'The 25th day of November the house of Syon was suppressed into the King's hands, and the ladies and brethren put out, which was the most] virtuous house of religion that was in England.' So wrote the chronicler Charles Wriothesley in 1539. But the story of Syon Abbey did not end with the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Founded by Henry V in 1415, England's only house of the Bridgettine order had been one of the richest monasteries of medieval England. Now the community went underground; they returned briefly under Queen Mary, only to leave again with the accession of Elizabeth. They were to...