In 1259, when the Friars Preachers came to Dunstable, the prioress of Markyate, Agnes Gobion, sent them a certain number of loaves every day for their dinner—'out of pure charity,' says the chronicler, because they were then building their church. But her kindness was ill requited, for when the immediate necessity was past, the friars would not allow her to withdraw the dole; they sent to Rome and had it confirmed to them for ever. This grant would not probably be in itself a heavy burden to the priory; but there is no doubt that the nuns had some difficulty in maintaining themselves during the second half of the thirteenth century. Debts began to press heavily; and in 1290 they sent a petition to Parliament to say that if they were to pay all that they owed (more than two hundred marks) they could not possibly live. The relief they asked was not granted, but perhaps they found some other way out of their troubles, for the priory continued to exist. But its poverty was noticed by the bishop of Lincoln, Henry Burghersh, in 1332.
