THE MONASTERIES
The suppression of the English monasteries, though in one sense but a
single branch of Cromwell’s internal administration, still deserves to
be considered in a separate chapter. Of all the changes that followed
the breach with Rome, none bears as plainly as this the stamp of
Cromwellian origin. The sinister genius of the King’s minister
particularly fitted him for this task of destruction, and his title of
_malleus-monachorum_ is thoroughly well deserved. Cromwell’s intent in
suppressing the monasteries was obviously, like that of all the rest of
his internal administration, the strengthening of the Crown: how far his
measures were successful in accomplishing what was expected of them must
be determined not only from their immediate effects, but also from the
developments which later resulted from them.
It has been pointed out in an earlier chapter that the state of the
lesser monasteries was far from satisfactory in Cromwell’s time; but
that in spite of this, when Wolsey’s agents suppressed a few of them in
order to convert their revenues to the use of the Cardinal’s cherished
colleges, a loud cry of indignation was immediately raised among the
rural population. During his first few years in Wolsey’s service
Cromwell had acquired sufficient experience to master at least the
elementary principles of monastic confiscation, but before he had gone
half as far as he had probably intended, his master’s attainder and his
own consequent change of life had temporarily interrupted the work. We
have seen that as soon as the King had arbitrarily assumed the Headship
of the Church of England, Cromwell immediately cast about for means to
secure him in his new position. To this end he had weakened the bishops
and also the lesser clergy; the dissolution of the monasteries
immediately presented itself to him as a consistent method of following
up these measures. It all tended in the same direction of severing
England’s connexion with Rome and of establishing the Royal Supremacy.
The scheme of suppressing the monasteries also promised great things
from a financial point of view; Cromwell could have hit upon no better
plan than this to aid him to fulfil his promise to make Henry ‘the
richest King that ever was in Christendom.’ If the idea of dissolving
the religious houses in order to increase the wealth of the Crown, had
occurred to Henry during Wolsey’s administration, he would hardly have
dared to carry it out while there was any chance of avoiding a breach
with the Pope; but now the course of events had converted the only
objection to the plan into an argument in its favour. There was
certainly nothing in the conscience of the King or of his minister to
deter them from such a step, when so much advantage both political and
financial promised to result from it.
In January, 1535, two documents appeared--the first, a royal commission
to Thomas Cromwell authorizing him as the King’s Vicar-general to
undertake a general visitation of churches, monasteries, and clergy, and
to depute others to act as his agents; the second consisting of a series
of formal inquiries to be made concerning the state of the religious
houses, and royal injunctions for their reform. The latter is written in
a strange hand, copiously interlined and corrected by that of the King’s
minister[387]. The decrees were quickly put in operation. By the month
of August in the same year Cromwell’s two agents, Legh and Ap-Rice, were
hard at work among the Wiltshire monasteries, and sent in their reports
to their master full of ludicrously pathetic lamentations, when unable
to trump up any plausible charges against the monks[388]. Doctor Richard
Layton, who had come under Cromwell’s notice at the time of the trials
of More and Fisher, sent him a request for employment on the same
mission, and eventually got permission to go to Gloucestershire[389].
He had made a preliminary visitation at Bath and Farley, and while there
had aroused the jealousy and hatred of Legh, who wrote to Cromwell
complaining that he was not sufficiently severe, and urging the
necessity of uniformity of action[390]. A great many grumbling letters
of this kind were sent to Cromwell by his visitors. Layton and Ap-Rice
were not slow to revenge themselves on Legh by reporting to the
Vicar-general the pride, arrogance, ‘sumptuus vsage, and roughe
fasshyon’ of their hated colleague[391].
The bad character of Cromwell’s agents, and the devices to which they
were forced to have recourse in order to extort from the monks the
information they desired, furnish ample proof of the unfairness of many
of the reports which they made. The ‘Commissioners found means,’ as it
has been significantly stated, ‘to make divers monasteries
obnoxious[392].’ Cromwell had taken special pains that the efforts of
his agents should not be hindered by any external interference: it was
to this end that he had issued the Prohibitory Letter to the bishops in
the month of September[393]. Legh, Layton, and Ap-Rice were left a
perfectly clear field, and devoted themselves to examining into the
monastic discipline, and to inducing discontented monks to accuse their
fellows. The arrogant Legh was especially efficient in this particular,
as is shown by the letters Cromwell received from the monasteries he had
visited. One monk wrote to the Vicar-general that the inmates of his
house cared nothing for true religion, but came to mattins ‘as dronck as
myss and [played] sume at cardes, sume at dyyss[394]’--and finally
imparted the significant piece of information that Cromwell’s visitors
had ordered him to write these opinions to head quarters. Another, John
Placett by name, sent cringing letters to the Vicegerent, begging that
his zeal in advancing the new doctrines and in reporting those who
opposed them, might be rewarded by official exemption from rising at
midnight and from observing the customary fasts[395]. Epistles of this
sort form the bulk of Cromwell’s correspondence during the years 1535
and 1536. The chief reason why the Vicar-general did not protest against
this flood of defamatory information, which through the efficiency of
the zealous Legh continually poured in upon him, lay probably in the
fact that along with these reports there came also letters of a somewhat
different nature which afforded him excellent opportunities for private
gain. ‘I submytt myselfe,’ wrote the Abbot of Rewley, ‘fulle and holle
to your mastershipp, as all my refuge, helpe, and socor is yn yow, glad
of my voluntarye mynde to be bounde in obligacion of one hunderd powndes
to be payed to your mastershipp, so that our house may be savyd[396].’
We may well believe that this proposal did not fall on deaf ears. Though
we do not possess the reply of Cromwell in this particular case, the
letters which he sent to the Priors of St. Faith’s and of Coxford in the
same year, indicate that he was as willing to accept bribes from the
heads of monasteries as from any one else[397].
Less crafty but scarcely less efficient than the untiring Legh was his
brutal colleague Layton. The Sussex monasteries which he visited in
October, 1535, were so unfortunate as to incur his particular
displeasure. He does not appear to have troubled himself, like Legh,
with devising means to make the monks accuse one another: he reported
everything to head quarters on his own responsibility, and wrote to
Cromwell how at one place he found the abbot the ‘varaste hayne betle
and buserde and the aranttes chorle’ he ever saw, while at another he
swore that his master would scarcely believe ‘quanta sit spurcities.’ He
concluded with two philosophic reflections that ‘sacerdotes omnes non
creati ex natura angelica, sed humana,’ and ‘that the blake sort of
dyvelisshe monkes ... be paste amendment[398].’ He possibly bore a
personal grudge against these southern houses; at least this seems a
likely explanation of the fact that later investigation showed them to
be no worse than ordinary, and especially popular with their
neighbours[399]. Layton, however, found willing listeners to his
accusations in the King and Cromwell, and a commission was sent down to
confiscate the property of the monasteries of Dover, Langdon, and
Folkestone, and to take the surrender of these houses into the King’s
hands. It was the first step of the great devastation which was to ensue
during the following four years.
The next scene of the visitors’ operations was in the northern counties.
Early in 1535 Layton had taken occasion to inform Cromwell that he and
Legh were particularly competent to carry on the work there. ‘Ther ys
nother monasterie, selle, priorie, nor any other religiouse howse in the
north,’ he wrote, ‘but other doctor Lee or I have familier acqwayntance
within x or xii mylles of hit.... We knowe and have experiens bothe of
the fassion off the contre and the rudenes of the pepull ... ther is
matter sufficient to detecte and opyn all coloryde sanctitie, all
supersticiouse rewlles of pretensyde religion, and other abusys
detestable of all sorttes[400].’ Cromwell certainly had no reason to be
dissatisfied with the results which his agents had already accomplished,
and doubtless welcomed their zeal to continue their labours in a new
field. With most astounding rapidity the visitation was carried
through: all the houses in the north had been reported on by the end of
February. There was certainly an object in having the work completed so
quickly, for Parliament had already met, and was prepared to take action
on the ‘comperta’ or catalogue of offences sent in by Cromwell’s agents.
The extraordinary hurry in which the latter part of their task was
accomplished, and the suspicious uniformity of the offences reported,
furnish a last and most cogent reason for doubting the truth of the
statements of the visitors. There must of course have been some
immorality in the monasteries: the abbots and heads of houses were
elected by the monks themselves, who were sure to have an eye to their
own ease, and would tend to choose those whose discipline was lax. But
it must be a prejudiced person indeed who will accept word for word the
catalogues of the religious persons reported guilty of the lowest and
most degrading forms of vice, which Legh and Layton seemed to delight in
sending to their master. Parliament, however, was too completely in
Cromwell’s hands fairly to judge of the character of the visitors, or of
the circumstances under which they drew up their ‘comperta,’ and the
report was strong and clear; so it was not long before the first Act for
the dissolution of the smaller monasteries was passed. The statute
declared that ‘all Relygeous Houses of Monkes Chanons and Nonnes, whiche
may not dyspend Manors, Landes, Tenementes, & Heredytamentes above the
clere yerly Value of ij C li. are geven to the Kinges Highnes, his
heires and successours for ever[401].’ Another Act was passed at the
same time establishing a Court of Augmentations of the King’s
revenue[402]. Power was given to this court to collect the spoils,
lands, and buildings of the suppressed abbeys, and dispose of them in
the way most profitable to the Crown. It consisted of a chancellor,
treasurer, solicitor, and thirty subordinates. The chief persons in it
were friends and hirelings of Cromwell’s. In April commissions were sent
to the principal men in every county[403], authorizing them to inquire
further into the state of each house, to make inventories and estimates
of their property, and to ascertain the number of monks who desired
‘capacities’ for entering secular life, and the number who intended to
remove to some other religious house. It is significant that the reports
of these men, concerning the character and morality of the inmates, are
uniformly of a more favourable description than those of Layton and
Legh.
The process of the surrender immediately followed the first visit of the
Commissioners. They sent in their report to the Court of Augmentations,
which then issued its final orders for the dissolution of the house, and
its conversion to the King’s use. A ‘receiver’ was appointed to plunder
the church, and sell the lead, bells, &c. An interesting letter, from an
agent of Cromwell’s to his master, sheds some light on the usual methods
of these officials. ‘We ar pluckyng down an hygher vaute,’ writes the
receiver, ‘borne up by fower thicke and grose pillars xiiij fote fro
syde to syde, abowt in circumference xlv fote ... we browght from London
xvij persons, 3 carpentars, 2 smythes, 2 plummars, and on that kepith
the fornace. Euery of these attendith to hys own office: x of them hewed
the walles abowte, amonge the whych ther were 3 carpentars: thiese made
proctes to undersette wher the other cutte away, thother brake and cutte
the waules[404].’ Coupled with reports like this, came curiously
confused accounts of the saleable articles of the house, which had been
disposed of, such as
_Item_ ij brasse pottes sold to Edward
Scudamor iiij^s
_Item_ a vestment and ij tynakles of old
prest velvet sold to Johan Savage baylyf xiij^s iiij^d
_Item_ ij pannes vi^d
_Item_ a cope of tawny damaske xij^d
_Item_ a image of Seynt Katerine sold to Lee vj^d
_Item_ sold to John Webbe the tymber worke of
the hyegh quyer, and a auter of alablaster
in the body of the churche ix^s viij^d[405].
It will be noticed that the sums for which these articles were sold,
were very small. It is said that not more than £100,000 were obtained
from the sale of the jewels, plate, lead, bells, and other valuables,
which were seized in the first suppression of the monasteries. The
annual incomes of the three hundred and seventy-six houses which were
suppressed, however, probably amounted to about £32,000, a sum which was
quite sufficient to render the measure a successful one from a financial
point of view.
In spite of the Act of Parliament, which declared that the monks were
either to be pensioned, or else moved to some other religious house,
there is no doubt that great misery and wretchedness invariably
accompanied the dissolutions. Chapuys writes: ‘It is a lamentable thing
to see a legion of monks and nuns, who have been chased from their
monasteries, wandering miserably hither and thither, seeking means to
live, and several honest men have told me, that what with monks, nuns,
and persons dependent on the monasteries suppressed, there were over
20,000, who knew not how to live[406].’ The Act for the protection of
the exiled inmates cannot have been at all strictly enforced, and there
were certainly many monks, to whom no homes or means of living were
assigned. Sir Henry Ellis has printed a document, concerning the
dissolution of some of the monasteries, which was written in 1591 by one
whose father and uncle witnessed the scenes he describes. It tells how
‘it would have made an heart of flint to have melted and wept to have
seen the breaking up of the House, and their sorrowful departing; and
the sudden spoil that fell the same day of their departure from the
House. And every person had everything good cheap; except the poor
Monks, Friars, and Nuns, that had no money to bestow of any thing.’ The
people entered the church, ‘and took what they found, and filched it
away.... It would have pitied any heart to see what tearing up of the
lead there was, and plucking up of boards, and throwing down of the
sparres; ... and the tombs in the Church (were) all broken, ... and all
things of price either spoiled, carped away, or defaced to the
uttermost[407].’ Nor is this tendency of the people of the
neighbourhood to plunder in the least to be wondered at. They knew that
as the monasteries were to be pulled down they would lose all the old
charities, easy rents, and other advantages to which they had so long
been accustomed, and they naturally wished to make good the loss.
Cromwell probably did not object to this ruthless waste as much as one
would expect, for he saw that if he attempted to stop it, the feeling
against the suppression would be so strong, that it would be impossible
to continue it. As it was, the famous rebellion of the Pilgrimage of
Grace, which broke out in the northern counties, just as the first
houses were being suppressed, gave him a terrible warning of the general
unpopularity of the change. The insurrection, however, was soon quelled,
and Cromwell’s genius was able to turn it to his own advantage, and make
it the pretext for carrying out the scheme which had probably been part
of his original plan, namely the suppression of all the monasteries; a
step which, without some valid excuse, he would have hardly dared to
take.
In 1537 the visitors began to go to the larger monasteries, and
intimidate their inmates into surrender, mainly by threatening them with
punishment for complicity in the rebellion which had just been put down.
An excellent example of the way in which this was done, is given by the
story of the suppression of the two large Cistercian abbeys in
Lancashire, Whalley and Furness[408]. John Pasleu, Abbot of Whalley, had
been executed in March, 1537, by the Earl of Sussex for his treason in
taking part in the Pilgrimage of Grace. The Earl was commended for this
action by the King, who further desired him with ‘good dexteritie’ to
‘laye unto the charges of all the monkes there their grevous offences,
... and therwith assaye their myndes, whither they woll conforme
themselfes gladly for the redubbing of their former trespaces to goo to
other houses of their cote ... or rather take capacities and soo receyve
seculer habite[409].’ The Abbot of Furness was doubtless threatened with
death if he refused to surrender his house, for a month after the
execution of his brother at Whalley, he signed a document, by virtue of
which he handed over to the King his abbey, and all its lands and
possessions, ‘knawyng the mysorder and evyll liff both unto God and our
prynce of the bredren of the said monasterie[410].’
Another method of intimidation was to threaten punishment for
superstition and image worship. Against the latter Henry’s minister was
particularly zealous. Some of the images were very valuable, and could
be sold for a high price. Two of the most extraordinary of the venerated
relics found in the ‘defacement’ of the monasteries have become famous
to posterity, under the names of the Rood of Grace, and the Blood of
Hailes. The former was a wonder-working crucifix, held in great
veneration at Boxley Abbey, which Geoffrey Chambers[411], an agent of
Cromwell’s, found full of ‘certen ingynes and olde wyer wyth olde roton
stykkes in the backe of the same, that dyd cause the eyes of the same to
move and stere in the hede thereof lyke unto a lyvelye thyng[412].’ It
was seized and exhibited, first in Kent, and then in London, and the
‘abusion thereof dyvulged.’ The Blood of Hailes was a phial of liquid,
which a tradition of three centuries asserted to have been the blood of
the Saviour[413]. The head of the monastery brought it to Cromwell in
great perplexity, swearing that he was willing to suffer the most
shameful death, if the phial had been meddled with in his day. A
commission, appointed to inquire into it, took the liquid out of the
phial, and found it to be a thick, red, sticky substance. They then gave
it back to the abbot, to keep until he heard the King’s pleasure
concerning it. Meantime Bishop Hilsey had preached a sermon in
denunciation of the fraud, in which he asserted that a former abbot had
told his paramour that the phial contained only drake’s blood; but he
was later compelled to take back this last statement, as a result of the
Commissioners’ inquiry. What ultimately became of the Blood of Hailes
has remained a mystery, but it is noteworthy that Cromwell was so
annoyed, at having unearthed a relic which proved valueless from a
financial point of view, that when the ‘bluddy abbot,’ as Latimer called
him, came to consult him about it, he was forced to pay £140, his best
mitre, cross, and ‘another thyng or two,’ to make good the amount which
Cromwell had expected to obtain from the relic. The iconoclastic zeal of
the Vicar-general varied in proportion to the value of the image[414].
The first Act of dissolution had only given to the King the monasteries
of which the annual income was less than £200. But now that Cromwell, on
the plea of complicity in the late rebellion, had contrived to bring in
all the larger religious houses, so that a general suppression had in
fact begun, a fresh Act was needed to legalize his proceedings. So in
the spring of 1539, a new statute was passed for the dissolution of all
monasteries and abbeys[415]. But long before this the main part of the
work had been accomplished. When the monks refused to be terrorized into
submission, attainder and death invariably followed. It is but justice
to Cromwell’s agents to say, however, that their methods of intimidation
were so highly effectual that attainder was the exception, and surrender
the rule. The Commissioners may well have been surprised that any of the
abbots dared to stand out against them.
From 1537 to the end of 1539, the story of the suppression of the
monasteries is simply a catalogue of houses surrendered or confiscated,
on more or less unjust pretexts. So rapidly and thoroughly did Cromwell
and his Commissioners accomplish the work, that by the end of December
no monastery in the country had been left untouched, except Westminster
Abbey, and a few other larger houses. The climax of cruelty and
injustice was reached in the executions of the Abbots of Glastonbury and
Reading. Cromwell’s famous remembrance concerning the latter was
literally obeyed. There was no pretence of a fair hearing of his case.
He was sent down ‘_to be tryed and excecutyd_,’ as Cromwell had ordered
it[416]. The punishment of the Abbot of Glastonbury was, if possible,
even more unjust. Though weak and broken with age and illness, he was
arrested and sent up to the Tower, simply on the charge of having in his
monastery a book against the King’s divorce, divers pardons and bulls,
and a printed life of Becket[417]. It is stated that on examination
Cromwell discovered that he had lent money to the rebels in the
Pilgrimage of Grace, but it mattered little whether this serious charge
was proved or not. His execution was determined on long beforehand, and
his rich and ancient abbey was plundered immediately after his arrest.
His fate was sealed long before his mock trial at Wells took place; the
verdict of the ‘worshypfull jury’ was of course ‘guilty,’ and he was
executed two days later on Glastonbury Tor[418].
Hand in hand with the suppression of the monasteries came the fall of
the various houses of the friars. This had probably been a part of
Cromwell’s scheme from the very first; it will be remembered that
several houses suffered in the early part of his ministry, as a penalty
for permitting their inmates to preach against the King’s divorce. A
sort of preliminary visitation had been carried on in 1534, at
Cromwell’s command, by his agents Browne and Hilsey[419]: but a far more
energetic person was found in Richard Ingworth, Bishop of Dover, who, on
the 6th of February, 1538, was commissioned by the Vicar-general to
carry on a second investigation, in which he was to visit all the houses
of the various orders of friars in England, to examine into and correct
abuses, and to expel and punish the guilty inmates[420]. As he refers to
the King’s Vicegerent, as his ‘synguler helper for XII yeres past[421],’
there is reason to think that he had been an intimate of Cromwell’s
before the latter had entered the royal service: it is possible that
they had worked together in the suppression of the monasteries which
furnished funds for Wolsey’s colleges. A greater traveller than Ingworth
could scarcely have been found in those days. The number of houses he
visited during the first six months of 1538 is perfectly amazing, but
with all his energy, Richard of Dover was far less efficient than his
terrible master. When he hesitatingly wrote to Cromwell to ask whether
he should meddle with the White Friars of Winchester, he received a
smart rebuke for his doubts, and was told that though he had changed his
friar’s habit, he had not changed his friar’s heart[422]. The
Vicar-general found it necessary to give him a coadjutor, and chose a
singularly apt man for his purpose in Dr. John London, Warden of New
College, Oxford, who received a special commission with the mayor and
two others to ‘loke vpon’ the friars of that town[423]. The friars gave
the Commissioners more trouble than the monks. They seemed to have
secret ways of learning when the visitors were going to arrive, and
either carefully hid, or else sold all their valuables beforehand, a
fact which affords the most probable explanation of the amount of
poverty reported by the visitors. Still the houses fell without ceasing;
if not by voluntary surrender, by compulsion. Nor did the visitors
hesitate in the case of nunneries, to resort to the most shameful
devices to elicit a surrender. London’s conduct was so disgraceful, that
Cromwell was obliged to recognize the justice of the complaints of the
Abbess of Godstow against him, and ‘steye his procedinges[424].’ ‘Doctor
Londone,’ wrote the abbess to the Vicar-general, ‘whiche ... was
ageynste my promotyon and hathe ever sence borne me greate malys and
grudge like my mortall enmye, is sodenlie cummyd unto me withe a greate
rowte with him, and here dothe threten me and my susters, sayeng that he
hathe the kynges commyssyon to suppres the house spyte of my
tethe[425].’ It appears that London himself wrote to Cromwell the day
after to beg him to favour the abbess and her sisters[426]. Did he
perhaps feel that he had gone too far, or are we to infer that his usual
methods were even more brutal than this?
And thus the work was finished. Within five years of the time that the
first visitation of the monasteries had begun, a complete devastation of
all the religious houses had been accomplished, and a torrent of wealth
had been poured in upon the Crown, ‘such,’ says Hallam, ‘as has seldom
been equalled in any country, by the confiscations following a subdued
rebellion[427].’ The suppression which included the larger houses was
evidently a far greater financial success than the first. A new device
for gaining revenue had been invented, and put in operation during the
last few years. It consisted in imposing a fine on every place in which
a religious house had existed, ‘for the toleracyon and contynuaunce of
the monastery ther[428]’; an ingenious device, which yielded a most
substantial income. ‘The King had then in his hand,’ says Burnet, ‘the
greatest opportunity of making royal and noble foundations that ever
King of England had. But whether out of policy, to give a general
content to the gentry by selling to them at low rates, or out of
easiness to his courtiers, or out of an unmeasured lavishness of
expense, it came far short of what he had given out he would do.... He
designed to convert £18,000 into a revenue for eighteen bishoprics and
cathedrals. But of these he only erected six.... Great sums were indeed
laid out on building and fortifying many ports in the Channel, and other
parts of England[429].’
Lacking any evidence from the sources on the subject of the use to which
the revenues from the suppression of the monasteries were put, one must
judge from this passage, and from subsequent events. An Act giving Henry
the power to erect bishoprics by letters patent, was passed in
Parliament, May 23, 1539[430]. It was by the authority of this statute,
that the King founded the six new bishops’ sees above mentioned, and
also converted some of the old houses, such as Beverley, Ripon, and
Manchester, into collegiate churches. But the passage in Burnet also
hints at other methods of employing the money gained from the
suppression of the monasteries, which it seems likely that Cromwell
suggested. The use of the funds to strengthen the coast defences along
the Channel was always one of his favourite schemes; it is probable that
he found no difficulty in persuading the King how necessary such a
precaution was, in view of the danger of foreign invasion, which
threatened England at the close of 1539. But the plan of selling the
lands of the confiscated houses to the nobles at low prices, is even
more Cromwellian. It immediately reminds the reader of the course which
Wolsey, ten years before, had pursued at his servant’s advice, when he
bought off the popular hatred by grants out of his own lands and
revenues. Cromwell plainly saw that after the suppression, steps must be
taken to ensure the permanence of the reform he had effected. By
judicious grants he turned aside the hatred of some of the rural gentry,
who were at first opposed to the destruction of the monasteries, and
thus, by rendering the work popular at home, he secured himself and it
from the attacks of Catholic potentates abroad. But his action at this
juncture had another more subtle and more important result. For by the
grants which he made to the rural gentry, he laid the basis for the
foundation of a territorial aristocracy, destined at a later day to
wrest from the Crown the power which he had wrung from the older
nobility, lay and clerical. This after-effect of Cromwell’s policy,
which was in direct opposition to the aims of his government, did not
take place till long after his fall. It was rendered possible solely by
the movement of events over which he had no control, and he could have
scarcely anticipated it. But it is only fair to mention it here, in
order that we may be able to look on the suppression of the monasteries
and its after-effects as a connected whole. If we do this, the cruelty
and treachery of Cromwell and his agents in gaining their ends will not
make us blind to the fact, that in the end the destruction of the
religious houses in England certainly accomplished other and better
results than those it was originally intended to compass.