury

er King Henry VIII. desired the lands and possessions of St. Giles's, and with him to desire was to acquire.

The hospital was thus shorn of the greater part of its wealth, retaining only the church (not the manor) at Feltham (one of its earliest gifts), the hospital estates at Edmonton, in the City of London, and in the various parishes in the suburbs; and in St. Giles's parish the actual ground it stood on, the Pittance Croft, and a few minor places. But even this remnant came into the possession of the rapacious King two years later, at the dissolution of the monasteries, when Burton St. Lazar itself fell into the tyrant's hands. Henry held these for six years, then granted both to John Dudley, Viscount Lisle, Lord High Admiral. From the time of the dissolution the hospital became a manor.

In the earliest charters the head of the hospital is styled Chaplain, but not Master. The first Master mentioned is in 1212, and after this the title was regularly used. The government was vested in the Mast