1

reinforces the Catholic Articles by an appeal to the Prayer Book, as strongly making for Catholic faith and practice. There can be no doubt that this is the historic position of the Church of England, Protestant as against Roman corruptions, Catholic as against private judgment, the return to the Bible as the only guide without reference to the fathers and "historical continuity," and the priesthood of all believers. "We are come as near as we possibly can," says Bishop Jewel, "to the Church of the apostles, and to the old Catholic bishops and fathers, and have directed according to their customs not only our doctrine, but also the sacraments and the form of Common Prayer." "We doubt not," said Ferrar and Coverdale, "but we shall be able to prove all our confession here to be most true, by the verity of God's word and the consent of the Catholic Church." One of the canons of 1571 warns the preachers that they "shall take heed that they teach nothing but that which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old Testament and the New, and that which the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops have gathered out of that very doctrine." These great voices from the fountain-head meet a voice equally great-albeit that of a layman-of the present age. "It is mere fiction," says Gladstone, "that the English Reformation was grounded on the doctrine of private judgment. It asserted merely this: that the nation was ecclesiastically independent, not of Catholic consent, but of foreign authority." "

1

1 Apology, Isaacson's transl., pp. 243, 279.

Church and State, ii, 96. See Lendrum, The Principles of the Reformation, Lond., new ed., 1888, pp. 12–20.

2

CHAPTER V.

THE SUPPRESSION OF MONASTERIES.

THE inappeasable rapacity of Henry VIII and the extraordinary extravagance of himself and his court led him to seek new fields for spoliation. The monasteries were suggested. The suppression of these was an event of wide-reaching importance on the religious life of England.

England was a happy hunting ground for all orders of monks and friars. In a territory hardly larger than the State of New York there were at the beginning of the fifteenth century twelve hundred religious houses, and although after Henry IV came to the throne, 1399, there was a notable decline in the number of new houses founded-an indication of a dawning age of a different temper there were still about eight hundred houses on which Henry VIII could lay his hands.' Precedents were not entirely lacking. The Knights Templars had been dissolved, 1307. Henry V broke up a number of "alien priories "-cells or branches of French monasteries whose inmates might be dangerous while he was carrying on his war with France; Wolsey had abolished several in order with their resources and revenues to found his two colleges. In all these cases, however, no one's private purse was enriched; but with Henry and his unscrupulous minister, Cromwell, the object was entirely mercenary. Commissioners were sent out

to visit the monasteries armed with eighty-six articles of inquiry and twenty-five injunctions, and these were of so vexatious and threatening a character that it is evident that it was not the intention of the visitors to find out the real state of the houses, but to bear so hardly upon the inmates as to compel them to resign or to be expelled as contumacious. They also had the authority to seize all silver plate and other valuables, and send to the king; and one

2

'From 1066 to 1399 there were 870 religious houses founded in England, 78 colleges, and 192 hospitals; many of the colleges were monastic. From 1399 to 1509 there were only 8 new houses founded, while in the same period there were founded 60 colleges, hospitals, and schools.-Dixon, Hist. of Church of England, i, 319, note.

Articles of inquiry and injunctions are printed in Wilkins, Concilia, iii, 786.

HENRY AWES

1

of their injunctions was to forbid any monk to leave the precinct of the monastery. This rendered the continuance of some of the monasteries impossible, and brought about their "voluntary" dissolution. After the visitors had done their work a bill was brought into Parliament, February, 1536, dissolving the smaller monasteries and confiscating all their possessions and revenues "unto the king's majesty, and to his heirs and assigns forever, to do and use therewith his and their own wills, to the pleasure of Almighty God, and to the honor and profit of this realm." Parliament PARLIAMENT. was unwilling to make this grant, but in true Henrician style they were awed into submission. "When the bill had stuck long in the lower house, and could get no passage, he commanded the Commons to attend him in the forenoon in his gallery, where he left them wait till late in the afternoon; and then coming out of his chamber, walking a turn or two amongst them, and looking angrily on them, first on the one side and then on the other, at last I hear (saith he) that my bill will not pass; but I will have it pass, or I will have some of your heads; and without other rhetoric or persuasion returned to his chamber. Enough was said, the bill passed, and all was given to him as he desired."*

THE

The suppression of these monasteries and other changes in the religion of the realm, and the tyranny with which these changes were carried out, aroused the northern counties to an armed demonstration called the Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536. The pilgrims demanded that the king should put away those ministers who were the instruments of his rapacity, that he should give PILGRIMAGE the commonalty their rights, "restore "restore to Christ's Church all wrongs done to it, and bring back again the faith of Christ and his laws." The leaders of these armed petitioners and many who sympathized with them were executed for treason. The movement was not treason, but an unfriendly demonstration against unpopular measures. The wholesale and indiscriminate executions which followed it, including the burning

OF GRACE.

This act is printed in full in Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church History, pp. 257 ff.

2 Sir Henry Spelman, History and Fate of Sacrilege, ed. S. J. Eales, Lond., 1888, p. 99. This great book was finished about 1634. It began to be printed in 1663 by Spelman's literary executor, but was stopped for fear of giving offense to nobility and gentry. It was first published in 1698, and republished in 1846, with a long introductory essay by Webb and Neale. This remarkable essay is reproduced in Eales's excellent edition.

'See Burke, Historical Portraits of Tudor Dynasty, i, 481 ff.; Blunt, Reformation, i, 319–326.

of one woman, are in keeping with the spirit of a reign which sacrificed on the altar of its despotism about eighty thousand people, some justly, the most unjustly.

2

THE DISPOSI

SPOILS.

Some of

In 1537 and 1538 the larger monasteries were attacked and suppressed, and this was followed by a destruction of relics and shrines.' Everything was confiscated by the king, what was left was carried away by the neighborhood folks, and the walls served as local quarries. It is supposed that the value of the property which came into the king's hands was over fifty millions of pounds of present money. A part of the money went back to the Church. Six new bishoprics-Westminster, Ox- TION OF THE ford, Chester, Gloucester, Bristol, and Peterborowere founded, and seven chapters of other cathedrals. the monasteries were allowed to remain in part of their original splendor as collegiate churches, of which Beverley, Southwell, Manchester, Wolverhampton, and Ripon may be mentioned as examples; occasionally a monastic church was left untouched, such as St. Albans, Sherborne, Shrewsbury, Hexham, and others. "It is possible that the intercession of Cranmer, who wished that many monasteries should be turned into colleges, of Latimer, who desired to see one retained as a place of holy retirement in each county, and of some persons in the neighborhood of dissolved monasteries, who wished to have the use of the churches, may have saved some from destruction; and it is to the credit of the king in the midst of his rapacity and sacrilege that he did not turn a deaf ear to such appeals. With them also must be classed the successful appeal of Sir Richard Gresham in favor of St. Thomas's and St. Bartholomew's Hospitals; and a few grammar schools which were founded by Henry VIII may likewise be considered as fragments rescued from the millions of spoils which he took from religious uses.

The act for the suppression of the larger monasteries is given by Gee and Hardy, pp. 281-303.

1 Canterbury, Durham, Winchester, Ely, Carlisle, Norwich, and Worcester. These cathedrals had hitherto been served by monks. These thirteen cathedrals, are, therefore, called those of the new foundation.

3

Blunt, Reformation of Church of England, i, 372. It must not be supposed that this represents all that was saved from the king's rapacious maw. In the account of the Treasurer of the Court of Augmentation, from April 24, 1536, to Michaelmas (September 29), 1547, we have among the disbursements: War expenses, £546,528; naval matters, £27,922; coast fortifications, £64,458; pensions to religions, £33,045. For the king's household expenses and money for the king's use we have £274,086. See Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries, Lond., 1888; 5th ed., 1893, ii, 534.

2

Henry's executions, in fact, were often on the wholesale, like those of oriental despots. A band of robbers attacked some of his treasure wagons; he caught eighty and hanged them all. It was only by the long entreaties of Wolsey, Queen Catharine, Mary of France, and Margaret of Scotland, that he was induced to countermand his order for the execution of eight hundred riotous men and boys and eleven women after "Evil May Day." He ordered a goodly number of the inhabitants of every town and village which had helped the Holy Pilgrimage, and also all the monks and canons who were implicated in it, to be strung up as an example. The cool brutality of this universal murderer is only equaled by Henry's lust, rapacity, and ingratitude.

It used to be considered that Henry's suppression of the monasteries was due to virtuous indignation against intolerable corruption. Historical research has completely dissipated that idea. (1) It has been proved beyond question that some of the visitors or

UNJUST
METHODS

OF SUP-
PRESSION.

991

commissioners were conscienceless scoundrels, whose word was worthless and whose methods were unscrupulous. "They were men," says quaint Fuller, "who well understood the method they went on, and would not come back without a satisfactory answer to him that sent them, knowing themselves were likely to be no losers thereby.' (2) The king refers to the monks' own confessions of vice. But these confessions do not exist, except one or two cases which were drawn up by the commissioners and perhaps signed by them. "There is no doubt," says Gardiner, "that the confessions were prepared beforehand to deceive contemporaries, and there is therefore no reason why they should deceive posterity."" (3) When the actual cases of sin mentioned by the visitors are canvassed it is found that they accuse scarcely two hundred and fifty monks and nuns among many thousands. Of the entire number of convents visited in the north very little is reported amiss. (4) Of these two hundred and fifty accused many received pensions afterward, which is a fair acquittal. Prior Wingfield, of West Acre, and twelve of his monks were charged with incontinency, and the priory suppressed. Yet he received a pension of £40 a year and became rector of Burnham Thorpe, in Norfolk, in the reign of Edward VI. (5) In 1536 several monasteries were visited again by another commission. On almost all of these the reports are favorable.' (6) Strype says that

1 Ch. Hist. of Britain, ii, 214, ed. Nichols.

2 Students' Hist. of England, p. 398. Comp. Gasquet, i, 347-353.

3 Gairdner, Calendar of State Papers, x, Pref. xlv; Gasquet, i, 356.