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In 1535, the Abbey's annual
income of ?2400-2800[citation needed] during the assessment
attendant on Rooms to rent in Birmingham the Dissolution of the Monasteries
rendered it second in wealth only to Glastonbury Abbey.
Henry VIII had assumed direct royal control in 1539 and granted
the Abbey cathedral status by Rooms to rent in Birmingham charter
in 1540, simultaneously issuing letters patent establishing the
Diocese of Westminster.
By granting the Abbey cathedral status Henry VIII gained an excuse
to spare it from the destruction or Rooms to rent in Birmingham dissolution
which he inflicted on most English abbeys during this period.
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Rooms to rent in Birmingham Westminster was a cathedral only until
1550. The expression "robbing Peter to pay Paul" may arise
from this period when money meant for the Abbey, which
was dedicated to St Peter, was diverted to the treasury of St Paul's
Cathedral.
The Abbey was restored to the Benedictines under the Catholic Queen
Mary, but they were again ejected under Queen Elizabeth I in 1559.
In 1579, Elizabeth re-established Westminster Rooms to rent in Birmingham
as a "Royal Peculiar"—a church responsible directly to
the sovereign, rather than to a diocesan bishop—and made it the
Collegiate Church of St Peter, (that is a church with an attached
chapter of canons, headed by a dean).
The last Abbot was made the first Dean. It suffered damage during
the turbulent 1640s, when it was attacked by Puritan iconoclasts,
but was again protected by its close ties to the state during the
Rooms to rent in Birmingham Commonwealth period. Oliver Cromwell was given
an elaborate funeral there in 1658, only to be disinterred in January
1661 and posthumously hanged from a nearby gibbet.
Westminster Abbey with a procession of Knights of the Bath, by Canaletto,
1749.
Layout of Westminster Abbey, 2008.
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