The confiscation of such Roman Catholic church property as had been
spared was now renewed (S352). The result of this confiscation and of
the abandonment of Catholicism as the established form of worship was
in certain respects disastrous to the country. In the general
break-up, many who had been held in restraint by the old form of faith
now went to the other extreme, and rejected all religion.
Part of the money obtained from the sale of church property was
devoted, mainly through Edward's influence, to the endowment of
upwards of forty grammar schools, besides a number of hospitals, in
different sections of the country. But for a long time the
destruction of the monastic schools (SS45, 60), poor as many of them
had become, was a serious blow to the education of the common people.