Life
Born Hugh Cook, he adopted the surname Faringdon when he became a monk, sometime prior to 1500. The use of this surname suggests that he came from Faringdon, a town some 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Reading. However it is also significant that he subsequently adopted the arms of the Cook family of Kent, suggesting he might have had connections there. He is believed to have been educated within the abbey, and later served as the sub-chamberlain of the community.
Hugh Cook Faringdon was elected Abbot of Reading Abbey in 1520, upon the death of Abbot Thomas Worcester. As well as his spiritual duties, he also took up the civil duties expected at that time of a mitred abbot, being appointed as Justice of the Peace and to various governmental Commissions for Berkshire from 1526 to 1538.
At first his relationship with King Henry seems to have been supportive. He sat in Parliament from 1523 to 1539 and, in 1530, he signed, with other members of the House of Lords, a letter to the Pope pointing out the evils likely to result from delaying the divorce desired by the King; and, again in 1536, he signed the Articles of Faith which virtually acknowledged the supremacy of the Crown over the Church. When the commissioners arrived to take the surrender of Reading Abbey, they reported favorably of the Abbot's willingness to conform, but the surrender of the Abbey does not survive, and it is not therefore known whether or not Faringdon actually signed it.
In 1539, Faringdon was indicted of high treason, being accused of having assisted the Northern rebels with money. He was tracked down at Bere Court, his manor at Pangbourne, and taken back to the Tower of London, where he spent two months. Along with John Rugge, a known associate, and Master John Eynon, the priest of St Giles' Church in Reading, he was found guilty and hanged, drawn and quartered before the inner Abbey gatehouse on 14 November 1539. The monks of Reading, under suspicion of complicity in the Abbot's alleged treason, were not given pensions normally set upon monks and nuns at the dissolution of their monasteries. This changed only under Henry's successor, his daughter, Queen Mary
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