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Royal patronage helped the shrine to grow in wealth and popularity, receiving visits from [[Henry III of England|Henry III]], [[Edward II of England|Edward II]], [[Edward III of England|Edward III]], [[Henry IV of England|Henry IV]], [[Edward IV of England|Edward IV]], [[Henry VII of England|Henry VII]], [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]] and [[Erasmus]]. It was also a place of pilgrimage for English queens - [[Catherine of Aragon]] was a regular pilgrim and her successor, [[Anne Boleyn]], also announced an intention of making a pilgrimage. Its wealth and prestige did not, however, prevent its being a disorderly house. The visitation of bishop Nicke in 1514 revealed that the prior was leading a scandalous life, that, among many other things, he treated the canons with insolence and brutality; the canons themselves frequented taverns and were quarrelsome.The prior William Lowth was removed and by 1526 some decent order had been restored.

The suppression of the monasteries was part of the [[English Reformation]] project. On the pretext of discovering any irregularities in their life, [[Thomas Cromwell]] organised a series of visitations, the results of which led to the suppression of smaller foundations (which did not include Walsingham) in 1536. Two years earlier the Prior, Richard Vowell, had signed their acceptance of the king's supremacy, but it did not save them. Cromwell's actions were politically motivated but the Canons, who had a number of houses in Norfolk were not noted for their piety or good order.<ref>David Knowles ''Religious Orders in England'' vol 3 p. 328</ref> The prior was evidently compliant but not all of the community felt likewise. In 1537, two lay choristers organised 'the most serious plot hatched anywhere south of the Trent',<ref>Geoffrey Elton ''Policy and Police'' (Cambridge 1972) p. 144</ref> intended to resist what they feared, rightly as it turned out, would happen to their foundation. Eleven men were executed as a result. The suppression of Walsingham priory came late in 1538, under the supervision of Sir Roger Townshend, a local landowner. Walsingham was famous and its fall symbolic: bishop Latimer wrote of the image of Our Lady''"She hath been the Devil's instrument, I fear, to bring many to eternal fire; now she herself with her older sister of Walsingham, her younger sister of Ipswich, and their two sisters of Doncaster and Penrhys will make a jolly muster in Smithfield. They would not be all day in burning".''

The site of the priory with the churchyard and gardens was granted by the Crown to Thomas Sydney. All that remained of it was the gatehouse, the chancel arch and a few outbuildings.

After nearly four hundred years the 20th century saw the restoration of pilgrimage to Walsingham as a regular feature of Christian life in the British Isles and beyond. Not only the Roman Catholic and the Anglicans honor the Mother of God at Walsingham, but also Orthodox.

Throughout the 1920s the trickle of pilgrims became a flood of large numbers for whom, eventually, the Pilgrim Hospice was opened (a hospice is the name of a place of hospitality for pilgrims) and, in 1931, a new Holy House encased in a small pilgrimage church was dedicated and the statue translated there with great solemnity. In 1938 that church was enlarged to form the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. At the consecration of this enlarged church, a delegation from the Russian Church, led by Archbishop Nestor and Archimandrite Nicolas Gibbes, was present. Father Patten combined the posts of Vicar of Walsingham and Priest Administrator of the Anglican shrine until his death in 1958.

A [[Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate|Western Rite]] [[Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America|Antiochian Orthodox]] parish named for Our Lady of Walsingham is in [[Mesquite, Texas]].

==References==