foretaste of the wrath to come, hastened to proclaim their adhesion to
the new theological autocracy, and means not the most gentle were found
to persuade the remainder. The Carthusians of the Charter House of
London gave especial trouble, and the contest between them and the king
affords a vivid picture of the times. There is something very affecting
in the account given by Strype of the humble but resolute resignation
with which the prior and his monks prepared themselves for martyrdom in
vindication of the papal supremacy.[1145] Their courage was soon put to
the test. Between the 27th of April and the 4th of August, 1535, the
prior and eleven of his monks were put to death with all the horrors of
the punishment for high treason;[1146] but neither this nor the efforts
of a new and more loyal prior were able to produce submission. In 1536
ten of the most unyielding were sent to other houses, where several
of them were subsequently executed, and in 1537 ten more were thrown
into Newgate, where nine of them died almost immediately—it is to be
presumed from the rigor of their confinement and the foulness of the
jail. In 1539 the few that remained were expelled; the house was seized
and used as an arsenal, until it was given to Sir Edward North, who
changed it into a residence, pulling down the cloisters and converting
the church into his parlor.[1147]
The most conspicuous of the recalcitrants, however, was the powerful
order of the Franciscans. These refused the oath exacted of them,
causing no little trouble, and affording a cover for the intrigues
of that large body of the clergy who were dissatisfied with the
innovations, but afraid of open opposition.[1148] This precipitated the
ruin of the monastic orders, which could not, under any circumstances,
have been long delayed, and a general visitation was considered
the most effective means of encompassing their destruction. It was
accordingly ordered in 1535, and as their immorality and neglect of
their sacred duties had passed almost into a proverb, there was not
much difficulty in accumulating evidence to justify the measure.
The visitation was commanded to examine into the foundation, title,
history, condition of discipline, and number and character of the
inmates of all religious houses;[1149] and, as might have been
expected, the report disclosed a state of affairs which called for the
immediate removal of so foul a source of corruption and scandal. The
visitors had their work assigned them in advance, and they performed it
thoroughly; but we cannot assume that the evils which they described
were the creation of their own invention to gratify the wishes and
advance the purposes of their master.
One of the earliest abbeys visited was that of Langdon, where the
visitor, Dr. Leighton, suddenly breaking open the abbot’s door, found
him with his concubine, whose disguise as a man was discovered secreted
in a coffer. Leighton’s account of this little adventure “scribullede
this Satterday,” to his patron, Cromwell, is full of humor, showing how
thoroughly he enjoyed his success, and how fully he was assured that
the Secretary would likewise be gratified by it.[1150] Bishop Burnet’s
general summary of the result of the visitation asserts that “for the
lewdness of the confessors of nunneries, and the great corruption of
that state, whole houses being found almost all with child; for the
dissoluteness of abbots and the other monks and friars, not only with
whores, but married women; and for their unnatural lusts and other
brutal practices; these are not fit to be spoken of, much less enlarged
on, in a work of this nature. The full report of the visitation is
lost, yet I have seen an extract of a part of it, concerning 144
houses, that contains abominations in it equal to any that were in
Sodom.”[1151]
The good bishop was not likely to extenuate what he had read, but
we yet may readily believe the truth of his account of it, for we
cannot assume that the charges were manufactured, like the accusations
against the Templars, for the purpose of serving as an excuse for
confiscation. The monasteries were not likely to have improved in
morals since Archbishop Morton described a similar condition of affairs
half a century earlier; nor is there any ground for imagining them
better than their Continental contemporaries, whose lapses were the
subject of animadversion by censors favorable to the monastic system.
Scarce anything, indeed, can be conceived worse than the condition of
the German convents as described in a document drawn up by command of
the Emperor Ferdinand to stimulate the sluggishness of the council of
Trent.[1152] A short account of “The Manner of Dissolving the Abbeys,”
by a contemporary,[1153] states the result of the visitation in
terms even stronger than those of Burnet, and Strype gives some most
suggestive extracts from the report of the visitation of the diocese of
Litchfield.[1154] Descriptions of the disorders of special houses are
very frequent in the private letters of the visitors and commissioners
to Cromwell,[1155] which may be the more readily believed, since they
also report favorably of many abbeys as being well governed, and of
the utmost benefit to their neighborhoods through their generous
hospitality and charity. It should be added that, in some districts
at least, the morals of the laity were no better than those of the
clergy.[1156] Nicander Nucius, who visited England about the year
1545, in relating the suppression of the monastic orders, gives as
bad an account of their discipline as Burnet. He is not, of course,
an original authority, but, as an impartial observer, his statements
are worthy of consideration as reflecting the current views of society
at the period.[1157] It was evidently for the purpose of influencing
public opinion abroad that a book on the subject was written in Italian
by William Thomas, who summed up by stating that the visitors found
“not seven, but more than 700,000 deadly sins,” and who received the
reward of his vivacity by being put to death under Queen Mary.[1158]
A portion of the people were ready and eager to welcome the
secularization of the religious houses. Their views and arguments are
set forth with more force than elegance in the well-known “Beggars’
Petition,” which calculates that, besides the tithes, one-third of the
kingdom was ecclesiastical property, and that these vast possessions
were devoted to the support of a body of men who found their sole
serious occupation in destroying the peace of families and corrupting
the virtue of women. The economical injury to the commonwealth, and the
interference with the royal prerogative of the ecclesiastical system,
were argued with much cogency, and the king was entreated to destroy it
by the most summary methods. That any one should venture to publish so
violent an attack upon the existing church, at a time when punishment
so prompt followed all indiscretions of this nature, renders this
production peculiarly significant both as to the temper of the educated
portion of the people, and the presumed intentions of the king.[1159]
The visitation produced the desired effect. In 1536, after reading
the report, Parliament passed without opposition a bill suppressing,
for the benefit of the crown, all monasteries with less than twelve
inmates or possessing a revenue under £200 per annum. Three hundred
and seventy-six houses were swept away by this act, and the “Court of
Augmentations of the King’s Revenue” was established to take charge of
the lands and goods thus summarily escheated. The rents which thus fell
to the king were valued at £32,000 a year, and the movable property at
£100,000, while the commissioners were popularly supposed to have been
“as careful to enrich themselves as to increase the king’s revenue.”
Stokesley, Bishop of London, remarked, concerning the transaction,
that “these lesser houses were as thorns soon plucked up, but the
great abbots were like putrefied old oaks, yet they must needs follow,
and so would others do in Christendom before many years were passed.”
But Stokesley, however true a prophet in the general scope of his
observation, was mistaken as to the extreme facility of eradicating the
humble thorns. The country was not as easily reconciled to the change
as the versatile, more intelligent, and less reverent inhabitants of
the cities. Henry, unluckily, not only had not abrogated Purgatory by
proclamation, but had specially recommended the continuance of prayers
and masses for the dead,[1160] and thousands were struck with dread as
to the future prospects of themselves and their dearest kindred, when
there should be few to offer the sacrifice of the mass for the benefit
of departed souls. The traveller and the mendicant, too, missed the
ever open door and the coarse but abundant fare, which smoothed the
path of the humble wayfarer. Discontent spread widely, and was soon
manifested openly. To meet this, most of the lands were sold at a very
moderate price to the neighboring gentry, under condition of exercising
free hospitality, to supply the wants of those who had hitherto been
dependent on conventual charity.[1161]
The plan was only partially successful, and soon another element
of trouble made itself apparent. Of the monks whose houses were
suppressed, those who desired to continue a monastic life were
transferred to the larger foundations, while the rest took
“capacities,”[1162] under promise of a reasonable allowance for their
journey home. They received only forty shillings and a gown, and
with this slender provision it was estimated that about ten thousand
were turned adrift upon the world, in which their previous life had
incapacitated them from earning a support. The result is visible
in the act for the punishment of “sturdy vagabonds and beggars,”
passed by Parliament in this same year, inflicting a graduated scale
of penalties, of which hanging was the one threatened for a third
offence.[1163]
This was a dangerous addition to society when discontent was
smouldering and ready to burst into flame. The result was soon
apparent. After harvest-time great disturbances convulsed the
kingdom. A rising, reported as consisting of twenty thousand men, in
Lincolnshire, was put down by the Duke of Suffolk with a heavy force
and free promises of pardon. In the North matters were even more
serious. The clergy there were less tractable than their southern
brethren, and some Injunctions savoring strongly of Protestantism
aroused their susceptibilities afresh. Unwilling to submit without
a struggle, they held a convocation, in which they denied the royal
supremacy and proclaimed their obedience to the pope. This was rank
rebellion, especially as Paul III., on the 30th of August, 1535, had
issued his Bull of excommunication against Henry, and self-preservation
therefore demanded the immediate suppression of the recalcitrants.
They would hardly, indeed, have ventured on assuming a position of
such dangerous opposition without the assurance of popular support,
nor were their expectations or labors disappointed. The “Pilgrimage of
Grace,” according to report, soon numbered forty thousand men. Although
Skipton and Scarboro’ bravely resisted a desperate siege, the success
of the insurgents at York, Hull, and Pomfret Castle was encouraging,
and risings in Lancashire, Durham, and Westmoreland gave to the
insurrection an aspect of the most menacing character. Good fortune
and skilful strategy, however, saved the Duke of Norfolk and his little
army from defeat; the winter was rapidly approaching, and at length
a proclamation of general amnesty, issued by the king on the 9th of
December, induced a dispersion of the rebels. The year 1537 saw another
rising in the North, but this time it only numbered eight thousand men.
Repulsed at Carlisle, and cut to pieces by Norfolk, the insurgents were
quickly put down, and other disturbances of minor importance were even
more readily suppressed.[1164]
Strengthened by these triumphs over the disaffected, Henry proceeded,
in 1537, to make the acknowledgment of papal authority a crime liable
to the penalties of a præmunire;[1165] and, as resistance was no longer
to be dreaded, he commenced to take possession of some of the larger
houses. These did not come within the scope of the act of Parliament,
and therefore were made the subject of special transactions. The abbots
resigned, either from having been implicated in the late insurrections,
or feeling that their evil lives would not bear investigation, or
doubtless, in many cases, from a clear perception of the doom impending
in the near future, which rendered it prudent to make the best terms
possible while yet there was time. Thus, in these cases, the monks
were generally pensioned with eight marks a year, while some of the
abbots secured a revenue of 400 or 500 marks.[1166] In an agreement
which has been preserved, the monks were to receive pensions varying
from 53_s._ 4_d._ to £4 a year, according to their age.[1167] In some
cases, indeed, according to Bishop Latimer, in a sermon preached before
Edward VI., the royal exchequer was relieved by finding preferment
for most unworthy objects—“however bad the reports of them were, some
were made bishops and others put into good dignities in the church;
that so the king might save their pensions that otherwise were to be
paid them.”[1168] An effectual means, moreover, of inducing voluntary
surrenders was by stopping their source of support, and thus starving
them out. Richard, Bishop of Dover, one of the commissioners in Wales,
writes to Cromwell, May 23d, 1538: “I thinke before the yere be owt
ther schall be very fewe howsis abill to lyve, but schall be glade to
giffe up their howseis and provide for them selvys otherwise, for their
thei schall have no living.” In anticipation of the impending doom,
many of the abbots and priors had sold everything that was salable,
from lands and leases down to spits and kitchen utensils, leaving
their houses completely denuded. The letters of the commissioners
are full of complaints respecting this sharp practice, and of their
efforts to trace the property. Another mode of compelling surrenders
was by threatening the strict enforcement of the rules of the order.
Thus, in the official report of the surrender of the Austin friars of
Gloucester, we find the alternative given them, when “the seyd freeres
seyed ... as the worlde ys nowe they war not abull to kepe them and
leffe in ther howseys, wherfore voluntaryly they gaffe ther howseys
into the vesytores handes to the kynges use. The vesytor seyd to them,
‘thynke nott, nor hereafter reportt nott, that ye be suppresseyd,
for I have noo such auctoryte to suppresse yow, but only to reforme
yow, wherfor yf ye woll be reformeyd, accordeyng to good order, ye
may contynew for all me.’ They seyd they war nott abull to contynew,”
whereupon they were ejected.[1169]
In the year 1538 the work proceeded with increased rapidity, no less
than 158 surrenders of the larger houses being enrolled. Many of the
abbots were attainted of treason and executed, and the abbey lands
forfeited. Means not of the nicest kind were taken to increase the
disrepute of the monastic orders, and they retaliated in the same
way. Thus, the Abbot of Crossed-Friars, in London, was surprised in
the day time with a woman under the worst possible circumstances,
giving rise to a lawsuit more curious than decent;[1170] while, on
the other hand, the Abbess of Chepstow accused Dr. London, one of the
visitors, of corrupting her nuns.[1171] Public opinion, however, did
not move fast enough for the rapacity of those in power, and strenuous
exertions were made to stimulate it. All the foul stories that could
be found or invented respecting the abbeys were raked together; but
these proving insufficient, the impostures concerning relics and images
were investigated with great success, and many singular exposures were
made which gave the king fresh warrant for his arbitrary measures,
and placed the religious houses in a more defenceless position than
ever.[1172]
Despite all this, in the session of 1539 all the twenty-eight
parliamentary abbots had their writs, and no less than twenty sat
in the House of Lords.[1173] Yet the influence of the court and the
progress of public opinion were shown in an act which confirmed the
suppressions of the larger houses not embraced in the former act,
as well as all that might thereafter be suppressed, forfeited, or
resigned,[1174] and May 9th, 1540, by special enactment, the ancient
order of the Knights of St. John was broken up, pensions being granted
to the grand prior and some of the principal dignitaries.[1175] These
measures consummated the ruin of the monastic system in England.
Henceforth it was altogether at the king’s mercy, and his character
was not one to temper power with moderation. In 1539 there are upon
record fifty-seven surrenders of the great abbeys,[1176] and a large
number in 1540, the good house of Godstow being the last of the great
monasteries to fall. Of the old monastic system this left only the
chantries, free chapels, collegiate churches, hospitals, &c., which
were gradually absorbed during the succeeding years;[1177] until
the necessities of the king prompted a sweeping measure for their
destruction. Accordingly in 1545 a bill was brought in placing them
all at his disposition. There were some indications of opposition, but
the king pleaded the expenditures of the French and Scottish wars, and
solemnly promised his Parliament “that all should be done for the glory
of God and common profit of the realm,” whereupon it was passed.[1178]
It is computed that the number of monasteries suppressed by these
various measures was 645; of colleges, 90; of chantries and free
chapels, 2374; and of hospitals, 110.[1179]
A vast amount of property thus passed into the hands of the court.
The clear yearly rental of the suppressed houses alone was rated at
£131,607 6_s._ 4_d._—an immense sum in those days; but Burnet states
that in reality it was almost tenfold the amount.[1180] Small as may
have been the good effected by these enormous possessions in the
hands of the monks, it was even more worthless under the management
of its new masters. Henry admitted the heavy responsibility which he
assumed in thus seizing the wealth which had been dedicated to pious
uses, and he entertained magnificent schemes for devoting it to the
public benefit, but his own necessities and the grasping avarice
of needy courtiers wrought out a result ridiculously mean. Thus he
designed to set aside a rental of £18,000 for the support of eighteen
“Byshopprychys to be new made.”[1181] For this purpose he obtained
full power from Parliament in 1539,[1182] and in 1540 he established
one on the remains of the Abbey of Westminster. Those of Chester,
Gloucester, and Peterboro’ were established in 1541, and in 1543 those
of Oxford and Bristol,[1183] and one of them, that of Westminster, was
suppressed in 1550, leaving only five as the result. The people were
quieted by assurances that taxes would be abrogated forever and the
kingdom kept in a most efficient state of defence; but subsidies and
benevolences were immediately exacted with more frequency and energy
than ever.[1184] Splendid foundations were promised for institutions
of learning, but little was given; a moderate sum was expended in
improving the sea-ports, while broad manors and rich farms were granted
to favorites at almost nominal prices; and the ill-gotten wealth
abstracted from the church disappeared without leaving traces except in
the sudden and overgrown fortunes of those gentlemen who were fortunate
or prompt enough to make use of the golden opportunity, and who to
obtain them had no scruple in openly tendering bribes and shares in
the spoil to Cromwell, the omnipotent favorite of the king.[1185] The
complaints of the people, who found their new masters harder than the
old, may be estimated from some specimens printed by Strype.[1186]
If it be asked what became of the “holy idle thieves” and “sturdy
loobies” whom the Beggars’ Petition so earnestly desired to be thrown
upon the world, the answer may be found in the legislation of Edward
VI. A poor-law, the commencement of a series which to this day has
pressed upon England with ever-increasing weight, was enacted in
1552.[1187] This tells its own story, but even more suggestive was
another bill for the suppression of vagabondage, the provisions of
which mark not only the inhumanity of the age, but the magnitude of
the evil caused by the violent acts of Henry. Every able-bodied man
loitering in any place for three days without working or offering to
work was held to be a vagabond. He was thereupon to be branded on
the breast with a letter V, and adjudged as a slave for two years to
any one who might bring him for that purpose before a justice of the
peace.[1188] Such was the ignominious end of the powerful and wealthy
monastic orders of England.
The monastic establishments of Ireland shared the same fate.
Rymer[1189] gives the text of a commission for the suppression of a
nunnery of the diocese of Dublin, in 1535. The insubordination of
the island, however, rendered it difficult to carry out the measure
everywhere, and finally, in 1541, it was accomplished by virtually
granting their lands to the native chieftains. These were good
Catholics, but they could not resist the temptation. They joined
eagerly in grasping the spoil, and the desirable political object was
effected of detaching them, for the time, from the foreign alliances
with the Catholic powers which threatened serious evils.[1190]
* * * * *
It is a striking proof of Henry’s strength of will and intense
individuality of character, that, in thus tearing up by the roots the
whole system of monachism, he did not yield one jot to the powerful
section of his supporters who had pledged themselves to the logical
sequence of his acts, the abrogation of sacerdotal celibacy in general.
While every reason of policy and statesmanship urged him to grant
the privilege of marriage to the secular clergy, whom he forced to
transfer to him the allegiance formerly rendered to Rome; while his
chief religious advisers at home and his Protestant allies abroad used
every endeavor to wring from him this concession, he steadily and
persistently refused it to the end, and we can only guess whether his
firmness arose from conscientious conviction or from the pride of a
controversialist.
Notwithstanding his immovable resolution on this point, his power
seemed ineffectual to stay the progress of the new ideas. An assembly
held by his order in May, 1530, to condemn the heretical doctrines
disseminated in certain books, shows how openly the advocates of
clerical marriage had promulgated their views while yet Wolsey was
prime minister and Henry gloried in the title of Defender of the Faith.
Numerous books were denounced in which celibacy was ridiculed, its
sanctity disproved, and its evil influences commented upon in the most
irreverent manner.[1191] These doctrines were sometimes carried into
practice, and the orthodox clergy had little ceremony in visiting them
with the sharpest penalties of the canons. It was about this time that
Stokesley, Bishop of London, condemned to imprisonment for life Thomas
Patmore, the incumbent of Hadham in Hertfordshire, for encouraging
his curate to marry and permitting him subsequently to officiate;
and the unfortunate man actually lay for three years in gaol, until
released by the intercession of Cranmer.[1192] This severity offers a
significant contrast to the lenity which punished priestly incontinence
with trifling fines and penalties, or sold licenses to sin almost
openly.[1193]