Chapter VII: The Fall of the Monasteries (1)

The rise of Protestantism accelerated the decline and final ruin of the monasteries. The enthusiasm of the Mendicants and the culture of the Jesuits failed to convince the governments of Europe that monasticism was worthy to survive the destruction awaiting so many medieval institutions. The spread of reformatory opinions resulted in a determined and largely successful attack upon the monasteries, which were rightly believed to constitute the bulwark of papal power. So imperative were the popular demands for a change, that popes and councils hastened to urge the members of religious orders to abolish existing abuses by enforcing primitive rules. But while Rome practically failed in her attempted reformations, the Protestant reformers in church and state were widely successful in either curtailing the privileges and revenues of the monks or in annihilating the monasteries.

Since the sixteenth century the leading governments of Europe, even including those in Catholic countries, have given tangible expression to popular and political antagonism to monasticism, by the abolition of convents, or the withdrawal of immunities and favors, for a long time a source of monastic revenue and power. The results of this hostility have been so disastrous, that monasticism has never regained its former prestige and influence. Several of the older orders have risen from the ruins, and a few new communities have appeared, some of which are distinguished by their most laudable ministrations to the poor and the sick, or by their educational services. Yet notwithstanding the modifications of the system to suit the exigencies of modern times, it seems altogether improbable that the monks will ever again wield the power they possessed before the Reformation,

In the present chapter attention will be confined to the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII., in England. The suppression in that country was occasioned partly by peculiar, local conditions, and was more radical and permanent than the reforms in other lands, yet it is entirely consistent with our general purpose to restrict this narrative to English history. Penetrating beneath the varying externalities attending the ruin of the monasteries in Germany, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, and other countries, it will be found that the underlying cause of the destruction of the monasteries was that the monastic ideal conflicted with the spirit of the modern era. A conspicuous and dramatic example of this struggle between medievalism, as embodied in the monastic institution, and modern political, social and religious ideals, is to be found in the dissolution of the English monasteries. The narrative of the suppression in England also conveys some idea of the struggle that was carried on throughout Europe, with varying intensity and results.

There is no more striking illustration of the power of the personal equation in the interpretation of history than that afforded by the conflicting opinions respecting the overthrow of monasticism in England. Those who mourn the loss of the monasteries cannot find words strong enough with which to condemn Henry VIII., whom they regard as "unquestionably the most unconstitutional, the most vicious king that ever wore the English crown." Forgetting the inevitable cost of human freedom, and lightly passing over the iniquities of the monastic system, they fondly dwell upon the departed glory of the ancient abbeys. They recall with sadness the days when the monks chanted their songs of praise in the chapels, or reverently bent over their books of parchment, bound in purple and gold, not that they might "winnow the treasures of knowledge, but that they might elicit love, compunction and devotion." The charming simplicity and loving service of the cloister life, in the days of its unbroken vows, appeal to such defenders of the monks with singular potency.

Truly, the fair-minded should attempt to appreciate the sorrow, the indignation and the love of these friends of a ruined institution. Passionless logic will never enable one to do justice to the sentiments of those who cannot restrain their tears as they stand uncovered before the majestic remains of a Melrose Abbey, or properly to estimate the motives and methods of those who laid the mighty monastic institution in the dust.

_The Character of Henry VIII_

Before considering the actual work of suppression, it may be interesting to glance at the royal destroyer and his times. The character of Henry VIII. is utterly inexplicable to many persons, chiefly because they do not reflect that even the inconsistencies of a great man may be understood when seen in the light of his times. A masterly and comprehensive summary of the virtues and vices of the Tudor monarch, who has been described as "the king, the whole king, and nothing but the king," may be found in "A History of Crime in England," by Luke Owen Pike. The distinguished author shows that in his brutality, his love of letters, his opposition to Luther, his vacillation in religious opinions, King Henry reflects with remarkable fidelity the age in which he lived, both in its contrasts and its inconsistencies. "It is only the previous history of England which can explain all the contradictions exhibited in his conduct,--which can explain how he could be rapacious yet sometimes generous, the Defender of the Faith yet under sentence of excommunication, a burner of heretics yet a heretic himself, the pope's advocate yet the pope's greatest enemy, a bloodthirsty tyrant yet the best friend to liberty of thought in religion, an enthusiast yet a turncoat, a libertine and yet all but a Puritan. He was sensual because his forefathers had been sensual from time immemorial, rough in speech and action because there had been but few men in Britain who had been otherwise since the Romans abandoned the island. He was superstitious and credulous because few were philosophical or gifted with intellectual courage. Yet he had, what was possessed by his contemporaries, a faint and intermittent thirst for knowledge, of which he himself hardly knew the meaning." Henry was shrewd, tenacious of purpose, capricious and versatile. In spite of his unrestrained indulgences and his monstrous claims of power, which, be it remembered, he was able to enforce, and notwithstanding any other vices or faults that may be truthfully charged against him, he was, on the whole, a popular king. Few monarchs have ever had to bear such a strain as was placed upon his abilities and character. Rare have been the periods that have witnessed such confusion of principles, social, political and religious. Those were the days when liberty was at work, "but in a hundred fantastical and repulsive shapes, confused and convulsive, multiform, deformed." Blind violence and half-way reforms characterized the age because the principles that were to govern modern times were not yet formulated.

Judged apart from his times Henry appears as an arrogant, cruel and fickle ruler, whose virtues fail to atone for his vices. But still, with all his faults, he compares favorably with preceding monarchs and even with his contemporaries. If he had possessed less intelligence, courage and ambition, he would not now be so conspicuous for his vices, but the history of human liberty and free institutions, especially in England, would have been vastly different. His praiseworthy traits were not sufficiently strong to enable him to control his inherited passions, but they were too regnant to permit him to submit without a struggle to the hierarchy which had dominated his country so many centuries. Such was

"the majestic lord,
That broke the bonds of Rome."

_Events Preceding the Suppression_

Many causes and incidents contributed to the progress of the reformation in England, and to the demolition of the monasteries. Only a few of them can be given here, and they must be stated with a brevity that conveys no adequate conception of their profound significance.

Henry VIII. ascended the throne, in the year 1509, when eighteen years of age. In 1517, Luther took his stand against Rome. Four years later Henry wrote a treatise in defence of the Seven Sacraments and in opposition to the German reformer. For this princely service to the church the king received the title "Defender of the Faith" from Pope Leo X.

About 1527 it became known that Henry was questioning the validity of his marriage with Catharine of Aragon, whom he had married when he was twelve years old. She was the widow of his brother Arthur. The king professed conscientious scruples about his marriage, but undoubtedly his desire for male offspring, and later, his passion for Anne Boleyn, prompted him to seek release from his queen. In 1529, Henry and Catharine stood before a papal tribunal, presided over by Cardinal Wolsey, the king's prime minister, and Cardinal Campeggio, from Rome, for the purpose of determining the validity of the royal marriage. The trial was a farce. The enraged king laid the blame upon Wolsey, and retired him from office. The great cardinal was afterwards charged with treason, but died broken-hearted, on his way to the Tower, November 29, 1530.

The breach between Henry and Rome, complicated by numerous international intrigues, widened rapidly. Henry began to assume an attitude of bold defiance toward the pope, which aroused the animosity of the Catholic princes of Europe.

Notwithstanding the desire of a large body of the English people to remain faithful to Rome, the dangers which menaced their country from abroad and the ecclesiastical abuses at home, which had been a fruitful cause for complaint for many years, tended to lessen the ancient horror of heresy and schism, and inclined them to support their king. Another factor that assisted in preparing the English people for the destruction of the monasteries was Lollardism. As an organized sect, the Lollards had ceased to exist, but the spirit and the doctrines of Wyclif did not die. A real and a vital connection existed between the Lollards of the fourteenth, and the reformers of the sixteenth, centuries. In Henry's time, many Englishmen held practically the same views of Rome and of the monks that had been taught by Wyclif[I].

[Footnote I: Appendix, Note I.]

A considerable number of Henry's subjects, however, while ostensibly loyal to him, were inwardly full of hot rebellion. The king was surrounded with perils. The princes of the Continent were eagerly awaiting the bull for his excommunication. Henry's throne and his kingdom might at any moment be given over by the pope to invasion by the continental sovereigns.

Reginald Pole, afterwards cardinal, a cousin of the king, and a strong Catholic, stood ready to betray the interests of his country to Rome. Writing to the king, he said: "Man is against you; God is against you; the universe is against you; what can you look for but destruction?" "Dream not, Caesar," he encouragingly declared to Emperor Charles V., "that all generous hearts are quenched in England; that faith and piety are dead. In you is their trust, in your noble nature, and in your zeal for God--they hold their land till you shall come." Thus, on the testimony of a Roman Catholic, there were traitors in England waiting only for the call of Charles V., "To arms!" Pole was in full sympathy with all the factions opposed to the king, and stood ready to aid them in their resistance. He publicly denounced the king in several continental countries.

The monks were especially enraged against Henry. They did all they could to inflame the people by preaching against him and the reformers. Friar Peyto, preaching before the king, had the assurance to say to him: "Many lying prophets have deceived you, but I, as a true Micah, warn you that the dogs will lick your blood as they did Ahab's." While the courage of this friar is unquestioned, his defiant attitude illustrates the position occupied by the monks toward those who favored separation from Rome. The whole country was at white heat. The friends of Rome looked upon Henry as an incarnate fiend, a servant of the devil and an enemy of all religion. Many of them opposed him with the purest and best motives, believing that the king was really undermining the church of God and throwing society into chaos.

In 1531, the English clergy were coerced into declaring that Henry was "the protector and the supreme head of the church and of the clergy of England," which absurd claim was slightly modified by the words, "in so far as is permitted by the law of Christ." Chapuys, in one of his despatches informing Charles V. of this action of convocation, said that it practically declared Henry the Pope of England. "It is true," he wrote, "that the clergy have added to the declaration that they did so only so far as permitted by the law of God. But that is all the same, as far as the king is concerned, as if they had made no reservation, for no one will now be so bold as to contest with his lord the importance of the reservation." Later on, Chapuys says that the king told the pope's nuncio that "if the pope would not show him more consideration, he would show the world that the pope had no greater authority than Moses, and that every claim not grounded on Scripture was mere usurpation; that the great concourse of people present had come solely and exclusively to request him to bastinado the clergy, who were hated by both nobles and the people." ("Spanish Despatches," number 460.)

Parliament, in 1534, conferred on Henry the title "Supreme Head of the Church of England," and empowered him "to visit, and repress, redress, reform, order, correct, restrain, or amend all errors, heresies, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities, which fell under any spiritual authority or jurisdiction." The "Act of Succession" was also passed by Parliament, cutting off Princess Mary and requiring all subjects to take an oath of allegiance to Elizabeth.

It was now an act of treason to deny the king's supremacy. All persons suspected of disloyalty were required to sign an oath of allegiance to Henry, and to Elizabeth as his successor, and to acknowledge the supremacy of the king in church and state. This resulted in the death of some prominent men in the realm, among them Sir Thomas More. In the preamble of the oath prescribed by law, the legality of the king's marriage with Anne was asserted, thus implying that his former marriage with Catharine was unlawful. More was willing to declare his allegiance to the infant Elizabeth, as the king's successor, but his conscience would not permit him to affirm that Catharine's marriage was unlawful.

The life of the brilliant and lovable More is another illustration of the mental confusions and inconsistencies of that age. As an apostle of culture he favored the new learning, and yet he viewed the gathering momentum of reformatory principles with alarm, and cast in his lot with the ultra-conservatives. Four years of his young manhood were spent in a monastery. He devoted his splendid talents to a criticism of English society, and recommended freedom of conscience, yet he became an ardent foe of reform and even a persecutor of heretics, of whom he said: "I do so detest that class of men that, unless they repent, I am the worst enemy they have." When a man, whom even Protestant historians hasten to pronounce "the glory of his age," so magnificent were his talents and so blameless his character, was tainted with superstition, and sanctioned the persecution of liberal thinkers, is it remarkable that inferior intellects should have been swayed by the brutality and tyranny of the times?

The unparalleled claims of Henry and his attitude toward the pope made the breach between England and Rome complete, but many years of painful internal strife and bloodshed were to elapse before the whole nation submitted to the new order of things, and before that subjective freedom from fear and superstition without which formal freedom has little value, was secured.

The breach with Rome was essential to the attainment of that religious and political freedom that England now enjoys. But the first step toward making that separation an accomplished fact, acquiesced in by the people as a whole, was to break the power of the monastic orders. It may possibly be true that the same ends would have been eventually attained by trusting to the slower processes of social evolution, but the history of the Latin nations of Europe would seem to prove the contrary. As the facts stand it would appear that peace and progress were impossible with thousands of monks sowing seeds of discord, and employing every measure, fair or foul, to win the country back to Rome. Gairdner and others argue that Henry was far too powerful a king to have been successfully resisted by the pope, unless the pope was backed by a union of the Christian princes, which was then impracticable. That fact may make the execution of More, Fisher and the Charterhouse monks inexcusable, but it by no means proves that Henry would have been strong enough to maintain his position if the monasteries had been permitted to exist as centers of organized opposition to his will. Many of the monks, when pressed by the king's agents, took the oath of allegiance. Threats, bribes and violence were used to overcome the opposition of the unwilling.

_The Monks and the Oath of Supremacy_

It is quite evident that the king's purpose to destroy the whole monastic institution was partly the result of the determined resistance which the monks offered to his authority. The contest between the king and the monks was exceedingly fierce and bloody. Many good men lost their lives and many innocent persons suffered grievously. Perhaps the most pathetic incident in the sanguinary struggle between the king and the monks was the tragic fall of the Charterhouse of London. The facts are given at length by Froude, in his "History of England," who bases his account on the narrative of Maurice Channey, one of the monks who escaped death by yielding to the king. The unhappy monk confesses that he was a Judas among the apostles, and in a touching account of the ruin that came upon his monastic retreat he praises the boldness and fidelity of his companions, who preferred death to what seemed to them dishonor.

The pages of Channey are filled with the most improbable stories of miracles, but his charming picture of the cloister life of the Carthusians is doubtless true to reality. The Carthusian fathers were the best fruit of monasticism in England. To a higher degree than any of the other monastic orders they maintained a good discipline and preserved the spirit of their founders. "A thousand years of the world's history had rolled by," says Froude, "and these lonely islands of prayer had remained still anchored in the stream; the strands of the ropes which held them, wearing now to a thread, and very near their last parting, but still unbroken." In view of the undisputed purity and fearlessness of these noble monks, a recital of their woes will place the case for the monastic institution in the most favorable light.

Channey says the year 1533 was ushered in with signs,--the end of the world was nigh. Yes, the monk's world was drawing to a close; the moon, for him, was turning into blood, and the stars falling from heaven.

More and Fisher were in the Tower. The former's splendid talents and noble character still swayed the people. It was no time for trifling; the Carthusian fathers must take the oath of allegiance or perish. So one morning the royal commissioners appeared before the monastery door of the Charterhouse to demand submission. Prior Houghton answered them: "I know nothing of the matter mentioned; I am unacquainted with the world without; my office is to minister to God, and to save poor souls from Satan." He was committed to the Tower for one month. Then Dr. Bonner persuaded the prior to sign with "certain reservations." He was released and went back to his cloister-cell to weep. Calling his monks together he said he was sorry; it looked like deceit, but he desired to save his brethren and their order. The commissioners returned; the monks were under suspicion; the reservations were disliked, and they must sign without conditions. In great consternation the prior assembled the monks. All present cried out: "Let us die together in our integrity, and heaven and earth shall witness for us how unjustly we are cut off." Prior Houghton conceived a generous idea. "If it depends on me alone; if my oath will suffice for the house, I will throw myself on the mercy of God; I will make myself anathema, and to preserve you from these dangers, I will consent to the king's will." Thus did the noble old man consent to go into heaven with a lie on his conscience, hoping to escape by the mercy of God, because he sought to save the lives of his brethren. But all this was of no avail; Cromwell had determined that this monastery must fall, and fall it did. The monks prepared for their end calmly and nobly; beginning with the oldest brother, they knelt before each other and begged forgiveness for all unkindness and offence. "Not less deserving," says Froude, "the everlasting remembrances of mankind, than those three hundred, who, in the summer morning, sate combing their golden hair in the passes of Thermopylæ." But rebellion was blazing in Ireland, and the enemies of the king were praying and plotting for his ruin. These monks, with More and Fisher, were an inspiration to the enemies of liberty and the kingdom. Catholic Europe crouched like a tiger ready to spring on her prostrate foe. It is sad, but these recluses, praying for the pope, instilling a love for the papacy in the confessional, these honest and conscientious but dangerous men must be shorn of their power to encourage rebels. There was a farce of a trial. Houghton was brought to the scaffold and died protesting his innocence. His arm was cut off and hung over the archway of the Charterhouse, as other arms and heads were hideously hanging over many a monastic gate in Merry England. Nine of the monks died of prison fever, and others were banished. The king's court went into mourning, and Henry knotted his beard and henceforth would be no more shaven--eloquent evidence to the world that whatever motive dominated the king's heart, these bloody deeds were unpleasantly disturbing. Certainly such a spectacle as that of a monk's arm nailed to a monastery was never seen by Englishmen before.

The Charterhouse fell, let it be carefully noted, because the monks could not and would not acknowledge the king's supremacy, and not because the monks were immoral. Some spies in Cromwell's service offered to, bring in evidence against six of these monks of "laziness and immorality." Cromwell indignantly refused the proposal, saying, "He would not hear the accusation; that it was false, wilfully so."

The news of these proceedings, and of the beheading of More and Fisher, awakened the most violent rage throughout Catholic Europe. Henry was denounced as the Nero of his times. Paul III. immediately excommunicated the king, dissolved all leagues between Henry and the Catholic princes, and gave his kingdom to any invader. All Catholic subjects were ordered to take up arms against him. Although these censures were passed, the pope decided to defer their publication, hoping for a peaceful settlement. But Henry knew, and the Catholic princes of Europe knew, that the blow might fall at any time. He had to make up his mind to go further or to yield unconditionally to the pope. The world soon discovered the temper of the enraged and stubborn monarch. He might vacillate on speculative questions, but there were no tokens of feeble hesitancy in his dealings with Rome. The hour of doom for the monasteries had struck.

Having thus glanced at the character of Henry VIII., the prime mover in the attack upon the monasteries, and having surveyed some of the events leading up to their fall, we are now prepared to consider the actual work of suppression, which will be described under the following heads: First, The royal commissioners and their methods of investigation; Second, The commissioners' report on the condition of affairs; Third, The action of Parliament; Fourth, The effect of the suppression upon the people; and Fifth, The use Henry made of the monastic possessions. These matters having been set forth, it will then be in order to inquire into the justification, real or alleged, of the suppression.

_The Royal Commissioners and Their Methods of Investigation_

The fall of Sir Thomas More left Thomas Cromwell the chief power under the king, and for seven years he devoted his great administrative abilities to making his royal patron absolute ruler in church and state.

Cromwell, Earl of Essex, was of lowly origin, but his energy and shrewdness, together with the experience acquired by extensive travels, commanded the attention of Cardinal Wolsey, who took him into his service. He was successively merchant, scrivener, money-lender, lawyer, member of parliament, master of jewels, chancellor, master of rolls, secretary of state, vicar-general in ecclesiastical affairs, lord privy seal, dean of Wells and high chamberlain.

Close intimacy with Wolsey enabled Cromwell to grasp the full significance of Henry's ambition, and his desire to please his royal master, coupled with his own love of power, prompted him to throw himself with characteristic energy into the work of centralizing all authority in the hands of the king and of his prime minister. In secular affairs, this had already been accomplished. The task before him was to subdue the church to the throne, to execute which he became the protector of Protestantism and the foe of Rome. Green says: "He had an absolute faith in the end he was pursuing, and he simply hews his way to it, as a woodman hews his way through the forest, axe in hand." Froude says: "To him ever belonged the rare privilege of genius to see what other men could not see, and therefore he was condemned to rule a generation which hated him, to do the will of God and to perish in his success. He pursued an object, the excellence of which, as his mind saw it, transcended all other considerations, the freedom of England and the destruction of idolatry, and those who, from any motive, noble or base, pious or impious, crossed his path, he crushed and passed on over their bodies."

There seems to be a general agreement that Cromwell was not a Protestant. His struggle against the temporal power of the pope fostered the reformatory movement, but that did not make Cromwell a Protestant any more than it did his master, Henry VIII. Foxe describes Cromwell "as a valiant soldier and captain of Christ," but Maitland retorts "that Foxe forgot, if he ever knew, who was the father of lies."

Without doubt Cromwell ruled with an iron hand. He was guilty of accepting bribes, and, as some maintain, "was the great patron of ribaldry, and the protector of the low jester and the filthy." But, sadly enough, that is no serious charge against one in his times. It is said that Henry used to say, when a knave was dealt to him in a game of cards, "Ah, I have a Cromwell!" Francis Aidan Gasquet, a Benedictine monk, in his valuable work on "Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries," says of Cromwell: "No single minister in England ever exercised such extensive authority, none ever rose so rapidly, and no one has ever left behind him a name covered with greater infamy and disgrace."

In 1535, Henry, as supreme head of the church, appointed Cromwell as his "Vicegerent, Vicar-General and Principal Commissary in causes ecclesiastical." His immediate duty was to enforce recognition of the king's supremacy. The monks and the clergy were now to be coerced into submission. A royal commission, consisting of Legh, Layton, Ap Rice, London and various subordinates, was appointed to visit the monasteries and to report on their condition.

Henry Griffin says in his chronicle: "I was well acquainted with all the commissioners; indeed I knew them well; they were very smart men, who understood the value of money, for they had tasted of adversity. I think the priests were the worst of the whole party, although they had a good reputation at the time, but they were wicked, deceitful men. I am sorry to speak thus of my own order, but I speak God's truth." "It is a dreadful undertaking," said Lord Clinton. "Ah! but I have great faith in the tact and judgment of the men I am about to select," retorted Cromwell.

Dr. John London was a base tool of Cromwell, and a miserable exponent of the reform movement. He joined Gardiner in burning heretics, was convicted of adultery at Oxford, was pilloried for perjury and died in jail. The other royal agents were also questionable characters. Dean Layton wrote the most disgusting letters to Cromwell. Once he informed his patron that he prayed regularly for him, prefacing this information with the remark, "I will now tell you something to make you laugh."

Father Gasquet sums up his view of the commissioners in the words of Edmund Burke: "It is not with much credulity that I listen to any when they speak ill of those whom they are going to plunder. I rather suspect that vices are feigned, or exaggerated, when profit is looked for in the punishment--an enemy is a bad witness; a robber worse." Burke indignantly declares: "The inquiry into the moral character of the religious houses was a mere pretext, a complete delusion, an insidious and predetermined foray of wholesale and heartless plunder."

Such are the protests from the defenders of the monasteries even before a hearing is granted. "What," say they, "believe such perjurers, adulterers and gamblers; men forsworn to bring in a bad report; men who were selected because they were worthless characters who could be relied on to return false charges against an institution loved by the people?"

The commissioners began their work at Oxford, in September, 1535. The work was vigorously pushed. On reaching the door of a monastery, they demanded admittance; if it was not granted, they entered by breaking down the gate with an axe. They then summoned the monks before them, and plied them with questions. An inventory was taken of everything; nothing escaped their searching eyes. When the king decided to suppress the lesser monasteries, and ordered a new visitation of the larger ones, they seized and sold all they could lay their hands on; "stained glass, ironwork, bells, altar-cloths, candles, books, beads, images, capes, brewing-tubs, brass bolts, spits for cooking, kitchen utensils, plates, basins, all were turned into money." Many valuable books were destroyed; jewels and gold and silver clasps were torn from old volumes, and the paper sold as waste; parchment manuscripts were used to scour tubs and grease boots. Out of the wreck about a hundred and thirty thousand manuscripts have been saved. It must be admitted that the commissioners were not delicate in their labors; that they insulted many nuns, robbed the monks, violated the laws of decency and humanity, and needlessly excited the rage of the people and outraged the religious sentiments of the Catholics. They even used sacred altar-cloths for blankets on their horses, and rode across the country decorated in priestly and monkish garments. There seems to be some ground for the statement that Henry was ignorant, or at least not fully informed, of their unwarranted violence and gross sacrilege. The abbey of Glastonbury was one of the oldest and finest cloisters in England. It was a majestic pile of buildings in the midst of gardens and groves covering sixty acres; its aisles were vocal with the chanting of monks, who marched in gorgeous processions among the tall, gray pillars. The exterior of the buildings was profusely decorated with sculpture; monarchs, temple knights, mitered abbots, martyrs and apostles stood for centuries in their niches of stone while princes came and passed away, while kingdoms rose and fell. The nobles and bishops of the realm were laid to rest beneath the altars around which many generations of monks had assembled to praise and to pray. The royal commissioners one day appeared before the walls. The abbot, Richard Whiting, who was then eighty-four years of age, was at Sharphorn, another residence of the community. He was brought back and questioned. At night when he was in bed, they searched his study for letters and books, and they claimed to have found a manuscript of Whiting's arguments against the divorce of the king and Queen Catharine; it had never been published; they did not know whether the venerable abbot had such intent or not. Stephen declares the spies themselves brought the book into the library. However, the abbot was chained to a cart and taken to London. The abbey had immense wealth; every Wednesday and Friday it fed and lodged three hundred boys; it was esteemed very highly in the neighborhood and received large donations from the knights in the vicinity. The abbot was accused of treason for concealing the sacred vessels; he was old, deaf, and sick, but was allowed no counsel. He asked permission to take leave of his monks, and many little orphans; Russell and Layton only laughed. The people heard of his captivity and determined "to deliver or avenge" their favorite, but Russell hanged half a dozen of them and declared that "law, order and loyalty were vindicated." Whiting's body was quartered, and the pieces sent to Wells, Bath, Chester and Bridgewater, while his head, adorned with his gray hairs clotted by blood, was hung over the abbey gate.

_The Report of the Commissioners_

The original report of the commissioners does not exist. Burnet declares that he saw an extract from it, concerning one hundred and forty-four houses, which contained the most revolting revelations. Many of the commissioners' letters and various documents touching the suppression have been collected and published by the Camden Society. Waiving, for the present, the inquiry into the truth of the report, it was in substance as follows:

The commissioners reported about one-third of the houses to be fairly well conducted, some of them models of excellent management and pure living; but the other two-thirds were charged with looseness beyond description. The number of inmates in some cloisters was kept below the required number, that there might be more money to divide among the monks. The number of servants sometimes exceeded that of the monks. Abbots bought and sold land in a fraudulent manner; gifts for hospitality were misapplied; licentiousness, gaming and drinking prevailed extensively. Crime and absolution for gold went hand in hand. One friar was said to have been the proud father of an illegitimate family of children, but he had in his possession a forged license from the pope, who permitted his wandering, "considering his frailty." Froude, in commenting upon the report, says: "If I were to tell the truth, I should have first to warn all modest eyes to close the book and read no farther."

All sorts of pious frauds were revealed. At Hales the monks claimed to have the blood of Christ brought from Jerusalem, and not visible to anyone in mortal sin until he had performed good works, or, in other words, paid enough for his absolution. Two monks took the blood of a duck, which they renewed every week; this they put into a phial, one side of which consisted of a thin, transparent crystal; the other thick and opaque; the dark side was shown until the sinner's gold was exhausted, when, presto! change, the blood appeared by turning the other side of the phial. Innumerable toe-parings, bones, pieces of skin, three heads of St. Ursula, and other anatomical relics of departed saints, were said to cure every disease known to man. They had relics that could drive away plagues, give rain, hinder weeds, and in fact, render the natural world the plaything of decaying bones and shreds of dried skin. The monks of Reading had an angel with one wing, who had preserved the spear with which our Lord was pierced. Abbots were found to have concubines in or near the monasteries; midnight revels and drunken feasts were pleasant pastimes for monks weary with prayers and fasting. While it would be unjust to argue that the existence of "pious frauds" affords a justification for the suppression of the monasteries, it must be remembered that they constituted one element in that condition of ecclesiastical life that was becoming repugnant to the English people. For several generations there had been a marked growth in the hostility toward various forms of superstition. True, neither Henry nor Cromwell can be accredited with the lofty intention of exterminating superstition, but the attitude of many people toward "pious frauds" helped to reconcile them to the destruction of the monasteries.

_The Action of Parliament_

The report of the commissioners was laid before Parliament in 1536. As it declared that the smaller monasteries were more corrupt than the larger ones, Parliament ordered the suppression of all those houses whose revenues were less than two hundred pounds per annum. By this act, three hundred and seventy-six houses were suppressed, whose aggregate revenue was thirty-two thousand pounds yearly. Movable property valued at about one hundred thousand pounds was also handed over to the "Court of Augmentations of the King's Revenue," which was established to take care of the estates, revenues and other possessions of the monasteries. It is claimed that ten thousand monks and nuns were turned out into the world, to find bed and board as best they could. In 1538, two years later, the greater monasteries met a similar fate, which was no doubt hastened by the rebellions that followed the abolition of the smaller houses. Many of the abbots and monks were suspected of aiding in the rebellion against the king's authority by inciting the people to take up arms against him. Apprehending the coming doom, many abbots resigned; others were overcome by threats and yielded without a struggle. In many instances such monks received pensions varying from fifty-three shillings and four pence to four pounds a year. The investigations were constantly carried on, and all the foul stories that could be gathered were given to the people, to secure their approval of the king's action. With remorseless zeal the king and his commissioners, supported by various acts of parliament, persevered in their work of destruction, until even the monastic hospitals, chantries, free chapels and collegiate churches, fell into the king's hands. By the year 1545, the ruin was complete. The monastic institution of England was no more. The total number of monasteries suppressed is variously estimated, but the following figures are approximately correct: monasteries, 616; colleges, 90; free chapels, 2,374; and hospitals, 110. The annual income was about one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, which was a smaller sum than was then believed to be in the control of the monks. Nearly fifty thousand persons were driven from the houses, to foment the discontent and to arouse the pity of the people. Such, in brief, was the extent of the suppression, but a little reflection will show that these statements of cold facts convey no conception of the confusion and sorrow that must have accompanied this terrific and wholesale assault upon an institution that had been accumulating its possessions for eight hundred years. At this distance from those tragic events, it is impossible to realize the dismay of those who stood aghast at this ruthless destruction of such venerable establishments.

_The Effect of the Suppression Upon the People_

For months the country had seen what was coming; letters from abbots and priors poured in upon the king and parliament, begging them to spare the ancient strongholds of religion. The churchmen argued: "If he plunders the monasteries, will not his next step be to plunder the churches?" They recalled what Sir Thomas More had said of their sovereign: "It is true, his majesty is very gracious with me, but if only my head would give him another castle in France, it would not be long before it disappeared." Sympathy for the monks, an inborn conservatism, a natural love for ancient institutions, a religious dread of trampling upon that which was held sacred by the church, a secret antipathy to reform, all these and other forces were against the suppression. But the report of the visitors was appalling, and the fear of the king's displeasure was widespread; so the bill was passed amid mingled feelings of joy, sympathy, hatred, fear, anxiety and uncertainty. The bishops were sullen; Latimer was disappointed, for he wanted the church to have the proceeds.

Outside of Parliament there was much discontent among the nobles and gentry of Roman tendencies. Even the indifferent felt bitter against the king, because it seemed unjust that the monks, who had been sheltered, honored and enriched by the people, should be so rudely and so suddenly turned out of their possessions. A dangerously large portion of the people felt themselves insulted and outraged. At first, however, there were few who dared to voice their protests. "As the royal policy disclosed itself," says Green, "as the monarchy trampled under foot the tradition and reverence of ages gone by, as its figure rose, bare and terrible, out of the wreck of old institutions, England simply held her breath. It is only through the stray depositions of royal spies that we catch a glimpse of the wrath and hate which lay seething under the silence of the people." That silence was a silence of terror. To use the figure by which Erasmus describes the time, men felt "as if a scorpion lay sleeping under every stone." They stopped writing, gossiping, going to confession, and sending presents for the most thoughtless word or deed might be tortured into treason against the king by the command of Cromwell.

The rebellion which followed the first attack upon the monasteries was not caused wholly by religious sentiments. The nobles regarded Cromwell as a base-born usurper and yearned for his fall, while the clergy felt outraged by his monstrous claims of authority in ecclesiastical affairs. In a sense the conflict that ensued was but a continuation of the long-standing struggle between the king, the barons, and the clergy for the supreme power. From the reign of Edward I., the people had commenced to assert their rights and the struggle had become a four-sided one.

These four factions were constantly shifting their allegiance, according to the varying conditions, and guided by their changing interests. At this time, the clergy, the nobles and the people in northern England, particularly, combined against the king, although the alliance was not formidable enough to overcome the forces supporting the king.

The secular clergy felt that they were disgraced and coerced into submission. They felt their revenues, their honors, their powers, their glory, slipping away from them; they joined their mutterings and discontent with that of the monks, and then the fires of the rebellion blazed forth in the north, where the monasteries were more popular than in any other part of England.

The first outbreak occurred in Lincolnshire, in the autumn of 1536. It was easily and quickly suppressed. But another uprising in Yorkshire, in northern England, followed immediately, and for a time threatened serious consequences. Some of the best families in that part of the country joined the revolt, although it is noteworthy that these same families were afterwards Protestant and Puritan; the rebel army numbered about forty thousand men, well equipped for service. Many prominent abbots and sixteen hundred monks were in the ranks. The masses were bound by oath "to stand together for the love which they bore to Almighty God, His faith, the Holy Church, and the maintenance thereof; to the preservation of the king's person and his issue; to the purifying of the nobility, and to expel all villein blood and evil counsellors from the king's presence; not from any private profit, nor to do his pleasure to any private person, nor to slay or murder through envy, but for the restitution of the Church, and the suppression of heretics and their opinions." It is clear, from the language of the oath, that the rebels aimed their blows at Cromwell. The secular clergy hated him because he had shorn them of their power; the monks hated him because he had turned them out of their cloisters, and clergy and people loathed him as a maintainer of heresy, a low-born foe of the Church. The insurgents carried banners on which was printed a crucifix, a chalice and host, and the five wounds, hence they called themselves "Pilgrims of Grace." The revolt was headed by Robert Aske, a barrister.

Cromwell acted most cautiously; he selected the strongest men to take the field. Richard Cromwell said of one of them, Sir John Russell, "for my lord admiral, he is so earnest in the matter that I dare say he could eat the Pilgrims without salt." The Duke of Norfolk was entrusted with the command of the king's forces.

Henry preferred negotiation to battle, in accepting which the rebels were doomed. To wait was to fail. Their demands reduced to paper were: 1. The religious houses should be restored. 2. England should be reunited with Rome. 3. The first fruits and tenths should not be paid to the crown. 4. Heretics, meaning Cranmer, Latimer and others, should cease to be bishops. 5. Catharine's daughter Mary should be restored as heiress to the crown. These and other demands, the granting of which would have meant the death of the Reformation, were firmly refused by the king, who marveled that ignorant churls, "brutes and inexpert folk" should talk of theological and political subjects to him and to his council.

After several ineffectual attempts to meet the royal army in battle, partly due to storms and lack of subsistence, the rebels were induced to disperse and a general amnesty was declared. But new insurrections broke out in various quarters, and the enraged king determined to stamp out the smoldering fires of sedition. About seventy-five persons were hanged, and many prominent men were imprisoned and afterwards executed. This effectually suppressed the rebellion.

The revolt showed the strength of the opponents to the king's will, but it also proved conclusively that the monarchy was the strongest power in the realm; that the star of ecclesiastical domination had set forever in England; that henceforth English kings and not Italian popes were to govern the English people. True, the king was carrying things with a high hand, but one reform at a time; the yoke of papal power must first be lifted, even if at the same time the king becomes despotic in the exercise of his increased power. Once free from Rome, constitutional rights may be asserted and the power of an absolute monarchy judiciously restricted.

Following the Pilgrimage of Grace came the complete overthrow of the monastic system by the dissolution of the larger monasteries.

_Henry's Disposal of Monastic Revenues_

What use did Henry make of the revenues that fell into his hands? As soon as the vast estates of the monks were under the king's control, he was besieged by nobles, "praying for an estate." They kneeled before him and specified what lands they wanted. They bribed Cromwell, who sold many of the estates at the rate of a twenty years' purchase, and in some instances presented valuable possessions to the king's followers. Many families, powerful in England at the present time, date the beginning of their wealth and position to the day when their ancestors received their share of the king's plunder.

The following interesting passage from Sir Edward Coke's Institutes, shows that Henry sought to quiet the fears of the people by making the most captivating promises concerning the decrease of taxes, and other magnificent schemes for the general welfare: "On the king's behalf, the members of both houses were informed in Parliament that no king or kingdom was safe but where the king had three abilities: 1. To live of his own and able to defend his kingdom upon any sudden invasion or insurrection. 2. To aid his confederates, otherwise they would never assist him. 3. To reward his well-deserving servants. Now the project was, that if Parliament would give unto him all the abbeys, priories, friaries, nunneries, and other monasteries, that forever in time then to come he would take order that the same should not be converted to private uses, but first, that his exchequer, for the purpose aforesaid, should be enriched; secondly, the kingdom should be strengthened by a continual maintenance of forty thousand well-trained soldiers; thirdly, for the benefit and ease of the subject, who never afterwards (as was projected), in any time to come, should be charged with subsidies, fifteenths, loans or other common aids; fourthly, lest the honor of the realm should receive any diminution of honor by the dissolution of the said monasteries, there being twenty-nine lords of Parliament of the abbots and priors, ... that the king would create a number of nobles."

The king was granted the revenues of the monasteries. About half the money was expended in coast defences and a new navy; and much of it was lavished upon his courtiers. With the exception of small pensions to the monks and the establishment of a few benefices, very little of the splendid revenue was ever devoted to religious or educational purposes. Small sums were set apart for Cambridge, Oxford and new grammar schools. Not-withstanding the pensions, there was much suffering; it is said many of the outcast monks and nuns starved and froze to death by the roadside. Latimer and others wanted the king to employ the revenues for religious purposes, but Henry evidently thought the church had enough and refused. He did, however, intend to allot eighteen thousand pounds a year for eighteen new bishoprics, but once the gold was in his possession, his pious intentions suffered a decline, and he established only six, with inferior endowments, five of which exist to-day.

_Was the Suppression Justifiable?_

It is quite common to restrict this inquiry to a consideration of the report made by the commissioners against the monks, and to the methods employed by them in their investigations. The implication is that if the accusations against the monasteries can be discredited, or if it can be shown that the motives of the destroyers were selfish and their methods cruel, then it follows that the overthrow of the monasteries was a most iniquitous and unwarrantable proceeding. Reflection will show that the question cannot be so restricted. It may be found that the monastic institution should have been destroyed, even though the charges against the monks were grossly exaggerated, the motives of the king unworthy, and the means he employed despicable.

At the outset a few facts deserve mention. It is usual for Protestants to recall with pride the glorious heroism of Protestant martyrs, but it should be remembered that Roman Catholicism also has had its martyrs. Protestant powers have not been free from tyranny and bloodshed. That noble spirit of self-sacrifice which has glorified many a character in history is not to be despised in one who dies for what we may pronounce to be false.

It must also be granted that the action of the king was not dictated by a pure passion for religious reform. Indeed it is a fair question whether Henry may be claimed by the Protestants at all. Aside from his rejection of the pope's authority, he was thoroughly Catholic in conviction and in practice. His impatience with the pope's position respecting his divorce, his need of money, his love of power, and many other personal considerations determined his attitude toward the papacy.

It should also be freely conceded that the royal commissioners were far from exemplary characters, and that they were often insolent and cruel in the prosecution of their work.

"Our posterity," says John Bale, "may well curse this wicked fact of our age; this unreasonable spoil of England's most noble antiquities." "On the whole," says Blunt, "it may be said that we must ever look back on that destruction as a series of transactions in which the sorrow, the waste, the impiety that were wrought, were enough to make the angels weep. It may be true that the monastic system had worn itself out for practical good; or at least, that it was unfitted for those coming ages which were to be so different from the ages that were past. But slaughter, desecration and wanton destruction, were no remedies for its sins, or its failings; nor was covetous rapacity the spirit of reformation."

Hume observes that "during times of faction, especially of a religious kind, no equity is to be expected from adversaries; and as it was known that the king's intention in this visitation was to find a pretext for abolishing the monasteries, we may naturally conclude that the reports of the commissioners are very little to be relied upon." Hallam declares that "it is impossible to feel too much indignation at the spirit in which the proceedings were conducted."