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 CATHOLIC STANDARD LIBRARY. 
 HENKY VIII. 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ENGLISH MONASTERIES,
 
 HENRY VIII. 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ENGLISH MONASTERIES, 
 
 AN ATTEMPT TO ILLUSTRATE THE HISTORY OF THE IB 
 SUPPSESSION. 
 
 BY 
 
 MONK OF THE ORDER OF ST. BENEDICT, 
 SOMETIME PRIOR OF ST. GREGORY'S MONASTERY, DOWNSIDE, BATH. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 JOHN HODGES, 
 
 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON. 
 
 1888.
 
 JOHN HODGES : 
 HENRIETTA ST., COVEXT GARDEN.
 
 AT THE FEET 
 
 OF 
 His HOLINESS POPE LEO XIII. 
 
 THIS VOLUME, 
 
 THE FIRST FRUIT OF WORK UNDERTAKEN 
 IN OBEDIENCE TO 
 
 His COMMAND, 
 is, 
 
 AT THIS TIME OF HlS SACERDOTAL JUBILEE, 
 
 > 
 LAID, 
 
 AS A TESTIMONY OF FILIAL DEVOTION. 
 
 2227525
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 To THE READER. ...... p.p. xi-xii 
 
 INTRODUCTION MONASTIC ENGLAND. . . . pp. xiii-xxxii 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE DAWN OF DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Disastrous effects of the " Black Death " on the Church in 
 England The country not recovered by sixteenth century 
 Influence of the " Wars of the Roses " Destruction of 
 the power of nobility Increased power of the crown Rise of 
 the new men The royal " official " Condition of the people 
 in sixteenth century The state of the Church The bishops 
 The monastic orders Influence of the times upon the 
 cloister Royal and other demands upon the monasteries 
 Attacks upon the monks by Wickliffe, Simon Fish, and others 
 Moral state of the monastic orders Authentic testimony of 
 Episcopal registers. . ." . . . . pp. 1-39 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 PRECEDENTS FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF MONASTERIES IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Alien priories Subsidy paid to foreign houses Seizure of Alien 
 priories by Edward I. and Edward II. Suppression of Knights 
 Templar, 1313 Edward III. re-establishes Alien priories, and 
 afterwards takes them into his own hand Some houses 
 naturalized William of Wykeham obtains some estates to 
 found New College Henry IV. restores some conventual 
 Alien priories Attack upon Church property in the Parlia- 
 ments of 1405 and 1410 Henry V. and the final suppression 
 of Alien priories The possessions, as a rule, devoted to
 
 vi Contents. 
 
 ecclesiastical purposes New College, Winchester, Eton and 
 King's College, Cambridge Foreign monasteries plead for the 
 restoration of their priories Other examples of suppression 
 Bishop Waynfleet and Magdalen College Jesus College 
 Bishop Fisher obtains Lillechurch and Heigham for Cam- 
 bridge. . . . . . . . pp. 40-66 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 CARDINAL WOLSEY AND THE MONASTERIES. 
 
 Rise of Wolsey His immense power Exceptional powers in 
 Ecclesiastical affairs as legate He obtains faculties for visiting 
 monasteries Staluta for the August! nian canons Wolsey 
 disliked by the clergy generally His scheme for founding a 
 college at Oxford Permission obtained from Clement VII. by 
 pressure Wolsey asks to be made abbot in commendam of 
 St. Albans Permission asked from Rome for further suppres- 
 sion for the Oxford College The people object to the dissolu- 
 tions Bad repute of Wolsey 's agents, Dr. Allen and Thomas 
 Crumwell The king finds fault with Wolsey's action towards 
 the monasteries Further suppressions asked from the Holy 
 See The cardinal's design to found a college at Ipswich 
 Further complaints Henry acts on the precedent established 
 by Wolsey, and asks the Pope's permission to suppress 
 monasteries for the foundation of new cathedrals The 
 difficulties of Clement VII. in the matter The articles 
 of impeachment against Wolsey, which relate to the 
 monasteries pp. 67-109 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE HOLY MAID OF KENT. 
 
 Early history of Elizabeth Barton Her great reputation for sanctity 
 Bishop Fisher forms a good opinion of her The special value 
 of his judgment The account of his dealings with the nun 
 Archbishop Warham's belief in her holiness Her opposition 
 to the divorce makes her arrest necessary Her confessor, Dr. 
 Bocking, monk of Christchurch, Canterbury, and others also 
 arrested Endeavour on the part of Crumwell to prove a
 
 Contents. 
 
 vn 
 
 conspiracy against the state The examinations of the 
 accused Refusal of the judges to convict Public penance of 
 the nun and her companions at St. Paul's Cross -The nun's 
 confession and its real significance Its evidence in favour of 
 the other accused No conspiracy against the state intended 
 Endeavour of Crumwell to include Sir Thomas More in the 
 charges against the nun. The crown proceeds by bill of 
 attainder--The execution of Elizabeth Barton and her com- 
 panions. ..... . . pp. 110-150 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE FRIARS OBSERVANT. 
 
 Parliament renounces the papal supremacy The check on pulpit 
 utterances at this time The friars difficult to deal with 
 Particular boldness of the Observants High character of the 
 Greenwich convent These friars staunch supporters of queen 
 Catherine Friar Peto's sermon and its sequel The Ob- 
 servants suspected of intercourse with the fallen queen Friar 
 Forest Friar Pocock's sermon at Winchester Henry appoints 
 a superior over the friars Their convents are visited and the 
 oath of supremacy proposed The visitations of religious houses 
 productive of much difficulty Commencement of a " reign of 
 terror " in the monastic houses The election at Croxton 
 Abbey Franciscan Observants staunch to their old opinions 
 Efforts to change them Henry foiled in his design Disper- 
 sion of the Observants Imprisonment and death of a great 
 number Friar Forest's martyrdom. . . pp. 151-201 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE CARTHUSIANS. 
 
 Retired life of Charterhouse monks Mr. Froude's description of 
 the London Carthusians Maurice Chauncy's account of Prior 
 Houghton Henry's agents endeavour to obtain the signatures 
 of the religious to the oath of succession The prior and 
 procurator committed to the Tower and are persuaded to take 
 the oath Further attempts to obtain an unqualified submission 
 Prior Haughton's address to his community The three
 
 viii Contents, 
 
 Carthusian priors sent to the Tower Their trial and execution 
 for rejecting the royal supremacy Further difficulties and the 
 execution of three more fathers of the London Charterhouse 
 The community placed under lay governors Their treatment 
 Some sent to the North of England Ten fathers im- 
 prisoned in Newgate Their heroism and slow death Two 
 more executed at York The rest resign their house to the 
 king pp. 202-243 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE VISITATION OF MONASTERIES IN 1535-6. 
 
 Henry's difficulties in 1535 Royal treasury empty The oath of 
 supremacy proposed to the monastic houses Intolerable 
 nature of the oath Necessity of subduing the monasteries, 
 which were special supports of the papal supremacy "Greed 
 of great men," a second motive for the suppression of the 
 monasteries The royal visitors at Oxford and Cambridge 
 Their servile dependence on Crumwell Injunctions impossible 
 to keep and intended to drive the religious to rebellion or 
 surrender The visitors complain of each other -Their treat- 
 ment of the religious and especially of the nuns Layton's 
 Sussex visitation The fare at Christ Church, Canterbury 
 Effects of the visitation on the interior life and numbers 
 Difficulties of religious superiors in governing their houses at all 
 Crumwell appoints lecturers in some monasteries Address 
 of the Abbot of Woburn on the troubles. . . pp. 244-284 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PARLIAMENT OF 1536 AND THE SUPPRESSION OF THE 
 LESSER MONASTERIES. 
 
 Henry's agents preparing for the attack on the monasteries 
 Rapidity of the visitation of Layton and Legh Usual account 
 of the passing of the Act Character of the Parliaments of 
 Henry VIII. House of Commons not a representative body 
 at all Systematic packing of the houses The instance of 
 Bishop Tunstall, of Durham Methods for passing acts through 
 the house The existence of the " Black book " extremely
 
 Contents. 
 
 IX 
 
 doubtful The preamble of the Act of Suppression The 
 action of the abbots in the House of Lords Education of 
 public opinion by Henry and Crumwell Pulpit attacks on the 
 monasteries How far the suppression was justified by the law 
 of property. ....... pp. 285-324 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE " COMPERTA MONASTICA " AND OTHER CHARGES AGAINST THE 
 
 MONKS. 
 
 The Comperta documents The portion preserved in the writings 
 of Bale In reality the notes of the visitors Value to be 
 attached to the charges contained in them Meaning of 
 Comperta in episcopal visitations Date of the document 
 Comparatively few religious charged with crime Accusations 
 vague, and the result probably of malice and idle rumour 
 Examples of the manufacture of these reports Comperta 
 certainly not the confessions of conscience-stricken monks and 
 nuns Accusations often deceptive Visitors' reports compared 
 with those of episcopal visitations Their charges contradicted 
 by other royal visitors Story of the Prior of Crutched friars, 
 and that of the Abbot of Langdon examined Evil reports as 
 to Dover and Folkestone contradicted by subsequent evidence 
 Charges against the Abbot of Wigmore Origin of many of 
 the tales against monks and nuns Negative testimony in 
 favour of the monasteries Draft petition from the Lords and 
 Commons to the king, begging him to stay any further sup- 
 pressions. . . . . . . . pp. 325-378 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THOMAS CRUMWELL, THE KING'S VICAR GENERAL. 
 
 Crumwell's early history Story of the forged indulgences Em- 
 ployed by Wolsey in the work of suppression Crumwell on 
 Wolsey's disgrace Rapid rise His autocratic power in Eng- 
 land Places spies everywhere Instances of the reign of terror 
 No pretence of justice or fair dealing Arbitrary action of 
 Crumwell even in private life Large sums of money coming 
 to him as bribes and presents Lavish in his expenditure
 
 x Contents. 
 
 The patron of the ribald writers Crumwell's fall and execu- 
 tion Letters and the spoils of the monastic houses found at 
 his house. ....... PP-379-43 2 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE CHIEF ACCUSERS OF THE MONKS, LAYTON, LEGH, Ap RICE 
 AND LONDON. 
 
 The visitors well understood the royal purpose Layton's origin 
 His complete understanding with Crumwell Visits with inten- 
 tion of making out a case against the monasteries His 
 manufacture of Compertes Understood Crumwell's weakness 
 for money transactions Offers bribes to his master His 
 filthy mind revealed in his letters He becomes Dean of York 
 and pawns the Cathedral plate Legh, as a visitor, described 
 by his fellow Ap Rice His large fees shared by Crumwell 
 His violence dreaded Grave charges made against his 
 morality The punishment of Layton and Legh demanded by 
 the " Pilgrims of Grace '' Legh made master of Sherburn 
 hospital, and makes away with the property of the poor 
 Ap Rice had previously been in serious trouble His money 
 transactions with Crumwell London chiefly occupied as a 
 spoiler Was possibly in Crumwell's power His work of 
 destruction Treatment of the abbess of Godstow His public 
 penance for incontinence His reputation at Oxford Im- 
 prisoned for perjury, and there dies. . . pp. 433-470 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 List of the English Carthusian monasteries and the Houses of the 
 four orders of friars at the time of their suppression, with a 
 map of the same.
 
 TO THE READER. 
 
 Custom requires for a book some words of personal 
 introduction. The present work has no pretence to 
 be more than the title page claims for it, "an 
 attempt to illustrate the history" of a great event 
 in our national annals. My sympathies are natu- 
 rally engaged, but I have striven to avoid anything 
 like presenting or pleading a case, which, indeed, 
 I felt would defeat my purpose. If I have insisted 
 more on the facts which tell in favour of the monas- 
 teries than on those which tell against them, it is 
 because the latter are well known and have been 
 repeated, improved on and emphasised for three 
 centuries and a half, whilst that there is anything 
 to say on the other hand for the monks , has been little 
 recognized even by those who would be naturally 
 predisposed in their favour. , My belief is, that the 
 facts speak strongly enough for themselves, and I 
 have endeavoured to add as little as possible of my 
 own to the story they tell. All I desire is that my 
 readers should judge from the letters, documents 
 and opinions, which will be found in the following 
 pages, whether bare justice has hitherto been done to 
 the memory of the monastic order in England. 
 1 have endeavoured as far as I possibly could to
 
 xii To the Reader. 
 
 write from a personal inspection of the documents of 
 which I have made use. My searches have taken me 
 to many places, and have brought me in contact with 
 many people to whom I was previously a stranger. 
 My thanks for help and encouragement are due to 
 too many for me to name individually. But I cannot 
 pass over in general terms the ready and generous 
 manner in which the episcopal registers, without 
 free use of which it would have been vain for me 
 to write on the subject at all, have been opened to 
 me. The place in which I write may excuse a par- 
 ticular reference in this matter to the Lord BisJwp 
 of Bath and Wells. From the various Registrars I 
 have received the same unvarying courtesy and 
 kindness. From public officials attention to all 
 demands is oftentimes regarded as a right. Both at 
 the Record Office and the British Museum, tJiongh 
 I trust I have never given trouble without need, my 
 requests must, I feel, have seemed sometimes impor- 
 tunate and even unreasonable. Without the con- 
 currence and ever-patient kindness which I met with 
 at both institutions my labours must have been 
 indefinitely prolonged. When I think of the dusty 
 search-room at the Record Office it calls up above all 
 the pleasant memory of the friendly help extended 
 to me by so many of its practised habitues. 
 Downside Monastery, 
 
 October 26, 1887.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 MONASTIC ENGLAND. 
 
 THE ruined abbeys of England are evidences of a past which, 
 however diversely it may be judged in other respects, all will 
 agree was great. To some the crumbling wall or broken 
 arch speaks eloquently of the rapacity of an English king 
 and indicates the completeness of his spoliation. Others 
 again are reminded of the reasons pretended by the spoiler. 
 Alas ! it is to be feared to most Englishmen the desecrated 
 sanctuary calls up one thought above all else the thought of 
 wasted, wanton or vicious lives, and of the sad necessity 
 which compelled king Henry to proceed to drastic measures 
 of reform. A story often repeated proverbially gains in 
 strength. For many generations anecdotes about the wicked- 
 ness of monk and nun have been listened to and accepted 
 as simple truth ; and even well-wishers to the monastic 
 institute have thought it best friendliness to observe or 
 counsel silence. 
 
 Undoubtedly it is no inviting task to attack a tradition 
 so long implanted. A wholesome horror of monk and 
 monastery has been imparted with early knowledge at a 
 mother's knee, the teaching first imbibed and latest lost. It 
 would almost seem that in this regard the national character of 
 honesty and fairness had been permanently warped. English- 
 men have been wont to extend consideration even to a fallen 
 enemy. In this case, they appear to have had neither mercy
 
 xiv Introduction. 
 
 nor pity for those who were among the most honoured and 
 cherished of their own household. The truth is, that Henry's 
 scheme for lowering monks in the popular estimation, though 
 it did not impose on a people who knew them by experience, 
 has served its purpose with subsequent generations. "All 
 that men of the stamp of John Bale," justly says a modern 
 writer, " could do in the way of defiling the memory of 
 caenobites in general has been done, and though Bale is a 
 discredited man, he and others like him have completed a 
 work which can now scarcely be undone, and the memory of 
 those who indubitably preserved religion and increased learn- 
 ing in the land is almost hopelessly besmirched."* 
 
 That the state of religious life in England, as described in 
 the letters and reports of Henry's chosen visitors, was bad, is 
 true. But these reports even do not by any means bear out 
 the popular impression. The real question, however, that 
 needs consideration is the worth of the visitors' word. 
 Edmund Burke speaks in accord with the dictates of mere 
 common sense when he writes : " 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 is a 
 worse."f 
 
 For three centuries the only voices raised in defence of the 
 English monasteries have been those of antiquaries, who 
 might be supposed to have a natural sympathy for a great, a 
 romantic past. And even these, from Camden downwards, 
 have found it well to make excuse for their weakness, and have 
 not failed to add, however incongruously it might run with 
 the context, the general sentence of condemnation. Burnet 
 
 * " Moil. Franciscana," ii. Pref., p. xxx. 
 
 f " Reflections on the French Revolution."
 
 Monastic England. xv 
 
 fixed, so far as history is concerned, what it had to say on 
 the subject, and the "History of the Reformation" was 
 deemed sufficient to dispense with all need for further inquiry. 
 In the last resort the utterance of the words Comperta and 
 Black Book was enough to warn the curious or the adventurous 
 oft' dangerous ground. It is only of late years that the subject 
 has come within the scope of ordinary historical investigation, 
 and some earnest and truthful writers have paved the way 
 for a j uster estimate of the case. Among these, stands pre- 
 eminent Canon Dixon, who justly claims strange as the 
 claim may seem in regard to a subject about which so much 
 has been \\ ritten " to have laid before the student of history 
 for the first time a connected and particular account of the 
 suppression of the English monasteries." The present work 
 is an attempt to carry the investigation yet a step further for- 
 ward ; and, utilizing the mass of scattered material tl still un- 
 published and uncon suited/' to treat the suppression not as an 
 episode of a greater subject, but as an object of special inquiry. 
 That the monasteries in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 
 turies were all that could be desired in discipline and vigour 
 would be maintained by no one who has studied the subject. 
 The circumstances of the troubled times in many instances 
 no doubt exerted an influence on the interior spirit of the 
 cloister as it did on the Church at large. Before entering on 
 the subject of this book, it will be well to sketch slightly a 
 picture of the daily life practised in one of the " great and 
 solemn monasteries," in which Henry, using the Parliament 
 as his mouthpiece, thanks God "that religion is right well 
 kept." It will be necessary also briefly to recall to the mind 
 of the reader how the vast monastic system interwove itself 
 in the social, political and ecclesiastical life of the kingdom.
 
 x vi In trod net ion . 
 
 However much monasteries might differ in details of 
 arrangement, the fundamental principle of all was life by 
 rule spent in the service of God. The first duty in the 
 monastery was the regular service of prayer and praise. 
 Besides this, however, in most monastic houses a considerable 
 portion of the day was set apart for active duties. The cares 
 of a great administration absorbed the energies of the elder 
 members, whilst teaching, study and the cultivation of the 
 arts and sciences occupied the attention of the entire com- 
 munity. As a rule, early rising, simple fare and constant 
 work, done only with the hope of a higher reward in the 
 world to come, was the lot of the monk. Whether such a 
 life was profitable or not must depend upon opinion. But, if 
 those who write and speak so easily of " lazy monks " would 
 with candour try to realize as a fact the life thus led, they 
 would at least acquit them of this charge. 
 
 Dean Church draws an admirable picture of a monastery 
 in its outward aspect, at a period three or four centuries 
 eailier than that now dealt- with. "The governing thought 
 of monastic life/' he says, " was that it was a warfare, 
 militia, and a monastery was a camp or barrack. There was 
 continual drill and exercise, early hours, fixed times, appointed 
 tasks, hard fare, stern punishments ; watchfulness was to be 
 incessant, obedience prompt and absolute; no man was to 
 murmur. What seems to us trifling or vexatious must be 
 judged of and allowed for by reference to the idea of the 
 system ; training as rigorous, concert as ready and complete, 
 subordination as fixed, fulfilment of orders as unquestioning 
 as in a regiment or ship's crew which is to do good service. 
 Nothing was more easy to understand in those days in any 
 man, next to his being a soldier, than his being a monk, it
 
 Monastic England. xvii 
 
 was the same thing, the same sort of life, but with different 
 objects. . For the objects in view, the organization 
 given us by Lanfranc in the regulations drawn up for the 
 English monasteries, was simple and reasonable. The build- 
 ings were constructed, the day was arranged, the staff of 
 officers were appointed in reference to the three main pur- 
 poses for which a monk professed to live worship, improve- 
 ment, and work.* There were three principal places which 
 were the scenes of his daily life the church, and in the 
 church especially the choir, the chapter-house, and the 
 cloister ; and for each of these the work was carefully laid 
 out. A monk's life at that period was eminently a social 
 one, he lived night and day in public ; and the cell seems to 
 have been an occasional retreat, or reserved for the higher 
 officers. The cloister was the place of business, instruction, 
 reading and conversation, the common study, workshop 
 and parlour of all the inmates of the house the professed 
 brethren, the young men whom they were teaching or pre- 
 paring for life, either as monks or in the world : the children 
 who formed the school attached to the house, many oF 
 whom had been dedicated by their parents to this kind of 
 service." t 
 
 It must be remembered that denunciations as to laxity of 
 life, even when made about the monasteries of the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries, rest, as a rule, on a comparison with 
 primitive fervour. Whatever may be said as to the lives 
 of the monks at this period, it must be confessed that the 
 common and ordinary routine of their houses raised them 
 
 * How true this is may be seen by a glance at the plan of any of the old 
 monasteries. 
 
 f " Life of St. Anselm," Chap. iii.
 
 xviii Introduction. 
 
 immeasurably above the level of life around them. The 
 Episcopal visitations of religious houses prove conclusively 
 that, whatever failings or even graver delinquencies required 
 censure and correction in the case of individuals, the method 
 of life for the community remained the same, and that in no 
 sense could it with truth be called a life of ease and sloth. 
 The very divisions of the day, which were practically the 
 same in most religious houses, are evidences of the real 
 character of monastic observance continued down to the 
 very eve of their destruction. The night office, now known 
 as "Matins/' began not later than two in the morning. 
 In many monasteries, and when the length of the office 
 or additional solemnity required, it commenced at mid- 
 night. Two hours were occupied in the solemn chaunting 
 and singing of this, the first of the daily services. " The 
 monks," says a writer who remembered the Benedictines of 
 Durham before the dissolution, " when they were at their 
 matins and service at midnight, then one of the said monks 
 did play on the organs themselves and no other/'* The 
 matins and the Matutince laudes (now Lauds) formed prac- 
 tically one service occupying the entire two hours. The 
 
 * " Rites of Durham," Surtees Soc., p. 54. This document stands alone as 
 a connected account of life in a great monastic community at the very moment 
 of its destruction. It ill accords with the later popular traditions. Some people 
 may be inclined to view it as a picture drawn by a laudalor temporis acti. It is 
 certainly the work of a man who had personal information, and had actually 
 seen what he describes. To those who know the monastic life in practice, the 
 innumerable touches of detail afford convincing evidence of the truth of the 
 description. It presents a picture of regularity, gravity, discipline and order 
 such as any regular house might well aspire to. That the monastery was in 
 an excellent state of discipline may be judged from a letter of the visitor Layton, 
 written the a6th January, 1536 (Calendar x., No. 183). " Your injunctions," 
 he says, " can have no effect in Durham Abbey in some things ; for there was 
 never yet woman in the abbey further than the church, nor they (the monks) 
 never come within the town."
 
 Monastic England. xix 
 
 labour* of this night service was followed by a brief period 
 of rest, till at five the community again assembled in the 
 choir for the office of Prime, which was followed by the 
 daily Chapter. There faults were corrected, encouragement 
 given, the labours of the community apportioned, and, when 
 occasion required, matters of common interest discussed and 
 arranged. At the stroke of six the short Chapter mass was 
 sung, ana after this study or exercise occupied the monks 
 till eight o'clock. 
 
 At that time once more the stroke of the bell called them 
 to choir and the High mass, to which the time till ten was 
 allotted. Then came the meal of the day, except on fast 
 days when it was some hours later. In the refectory strict 
 order was preserved, and the superior or his chief officer pre- 
 sided. The monks waited in turns upon each other, and 
 during the meal the sacred Scriptures were read. " Also in 
 the east-end of the frater," we are told of Durham, " stood 
 a fair table with a decent screen of wainscot over it ... for 
 the master of the novices and the novices to dine and sup 
 in. At which time the master observed this wholesome and 
 goodly order for the constant instruction of their youth in 
 virtue and learning. That is, one of the novices at the elec- 
 tion and appointment of the master did read some part of the 
 Old and New Testament in Latin in the dinner time, having 
 a convenient place at the south end of the high table within 
 a fair glass window invironed with iron. And certain steps 
 of stone and iron rails on the one side went up to it, and 
 supported an iron desk there placed, upon which lay the 
 
 * The word Iah>ur is used advisedly. Those only who have had practical 
 experience of choral recitation can appreciate the call on the physical powers 
 which it demands.
 
 xx Introduction. 
 
 Holy Bible, where one of the novices elected by the master 
 was appointed to read a chapter. . . . This being ended, the 
 master did toll a golden bell, hanging over his head, thereby 
 giving warning to one of the novices to come to the high 
 table and say grace. And so after grace said they departed 
 to their books."* 
 
 " But before their work," says the writer, " the monks were 
 accustomed every day after they had dined to go through the 
 cloister . . . into the centre garth, where all the monks were 
 buried. And they did stand all bareheaded a certain long 
 space praying among the tombs for their brethren's souls, 
 being buried there. And when they had done their 
 prayers, then they returned to the cloister and there did 
 study their books until three o'clock, when they went to 
 Vespers. This was their daily exercise and study every day 
 after they had dined."f 
 
 Once more the Durham record affords us a glimpse or 
 what after the church is the centre of the cloistered life 
 the cloister itself. " In the north side of the cloister, from 
 the corner over against the church door to the corner over 
 against the dormitory door, was all finely glazed from the top 
 to the sill within a little of the ground into the cloister garth. 
 And in every window three pews or studies^ where everyone 
 of the old monks had his study, each by himself, that when 
 they had dined they did resort to that place of cloister and 
 there studied their books, everyone in his study, all the after- 
 noon till vesper time. This was the exercise every day. All 
 these pews or studies were finely wainscotted very closely, 
 
 * Ibid., p. 70. t ll'id., p. 74. 
 
 J The word used by the author of the " Rites " is carrell. Here, as in many 
 other instances, a modern word is substituted for the convenience of the general 
 reader.
 
 Monastic England. xxi 
 
 all but the forepart, which had carved work, which gave light 
 in at their study doors. And in every study was a desk to 
 lie their books on. . . . And opposite the studies against 
 the church wall stood certain great cupboards of wainscot all 
 full of books, with a great store of ancient manuscripts to 
 help them in their study. In these were placed as well the 
 ancient written Doctors of the Church as other profane 
 authors, with divers other holy men's works, so that everyone 
 studied what doctor pleased him the best, having the library 
 at all times to study in besides their pews."* 
 
 In the western cloister the novices had a special place 
 appointed for their daily work. " And the master of the 
 novices had a pretty seat of wainscot adjoining . . . over 
 against the stall where they sat, and there he taught the 
 said novices both in forenoon and afternoon. No strangers 
 or other persons were suffered to molest or trouble the said 
 novices or monks in their studies whilst they were at their 
 books within the cloister, and for this purpose there was a 
 porter appointed to keep the cloister door." 
 
 From study the monks went at three each afternoon to 
 chaunt their Vespers in the church. This evening service was 
 performed with as great solemnity as the morning mass. 
 And at both the youths of the singing school, supported for 
 the purpose in the greater monasteries, attended to join their 
 voices with the brethren in their choral service. 
 
 Vespers over, the monks returned once more to the 
 cloister, till the tolling of the bell announced the evening 
 meal. " The subprior," says our old authority, "did always 
 dine and sup with the whole convent, and sat at the upper 
 end of the table. And when every man had supped, which 
 
 * Ibid., p. 70.
 
 xxii Introduction. 
 
 did always end at five o'clock, upon the ringing of a bell 
 (he) gave warning to say grace. (This) being said, they 
 departed to the chapter-house, to meet the prior every night, 
 there to remain in prayer and devotion till six o'clock. At 
 this time, upon the ringing of a bell, they went to Salve."* 
 The hour of Compline over, and a brief space devoted to 
 private prayer, all retired to the dormitory till "the bells 
 which rung ever at midnight for the monks went evermore 
 to their matins at that hour of night " proclaimed with 
 the new day another round of prayer and labour. 
 
 There were times when the daily discipline was relaxed in 
 favour of conversation in the common room, or even of the 
 mild dissipation of quiet games for the younger brethren and 
 other social enjoyments. No picture of the religious life can 
 be complete without a notice of this phase of conventual 
 existence. The Benedictine monk had no pretence to be con- 
 sidered a misanthrope. Neither did his calling claim to bar 
 him from reasonable recreation. " On the right hand as you 
 go out of the cloisters," says the old writer, " was the common 
 house. The house was to this end, to have a fire kept in it 
 all the winter for the monks to come and warm them at, being 
 allowed no fire but that only, except the masters and officers 
 of the house, who had their special fires. There was belong- 
 ing to the common house a garden and a bowling alley at the 
 back of the house towards the water for the novices some- 
 times to recreate themselves when they had leave of their 
 master, he standing by to see good order kept. Also in 
 the same house the master of it kept his Sapientia once 
 a year, viz., between Martinmas and Christmas, a solemn 
 banquet which the prior and convent used at that time of 
 
 * Ibid., p. 73.
 
 Monastic England. xxiii 
 
 the year only. Their banquet was of figs and raisins, ale 
 and cakes, and thereof no superfluity or excess, but a 
 scholastical and moderate congratulation amongst them- 
 selves."* 
 
 This glimpse of the daily routine of an English monastery 
 afforded us, chiefly by the happy recollections of one who 
 remembered Durham before the suppression, is sufficient 
 to dispel the traditional notion that the monk either on 
 the one hand was a gloomy person, or on the other led a life 
 of ease and sloth. 
 
 In the chronicles and memorials of the various abbeys we 
 still possess, very little information can be gleaned about the 
 interior and domestic life of the inmates. The reason for 
 this is obvious. To the chronicler, as he wrote his volume 
 in the cloister of his monastery, the daily course of the 
 monastic life was so even, uneventful and well known, that it 
 must have appeared useless and unnecessary to enter any 
 description of it in his pages. The saying "happy is the 
 nation that has no history " applies to monasteries. 
 Troubles, difficulties, quarrels and even scandals find a 
 place on the parchment record of an abbey or convent, while 
 the days and years of peaceful unobtrusive labour would pass 
 unnoticed bv the monastic scribe. 
 
 In one of his suggestive lectures Mr. Ruskin bids his 
 hearers note well the dates A.D. 421 and A.D. 481, for they 
 are the years of the beginning of Venetian power and of the 
 crowning of Clovis : " Not for dark Rialto's dukedom nor for 
 fair France's kingdom only," he adds, " are these two years 
 to be remembered of all others in the wild fifth century, but 
 
 * Ibid., p. 75.
 
 xxiv Introduction. 
 
 because they are also the birth years of a great lady, and 
 a greater lord of all future Christendom, St. Genivieve and St. 
 Benedict."* If St. Benedict could claim any country as his 
 own it is England. There is no need to dwell here on the 
 evangelization of our land, on the messengers he sent hence 
 to Germany and to the North to preach the gospel, on the 
 schools in which he gathered his disciples and whence issued 
 the revival of letters in the darkest days of the middle ages, 
 on the slow patient labour by which his sons reclaimed the 
 soil, nor on the men through whom our very polity and law 
 seem to have gained their temper and moderation from his 
 spirit of discretion. All this is acknowledged though so 
 easily forgotten. All was done so quietly, so orderly,, so 
 naturally, that a world which has entered on the fruits of the 
 labour may almost be excused if it does not recognize the 
 hand that dug the soil and planted the tree.f 
 
 The benefits conferred by the monastic order were great. 
 Those who experienced them had no doubt on that score and 
 were not behindhand in full and ample expression of their 
 gratitude. And though the religious bodies were not as rich 
 as they were represented to be, their wealth was undoubtedly 
 immense. Various orders shared it, but the Benedictines, 
 including in their ranks, besides the Black monks, the 
 Cistercian, the Cluniac, the Grandmontain and others had 
 incomparably the greater part. Independently of their 
 wealth, what gave the Benedictines further dignity was the 
 possession of eight or nine cathedrals, including those of the 
 specially dignified sees of Winchester, Durham and Canter- 
 
 * " Our fathers have told us," ii., p. 42. 
 
 t See cardinal Newman, " Historical Sketches," ed. 1873, iii., p. 365, et. seq. ; 
 J. S. Brewer, " Giraldus Camb.," iv., Pref. xv.-xvii., xxx.-xxxvi., and J. M. 
 Kemble, " Codex," i., Pref. v.-vii.
 
 Monastic England. xxv 
 
 bury. This placed the election of the bishops of these 
 dioceses in the hands of the convent. At Canterbury, in 
 particular, the jurisdiction of the great metropolitical church 
 fell, during a vacancy, into the hands of the prior and con- 
 vent. In their name ran all licenses for the consecration of 
 bishops ; they held all the archiepiscopal powers of visitation ; 
 they could nominate the consecrating prelate and the prelate 
 to preside at convocation. It may be readily understood that 
 these powers were not always viewed with favour by the college 
 of bishops ; but after the thirteenth century, with a prudent 
 use of acknowledged rights on the one side and benevolence 
 on the other, they managed to avoid disagreement. Although 
 holding the cathedral churches, the monks did not interfere 
 with diocesan administration. The bishop's officials were com- 
 monly chosen from the secular clergy, even when he himself 
 happened to be a monk. It is almost a commonplace however 
 to dwell on the rivalry between the clergy and the monasteries 
 as if it were intensified in the later ages. Unquestionably 
 there were lawsuits about property and other rights between 
 them, and misunderstandings such as will happen between men 
 of all classes ; but their relations seem to have been generally 
 good and even, and exempt from any systematic petty bicker- 
 ing. 
 
 The privileged ecclesiastical position of the monastic orders 
 found its counterpart in parliament. Abbots formed the bulk 
 of the spiritual peerage, which in those times was both indi- 
 vidually more influential and corporately much larger than at 
 present. The position held by them throughout every part of 
 the country gave yet a further weight to their great position as 
 noblemen and local magnates. As such they went part passu 
 with baron or earl of the noblest lineage. On the blazoned
 
 xxvi Introduction. 
 
 Roll of the Lords, the lord Richard Whiting and the lord Hugh 
 Farringdon went hand in hand with a Howard and a Talbot. 
 This individual ennoblement indicated by the form of title is 
 striking. Whiting and Farringdon do not walk merely as the 
 abbot of Glaston and the abbot of Reading, but in the roll of 
 English peers they still hold the name by which they were 
 known when playing as children in the country manor-house 
 or poor man's cottage. In the letter books of Durham priory 
 the chiefs of the Cliffords and the Nevilles address the prior 
 as their equal in no mere words of empty form. If on occa- 
 sion the layman strikes a higher tone, to which the monk 
 responds in gentleness, it does not affect the ring of trusty 
 and sincere friendship which is caught throughout the whole 
 correspondence. Nor is there anything surprising in this 
 when the character of the monastic life is realized. The 
 monk of Durham from his earliest years combined simplicity 
 of life with surroundings of palatial grandeur and a state and 
 ceremony equal to that of courts, and yet more measured. As 
 time passed on, he grew from obedience to command and 
 naturally, without perceiving it, the peasant's son became the 
 equal of the peer. And all this was done without appeal to 
 principles of democratic levelling. The heralds' " visitations " 
 commence at the moment when the doom of the monasteries 
 was already fixed. Up to that time the art of sifting out the 
 "gentleman" from the "no-gentleman," which under the 
 Tudors and first Stuarts grew to a pitch of perfection, was 
 not yet evolved ; and it may be safe to say that the monas- 
 teries, in ages, which if any, might seem fatal to it, kept up 
 the idea of personal nobility. 
 
 The organization of the various orders helped to qualify 
 the most prominent of their members for taking part in the
 
 Monastic England. xxvii 
 
 chief council of the realm. Besides their presence in convo- 
 cation, the Benedictines and Augustinians had each a 
 quadriennial chapter, composed of the abbots and conventual 
 priors of the whole country, and numbering for the Benedic- 
 tines as many as two or three hundred persons. On these 
 occasions even individual monks, who might be deputed by 
 their superior, could learn the practice of great deliberative 
 assemblies and how to deal with affairs of far-reaching con- 
 sequence. It was thus not merely by honorific distinction 
 that we find the commissions of the peace generally headed 
 by some principal abbot or prior of each county. They had 
 the practice of business, and they were in touch with men of 
 all ranks the country gentleman, the yeoman, the artisan, 
 the peasant and the poor. It is no mere figure of speech 
 when monasteries are called the common hostelries for people 
 of all sorts and conditions, the general refuge of the poor. 
 The daily life of the heads and officers of every monastic 
 house must have brought them in constant and natural con- 
 tact with all classes of society. The monks were not merely 
 anchorites enclosed in narrow walls, but were affected by all 
 the movements of public life. They were not men of war, 
 but, like the knight and the baron, they had to provide men 
 for the musters. As great landowners they, more than the 
 yeoman, were concerned in the crops and the weather. They 
 resided on the land in the midst of their people, and the 
 barns, farmhouses and cottages were no less objects of their 
 care than the roof which covered their own heads. Beyond 
 this, they were more than landowners to those round about 
 them. The advisers and teachers of all, they had the work 
 now undertaken by the guardian, the relieving officer, the 
 parish doctor and the schoolmaster. Their charity did not
 
 xxviii Introduction. 
 
 flow from public sources, yet all men expected them, as an in- 
 cident of their profession, to provide for those in want, and 
 they were well acquainted with the circumstances of those 
 they helped. These conditions combined to ease many of the 
 difficulties which attend the relief of the poor. " The myth 
 of the ' fine old English gentleman,' who had a large estate, 
 and provided every day for the poor at his gate, was realized 
 in the case of the monks, and in their case only."* 
 
 Art is a finer and truer expression of the inmost mind than 
 even words can be. Of arts, architecture is not the least in 
 power to reveal the soul of man. " Can the same stream 
 send forth waters both sweet and bitter ? " says the writer 
 just quoted. " Are the higher realizations of artistic beauty 
 . . . compatible with the disordering, vulgar, and noisy pur- 
 suits of an unscrupulous avarice or ambition ? Will men that 
 gather meanly scatter nobly ? Will any magic convert the 
 sum total of sordid actions into greatness of any kind ? "f 
 
 Though the architecture of the fifteenth century has not 
 the type of Cistercian beauty, the builders of the tower of 
 Canterbury, of the Lady chapel of Gloucester and the church 
 of Bath, the refashioners of Winchester, Chester and Sher- 
 borne with a host of other monastic churches, could not 
 have been men devoid either of the sense of beauty or gran- 
 deur. It seems in this matter as though, with the close of 
 the civil wars, men had taken fresh heart, and the half century 
 preceding the destruction of the monasteries, so far from being 
 a time of apathy and listlessness, witnessed a great revival of 
 architectural activity. This would have been impossible had 
 the monastic system been commonly in a state of undue 
 
 * J. S. Brewer. " Giraldus Camb.," iv., Pref. xxxvi. 
 t Ibid., p. xxx.
 
 Monastic England. xxix 
 
 relaxation or degradation. The individual sense of ownership 
 in the common goods is singularly slight in monastic commu- 
 nities. It is altogether inadequate as a spur to keep things 
 in a proper condition. Where the general level of discipline 
 is low the tendency is to shift off the trouble of the day to the 
 morrow. Each man is glad to bear his own burden at the 
 lightest, and that which is the common concern is left to take 
 its course to the verge of ruin. A mere feeling of personal 
 pride, or spurt of personal effort is not sufficient, so strong is 
 the tendency to avoid trouble. The only corrective is, that 
 which is of the essence of the monastic state, a strong and 
 vigorous community life. This can only exist where at least 
 a reasonable amount of order and discipline prevails. Hence 
 the activity in building prevailing in the early sixteenth cen- 
 tury has a lesson of its own to tell to those who have the 
 power to read it. However wealthy these great foundations 
 may have been, they could not have undertaken works of 
 such magnitude had not the monastic tone been healthy 
 and vigorous. 
 
 Nor was their work achieved, as is so often implied, at the 
 expense of the parish churches. Instances might be multi- 
 plied, one will suffice. Within a stone's throw of the cathe- 
 dral of Coventry stands the church of the Holy Trinity 
 within a stone's throw of that, again, stands the church of St. 
 Michael two of the noblest ecclesiastical buildings in the 
 kingdom. Both were in the patronage of the cathedral priory. 
 Had the monks chosen to indulge in unworthy jealousy, the 
 erection of these noble edifices might easily have been pre- 
 vented. In these cases, it will be understood, the buildings 
 were not for themselves. The Augustinian canons not infre- 
 quently served the churches in their own patronage; the
 
 xxx Introduction. 
 
 monks as a matter of the rarest exception only. If it be 
 asserted that, by acting in so many instances merely as vicars 
 for the monastic houses, a portion of the secular clergy seemed 
 thereby placed in a position of inferiority and dependence, it 
 must be remembered that to the monastery they often owed 
 their enrolment in the ranks of the clergy at all. Putting 
 aside the education they commonly received in the monastic 
 free schools, it is striking to find in the episcopal registers 
 how large a proportion of the secular clergy were ordained to 
 the "title" given them by some monastery or convent. This 
 fact is emphasized by the extraordinary diminution of candi- 
 dates for the priesthood immediately subsequent to the 
 destruction of the monasteries, which accounts for the dearth 
 of parochial clerg} so often complained of a few years later.* 
 The only specimen of a monastic chronicle of the times of 
 the civil warsf that of Croyland, a place remote from the 
 scenes of trouble gives us a glimpse of continued activity. 
 
 * From the archiepiscopal registers of the diocese of York it appears that 
 between 1501 and 1539 there were 6,190 priests ordained. Of these 1,415 were 
 religious, 4,698 were seculars presented for ordination to a title, furnished by 
 some monastery or convent, and 77 to a title given by a college, or ratione ben- 
 Jicii. The yearly average of ordinations to the priesthood in the diocese of York 
 during the 39 years was over 158. The register of archbishop Edward Lee shows 
 that in 1536, 92 were ordained priests; in 1537 no ordinations were recorded; in 
 1538 only 20 ; and in 1539 the ordinations had dwindled down to 8. Of these 
 one, in the first part of 1539, received his title from a religious house, and 
 another in the second half of the year was made priest " to the title of 4 
 granted him by the king from the monastery of Worksop." After 1539 among 
 the few ordinations are some who present " titles " founded on the promises of 
 some nobleman or gentleman. 
 
 f The dearth of late monastic chronicles is very remarkable. It is, however, 
 capable of a simple explanation. In the first place, the generation which pro- 
 duced a Commines, a Machievelli and a Marin Sanudo were hardly fitted for 
 the composition of chronicles such as those of Matthew Paris and William of 
 Malmesbury. Secondly, there is every probability that many such monastic 
 records were destroyed at the dissolution. The little fragment of the monk of 
 St. Augustine's, Canterbury shows thai the cloister annalists were still at work.
 
 Monastic England. xxxi 
 
 Besides the free school, the choral necessities required a 
 school of music and singing. Architecture, painting, sculp- 
 ture, organ building, bell founding and that which English 
 skill had raised to the dignity of an art embroidery all were 
 .as actively promoted at Croyland as ever. The monks too 
 were not so wedded to old-fashioned ways, but what they were 
 ready to greet the latest discoveries. It must not be forgotten 
 that in England (though not in England only) the first print- 
 ing presses were set up in the monasteries. 
 
 The great religious houses, moreover, afforded to the coun- 
 try population a sight of those splendours now confined to 
 the great centres of population. The rich vestments and 
 costly plate in the monastic treasure-house were no mere per- 
 sonal possession. The enjoyment of them belonged to the 
 people as a whole. As feast day succeeded feast day the trea- 
 sures were brought forth to delight their hearts as all took 
 part in the rejoicings. Thus the monasteries sent a ray of 
 light and gladness through the lives of the great mass of the 
 people, whose lot at best is full of hardness, dulness and 
 sorrow. 
 
 All that is here insisted on is, th#t in the sixteenth century 
 the monasteries formed an element in English social life both 
 popular and beneficent. For the purpose of this argument 
 
 This is not likely to have been a solitary case. Chronicles of this kind, however, 
 would not be like the great folios of the St. Alban's Scriptorium; written on 
 paper, looking mean and poor, and above all having nothing to do with property 
 and estates, they would have been little regarded by the spoilers of the religious 
 houses, and thus lost or destroyed. Thirdly, the rule of the first Tudors was 
 of such a cast, that a Matthew Paris, or even a William of Newbury, that is 
 men disposed to tell the truth, could hardly hope to end their days in their 
 convent. No man can be expected to make a hero of himself merely to gratify 
 the curiosity of posterity. It is little wonder, therefore, if the later monks 
 neglected their annals and turned in preference to other occupations.
 
 xxxii Introduction. 
 
 it matters little whether the Comperla or Black book be true or 
 false. If they were true, the case would be stronger still, for 
 it is only an overpowering sense of the benefits which the 
 monasteries generally diffused over the country that, in the 
 presence of such a catalogue of iniquity, could have pre- 
 vented their fall amid general execration. But what is the 
 case ? On the part of the secular clergy, who might be sup- 
 posed to be their natural rivals, the voice of Bishop Fisher, 
 pre-eminent amongst them all for a love of sound learning 
 and for piety, was raised as spokesman in their defence. Of 
 the nobility, who afterwards shared in the plunder, many a 
 one before the event put in a plea for the preservation of the 
 house in which he himself was interested. The popular voice 
 was expressed in the risings in the east and north, and at a 
 later date in the west. It is only now, when the documentary 
 history of the time is being revealed, that we begin to under- 
 stand how narrowly these movements escaped a success, 
 which would have changed the course of English history. 
 The voices raised against the monks were those of Crum- 
 
 D 
 
 well's agents, of the cliques of the new men and of his 
 hireling scribes, who formed a crew of as truculent and filthy 
 libellers as ever disgraced a revolutionary cause. The later 
 centuries have taken their tale in good faith, but time is 
 showing that the monasteries, up to the day of their fall, had 
 not forfeited the goodwill, the veneration, the affection of the 
 English people.
 
 HENRY VIII. 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ENGLISH MONASTERIES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE DAWN OF DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 No just appreciation of the great social and religious 
 revolution of the sixteenth century is possible without 
 some knowledge of the causes which produced it. 
 " The history of the Reformation in England," writes 
 Lord Macaulay, " is full of strange problems."* 
 That the nation, at the bidding of the Sovereign, 
 and in furtherance of his whims, should acquiesce in 
 the rejection of papal supremacy over the Church, 
 should substitute the doctrine of the spiritual head- 
 ship of the King, and should tolerate the national 
 upheaval and disregard of the rights of property 
 implied in the dissolution of monasteries and con- 
 fiscation of their lands and goods, are " problems " 
 to be solved only by an acquaintance with the events 
 preceding and accompanying them. 
 
 * Essay on Lord Burleigh. 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Circumstances combined to collect in the political 
 and social atmosphere of England in the time of 
 Henry VIII. elements fraught with dangerous and 
 destructive power against the Church. In the first 
 place, it would seem to be certain that the country 
 had not recovered from that terrible visitation, known 
 as the " Black Death," which devastated Europe in 
 the middle of the fourteenth century. Although a 
 hundred and fifty years had elapsed before Henry 
 VIII. mounted the throne, so great had been the 
 ravages of the scourge, and so unsettled had been 
 the interval, that the nation was still suffering from 
 the effects of the great sickness. It could hardly 
 have been otherwise, when in one year, 1348-9, 
 about half of the entire population was swept 
 away. In Norwich city alone 57,304 people, 
 " beside religious and beggars," are said by the 
 chronicler of the time to have died ; * in the little 
 town of Bodmin more than 1,500 were buried f in a 
 few months. 
 
 Among the clergy the mortality was quite as 
 heavy. In the diocese of Norwich during a single 
 twelvemonth there are recorded the institution of 
 863 incumbents to livings vacated by the death of 
 the previous occupant, " the clergy dying so fast 
 that they were obliged to admit numbers of youths 
 that had only devoted themselves for clerks by being 
 
 * For the facts known about the " Black Death " the reader may 
 consult Mason's " Norfolk," p. 78, &c., and two most interesting 
 articles in Vol. ii. of Fortnightly Review, by Professor Seebohm. 
 
 t Cole MS., xliii., p. 20.
 
 T/ie Dawn of Difficulties. 3 
 
 shaven to be rectors of parishes. " e In the County 
 of Norfolk, out of 799 priests 527 died of the 
 plague ; and William Bateman, the bishop, applied 
 for and obtained from Pope Clement VI., a bull 
 allowing him to dispense with sixty clerks, who were 
 only 21 years of age, "though only shavelings," 
 and to allow them to hold rectories, as 1,000 livings 
 had been rendered vacant by death, as otherwise 
 service would cease altogether. In the West Riding 
 of Yorkshire, to take another instance, 96 priests 
 out of 141 died ; in the East Riding, out of 95, 
 only 35 survived ; and altogether it has been com- 
 puted that about two-thirds of the clergy of England 
 were carried off by the sickness. f 
 
 The monastic orders suffered with, perhaps, more 
 severity, because the mortality was greater where 
 numbers were gathered together. William of Wor- 
 cester records in the Register of Friars Minor 
 at Bodmin a statement that in the general chapter, 
 held in 1351, at Lyons, it was computed the order 
 had lost through the sickness 13,883 members in 
 Europe. Writing of the Diocese of Winchester at 
 this time, a local antiquarian authority { says : " We 
 have no means of ascertaining the actual havoc 
 occasioned among the religious houses of this 
 diocese, or the number of clergy who perished ; but 
 in the hospital of Sandown in Surrey there existed 
 
 * Mason, p. 78. 
 f Fortnightly Review, Vol. ii. 
 
 F. J. Baigent. Note contributed to Life of W. of Wykeham. 
 Burns and Co.
 
 4 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 not a single survivor ; and of other religious houses 
 in the diocese (which comprises only two counties) 
 there perished no fewer than 28 superiors abbots, 
 abbesses, and priors and nearly 350 rectors and 
 vicars of the several parish churches." 
 
 Stowe states that in his time there was a tablet 
 at the Charterhouse, London, to commemorate the 
 fact that in the crypt and adjoining burying-ground 
 50,000 bodies were interred during the twelve 
 months. From Candlemas to Easter 200 inter- 
 ments are said to have taken place each day. 
 Three archbishops of Canterbury in one year were 
 enthroned, only to be carried to the tomb. In the 
 abbey of Croxton, in Lincolnshire, all the monks 
 except the abbot and prior were swept off by the 
 sickness; and at Westminster abbey, the abbot 
 and 26 of his community were committed to a 
 common grave in the southern cloister. Lastly, to 
 give but one more instance, in the abbey of Meaux, 
 out of 50 monks and 10 novices, 40 monks and all 
 the novices died.* 
 
 The effect of this vast depopulation was felt 
 for many succeeding generations. According to 
 Knighton's Chronicle f there existed such distress 
 and such a universal " loosening of the bonds of 
 society" as is "only to be found," says Mason, "in 
 the description of earthquakes in South America ; "J 
 
 * Hist. MSS. Comm. Append. Kept., ix., p. 127 b. 
 t Hist. Angl. Scr. decem. 
 J Norfolk, p. 78.
 
 The Dawn of Difficulties. 5 
 
 whole villages died out, cities shrunk within their 
 walls, and the houses becoming unoccupied fell into 
 ruins. The agricultural population suffered as 
 severely as that of the towns, and the land fell out 
 of cultivation on account of the difficulty of securing 
 labourers, except at enormous wages. Flocks were 
 attacked by disease and perished from want of 
 herdsmen to watch them ; the corn crops, which 
 were unusually rich in the year 1348, rotted on the 
 ground, 'as no harvestmen were to be found to reap 
 them. The monastery of Christ Church, Canter- 
 bury, even with its rich endowments, felt the pinch 
 of poverty. In asking from the bishop of Rochester 
 the impropriation of the church of Westerham " to 
 help them to keep up their old hospitality," they 
 plead excessive poverty caused by " the great pesti- 
 lence affecting man and beast." In furtherance of 
 their suit they forward to the bishop a list of their 
 losses in cattle, which amount to 257 oxen, 511 cows 
 with their calves, and 4,585 sheep, estimated to be 
 worth in money ^792 125. 6d., or more than ^"16,000 
 of our money. Nor is this all, for they declare that 
 1,212 acres of land formerly profitable to them had 
 been rendered useless by an inundation of the sea, 
 from the impossibility of getting labourers to main- 
 tain the sea walls.* 
 
 Such a state of things, universal throughout the 
 whole of England, produced a crisis between the 
 labourers and their employers, and led to a revolu- 
 * Hist. MSS. Comm. Kept., v., p. 444.
 
 6 Henry VI I L and the English Monasteries. 
 
 tion in the system of farming. The nobles and 
 monasteries were no longer able to manage their 
 estates on the old principles ; permanent retainers 
 attached to the soil disappeared, and the modern 
 system of letting was introduced. This had far- 
 reaching results. The peasant proprietor became 
 the exception, the population was detached from the 
 soil, and were no longer bound to the lords of the 
 land by the old ties. Gradually, but certainly, this 
 led to the destruction of the power of the nobles and 
 the exaltation of that of the Sovereign, until in 
 the days of Henry VIII. the king of England was 
 practically despotic. 
 
 That the country had not recovered from the 
 effects of the scourge by the sixteenth century can 
 be clearly shown. The statutes of the early years of 
 Henry's reign, for the rebuilding of towns and the 
 repair of the streets and houses, show that the result 
 was still visible, and that the scarcity of houses was 
 beginning to be felt. The Venetian Ambassadors, 
 who describe the ruined streets and vacant places in 
 the English towns, and the thinness of the popula- 
 tion throughout the country, speak of the effects of 
 a cause which had existed a century and a half 
 before. 
 
 To the Church the scourge of 1349 must have 
 been little less than disastrous. Apart from the 
 poverty and distress occasioned by the unoccupied 
 lands, and the consequent diminution of tithes, the 
 sudden removal of the great majority of the clergy
 
 The Dawn of Difficulties. 7 
 
 must have broken the continuity of the best tradi- 
 tions of ecclesiastical usage and teaching. More- 
 over, the necessity which obliged the Bishops to 
 institute young and inexperienced, if not positively 
 uneducated clerics, to the vacant livings, must have 
 had its effects upon many succeeding generations. 
 The monastic houses also sadly suffered, not only in 
 the destruction of their chief source of income by 
 the depreciated value of their lands, and the want of 
 cultivation consequent upon the impossibility of find- 
 ing labourers in place of the tenants swept off by the 
 pestilence, but more than all by reason of the great 
 diminution of their numbers, which rendered the 
 proper performance of their religious duties, and the 
 diligent discharge of their obligations, as regards 
 monastic discipline, difficult, and often almost impos- 
 sible. In numbers, and there can be little doubt also 
 in tone, the various religious bodies had not recovered 
 the ground lost during the year of the Black Death 
 by the time of their ultimate dissolution. 
 
 The long and bitter feud between the Houses of 
 York and Lancaster must likewise be regarded as 
 an important element in the chain of events which 
 rendered possible the political and social changes of 
 Henry's reign. From the year 1452, when the Duke 
 of York first took up arms to secure the removal of 
 his enemies from the counsels of Henry the Sixth, 
 to the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471, England had 
 been the theatre of constant and terrible civil strife. 
 For ten years, from the accession of Edward IV. to
 
 8 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Tewkesbury, there had hardly been any cessation of 
 hostilities ; and it was not till the battle of Stoke, in 
 1487, which finally settled Henry VII. on the throne, 
 that the Wars of the Roses, after lasting thirty-five 
 years, ended. 
 
 The insecurity and instability of well-nigh half a 
 century, as well as the brutal ferocity of the long- 
 continued contest, must have stamped a peculiar 
 character upon the men of the early Tudor period.* 
 When Henry VIII. succeeded his father every man 
 of thirty must have had some knowledge of the 
 terrible war within his own personal recollection, 
 whilst his parents must have lived through the whole 
 of it. " The earl of Oxford, one of the few active 
 leaders who survived the war, was still alive. The 
 earl of Surrey, who fought for Richard at Bosworth, 
 was born some time before the beginning of the civil 
 wars, and died just before Henry's first divorce. 
 When that great question was first agitated, every 
 man of seventy had been born in the very year the 
 first blood was shed, was six years old when Edward 
 IV. was declared King, and sixteen when Henry VI. 
 was murdered in the Tower, and his son, prince 
 Edward, at Tewkesbury. "f 
 
 The obvious result of a knowledge of the danger 
 and troubles of this long civil war, whether derived 
 
 * Those who may wish to understand this more fully would do 
 well to read an Essay by H. W. Wilberforce on " Events Prepara- 
 tory to English Reformation," in Essays on Religion and Literature. 
 Second series. Longman, 1867. 
 
 | Wilberforce, Ibid., p. 337.
 
 The Dawn of Difficulties. 9 
 
 from personal experience or the relation of parents, 
 was a willingness to hazard everything rather than 
 recur to such a period of distress and bloodshed. 
 Periods of revolution inspire peculiar prudence, and 
 protracted war a determination to cling " to peace 
 and pursue it." Hence the population generally 
 throughout England in the days of Henry had been 
 rendered by circumstances long-suffering, and ready 
 to endure the dictates of his whims and desires 
 rather than to imperil their peace by resistance. 
 
 Another indirect and still more important effect 
 of the conflict of the " Roses" upon the times of 
 the Tudors was the destruction of the power of the 
 nobility. In the days of the Plantagenets the real 
 power of the Kingdom was wielded by a com- 
 paratively small number of the nobility. Richard 
 II. would have been secure against Bolinbroke, who 
 landed with only fifteen lances, had not the earls of 
 Northumberland and Westmoreland joined him with 
 their numerous retainers. His cause attracted to 
 his standard the great men and tneir followers of the 
 country through which he marched to London. In 
 the same way Edward II. also fell. The Wars of the 
 Roses, however, completed the work begun by the 
 pestilences of the fourteenth century, and finally broke 
 the power of the great nobles. The " Black Death," 
 by altering the conditions of land tenure, and 
 thus depriving the territorial lords of their hold upon 
 the service and lives of their retainers, gradually 
 sapped the secret strength of the ancient nobility,
 
 io Henry VI I L and the English Monasteries. 
 
 whilst the civil wars swept away all the pride and 
 flower of the great noble families. It was the deli- 
 berate policy of Warwick, the "King-maker," to 
 cut off the chiefs of the opposite party. To the 
 aristocracy the war was fatal. " The indirect and 
 silent operation of these conflicts," writes Mr. 
 Brewer, "was much more remarkable. It reft into 
 fragments the confederated ranks of a powerful terri- 
 torial aristocracy, which had hitherto bid defiance 
 to the king, however popular, however energetic."* 
 
 Still, even when Henry VII. was firmly seated on 
 the throne, his jealous caution seems to have taught 
 him, that though thus broken, the power of the nobles 
 was to be watched. Hence an Act of the Parlia- 
 ment, which met after Bosworth, prohibited any lord 
 giving his livery except to his menial servants. This 
 legislation enabled the King to perpetrate the cele- 
 brated act of rapacity recorded of him, when he 
 compelled the earl of Oxford, who had received him 
 with his retainers in livery, to pay ^10,000 as a 
 fine, a sum equivalent to the almost incredible sum 
 of ^"200,000 of our money, f 
 
 When Henry VIII. succeeded, although every 
 sign of growing power was eagerly watched and 
 speedily and effectually checked, there was little 
 that the crown had to fear from the hitherto power- 
 ful nobility. Thus the position and authority of the 
 
 * Calendar I., preface Ixxv. [References will be made to the 
 Calendar by Brewer and Gairdner by this word only.] 
 t Lingard v., 336.
 
 The Dawn of Difficulties. \ i 
 
 Tudor monarchs was altogether different from that 
 of their predecessors, and the Royal Supremacy 
 passed from a theory into a fact.* 
 
 As a consequence the stability which the traditions 
 and prudent counsels of the ancient nobility gave to 
 the ship of state was gone, when it was most needed 
 to weather the rising storm of revolutionary ideas. 
 The new peers, who were created in the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries to take the place of the old 
 aristocracy, had no sympathy either by birth or 
 inclination with the best traditions of the past. Nor 
 was the age favourable to the production of high- 
 minded and fearless counsellors so much as to the 
 growth of men of quick and active talents. " A period 
 of revolution," writes Macaulay, "forms a class of men 
 shrewd, vigilant, inventive ; of men whose dexterity 
 triumphs over the most perplexing combination of 
 circumstances, whose presaging intellects no sign of 
 the times can elude. But it is an unpropitious season 
 for the firm and masculine virtues. The statesman 
 who enters on his career at sueh a time can form no 
 permanent connections, can make no accurate obser- 
 vations on the higher parts of political science. 
 Before he can attach himself to a party it is 
 scattered. Before he * can study the nature of a 
 Government it is overturned. The oath of abjura- 
 tion comes close on the oath of allegiance. The 
 association which was subscribed yesterday is 
 burned by the hangman to-day. In the midst of 
 * Calendar I., preface Ixxv.
 
 12 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 the constant eddy and change, self-preservation 
 becomes the first object of the adventurer. It is a 
 task too hard for the strongest head to keep itself 
 from becoming giddy in the eternal whirl. Public 
 spirit is out of the question. A laxity of principle, 
 without which no public man can be eminent or even 
 safe, becomes too common to be scandalous, and the 
 whole nation looks coolly on instances of apostasy 
 which would startle the foulest turncoat of more 
 settled times." * 
 
 The long period of distracting civil contention, 
 and the rending of social ties consequent upon the 
 appalling mortality of the fourteenth century, were 
 admirably adapted to produce characters such as 
 Macaulay here describes. Many of the new nobility 
 were mere place-hunters and political adventurers, 
 men eager to profit by every disturbance of the 
 social order. Their own interests caused them to 
 range themselves in the restless ranks of the party 
 of innovation. Those who have nothing to lose are 
 almost proverbially on the side of disorder and 
 change. 
 
 The Tudor policy of government also created the 
 " official " who was by nature restless and discon- 
 tented. Working for the most inadequate of salaries, 
 such a man was ever on the look out for some lucky 
 chance of supplementing his pay. Success and 
 worldly prosperity depended on his being able to 
 attract to himself the notice of his royal master. 
 * Essays. " Hallam's Constitutional History."
 
 The Dawn of Difficulties. 13 
 
 "It was his interest to compete for extraordinary 
 grants in return for his work." * One with the 
 
 O 
 
 other they strove who should best work their way 
 into his favour by anticipating his wishes, satisfying 
 his whims, and pandering to his desires, " their pro- 
 motion being wholly dependent on his good will." 
 
 As a result of the inadequate salaries, the ad- 
 ministration of the law appears, with honourable 
 exceptions, to have been partial and corrupt. Com- 
 plaints were frequent against the lawyers of the 
 period. Suits were kept on from year to year unless 
 money was forthcoming to induce the authorities to 
 make an end of the litigation. It even passed into 
 a proverb that " the law was ended as a man was 
 friended," and contemporary writers declaim against 
 the mischief which men suffered " from the facility 
 with which an accusation could be lodged against 
 an innocent person." f 
 
 The popular opinion as to some of the courts of 
 justice is recorded by Henry Brinklow in his " Com- 
 plaint of Roderyck Mors." " ph ! " he writes, " that 
 the king's grace knew of the extortion, oppression, 
 and bribery that is used in his two courts ; that is to 
 say, of the Augmentation and of the Exchequer, but 
 
 * ' Anne Boleyn," P. Friedmann, i., p. 27. 
 
 | "Complaint of Roderyck Mors," E. Eng. Text Soc. ed. 
 Introduction, p. 25. In Siarkey's "Dialogue between Card. Pole 
 and Lupset " the same charges are made, and the same proverb 
 is made use of by Starkey in the " Dialogue," which was after- 
 wards quoted by Henry Brinklow in the " Complaint." Both these 
 authors were contemporaries of the events about which they write.
 
 14 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 especially of the Augmentation ! * There hath been 
 much speaking of the pains of purgatory, but a man 
 were as good, in a manner, to come into the pains of 
 hell as into either of those two courts. For if the 
 king have never so little interest, all is ours. So by 
 the subtlety of the law for their own advantage they 
 make many times the king to rob his subjects and 
 they rob the king again. Take for an example : 
 Look upon the clerks of either of these courts. At 
 his coming in he shall bring in manner nothing but 
 pen and ink and within a little space shall purchase 
 20, ^30, ^50, or 200 and 300 marks a year ! 
 Well, it is a common saying among the people : 
 ' Christ, for thy bitter passion save me from the 
 court of the augmentation ! ' I have known divers 
 who have spent much money in that court and yet 
 at length they have given over their matters and had 
 rather lose all their expenses than to follow it, so 
 endless and so chargeable is that court." 
 
 The same contemporary authority speaks of the 
 miserable state of those who were unfortunate 
 enough to be thrown into prison. There, he says, 
 they " are lodged like hogs and fed like dogs." 
 Moreover they were allowed to lie in these wretched 
 prison houses for years without any trial, and if they 
 
 * " Complaint," p. 24. It was to this " Court of Augmentation " 
 that the religious, after being turned out of their monasteries, had to 
 look for the pensions promised them. Small though these were in 
 the first year one quarter was deducted by the officials of the. 
 Augmentation Office " by way of loan " to the king.
 
 The Damn of Difficulties. 15 
 
 had no money were left to starve. If they, or their 
 friends, could afford to pay for their food they were 
 allowed in some prisons to " pay for themselves four 
 times as much as at any best inn." By all means, 
 says Brinklow, (< if a man offend the law let him have 
 the law," but " to imprison a man and starve him is 
 murder."* 
 
 The general condition of the people is represented 
 by all writers of the period to have been very miser- 
 able. A very large proportion of the population 
 had been connected with agricultural pursuits. In 
 Henry's time the introduction of a novel system of 
 farming, which dispensed with the greater portion of 
 the labourers formerly required to cultivate the soil, 
 caused great distress. The dearth of population, a 
 result of the great sicknesses and the civil wars, had 
 originally thrown much of the land out of use, and had 
 impoverished the landowners and notably the monas- 
 teries to a great and alarming extent. The demand 
 for wool, which largely increased in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, as well as the difficulty o procuring labour, had 
 no doubt originally suggested the possibility of turn- 
 ing much of the old tillage land into grass for 
 sheep runs. It has been already pointed out that 
 the change in the feudal tenure of land no longer 
 attached people to the soil, and the tenants being no 
 longer regarded as retainers of their lord, it ceased 
 to be of paramount interest to him to keep them 
 .upon his estates. As they ceased to be a source of 
 * Ibid., p. 27.
 
 1 6 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 strength, they were felt to be burdensome. Pleasure 
 and profit, the former by the multiplication of 
 animals for the chase, the latter by the breeding of 
 oxen and sheep, were better served by expelling the 
 small tenant farming population and throwing the 
 land into large enclosed grazing farms. 
 
 Complaints of the hardships caused to the rural 
 population by this process of " emparkment " were 
 numerous and urgent. In 1514 a petition was pre- 
 sented to Henry VIII. to beg him to remedy the 
 state of things brought about by the action of the 
 great landowners in throwing many small farms into 
 one large one, and by the consequent neglect of 
 tillage. The petition states that many gentlemen,, 
 merchant adventurers, clothmakers, and others have 
 occupied ten, twelve, and even sixteen farms. By 
 reason of this, it says, whole villages of twenty and 
 thirty houses have been cleared of their inhabitants, 
 and a solitary shepherd was employed on land which 
 had hitherto provided occupation for sixty or eighty 
 persons.* The various statutes f of Henry's reign 
 against " enclosures," &c., show how acute must 
 have been the distress occasioned by the change of 
 land tenure. Coverdale speaks of the multitude of 
 poor who go about the country begging,! and Sir 
 Thomas More, in his " Utopia," which, according to 
 the opinion of Mr. Brewer, gives the best account of 
 
 * State Papers Hen. VIII., Vol. ix., No. 431. 
 f e.g., 7 Hen. VIII., c. i ; 25 Hen. VIII., c. 13. 
 J Transl. of Bible, 1535, quoted in Lewis's "Fisher."
 
 The Dawn of Difficulties. 17 
 
 the real condition of the people,* paints a very sad 
 picture of the times. " In whatsoever parts of the 
 country," he writes, " the wool is finer and conse- 
 quently more valuable, there the nobility and gentry 
 and some abbots, holy men as they were, not content 
 with the yearly rents and profits of their lands, which 
 their ancestors enjoyed, nor reckoning it sufficient 
 that living in ease and plenty they did no good, but 
 rather harm, to the public, left nothing for the plough, 
 but laid all down to pasture, demolished houses, 
 destroyed whole towns, leaving only the church 
 standing to fold their sheep in. So that as an 
 unsatiable glutton, and a direful plague of the country, 
 the fields being laid all in one, some thousands of 
 acres were fenced with only one hedge. The farmers 
 with their families were ejected ; they were dispos- 
 sessed by being either over-reached by fraud or 
 overcome by violence, or else, being quite wearied 
 out with abuses, were forced to sell what,they had ; 
 and so the poor wretches were obliged, at any rate, 
 to shift their quarters, men and women, husbands 
 and wives, orphans and widows, parents and their 
 children."! 
 
 In the midst of the throes of a great social crisis 
 much depended upon the Church. There can be 
 little doubt that the clergy of the time were ill-fitted 
 
 * Calendar Introd. cclxxviii. " If anyone wishes to see the real 
 condition of Europe at this period (i 515, 1518) he . . . may read 
 with advantage the ' Utopia ' of Sir Thomas More." 
 
 t " Utopia." Bk. I. 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 1 8 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 to cope with the forces of revolution, to calm the 
 restless spirit of the age, or resist the rising tide of 
 novelties. Their very character was in itself out of 
 joint with the times. In the days when might was 
 right, and the force of arms the ruling power of the 
 world, the occupation of peace, to which the clergy 
 were bound by their sacred calling, roused hostile 
 and violent opposition from the party rising into 
 power. The bishops were, with some honourable 
 exceptions, mere court officials pensioned out of 
 ecclesiastical revenues. Holding their high offices 
 by royal favour rather than on account of special 
 aptitude to look after the spiritual welfare of their 
 dioceses, they appear, perhaps not unnaturally, to 
 have had little heart in their work. Too frequently, 
 also, the holding of a see was regarded as a temporary 
 position, and as an earnest of appointment to another, 
 pecuniarily or socially, more advantageous. Thus, 
 looking to obtain future favours, a bishop's energies 
 were often directed to obtain promised or expected 
 preferment, rather than to the management of his 
 present district.* This place-seeking kept the lords 
 spiritual much at court, that they might gain or 
 maintain sufficient influence to support their claims 
 
 * In 1511, for example, the Bishop of Bath and Wells had been 
 Bishop of Hereford ; the Bishop of Chichester had been translated 
 from St. Davids ; Bishop Audley had held Rochester and Hereford 
 in succession and was then at Salisbury ; the Bishop of Lincoln had 
 been at Lichfield ; Bishop Fitzjames, translated as an old man to 
 London, had held Rochester and Chichester previously. Fox had 
 been Bishop of Exeter, Bath and Wells, Durham, and Winchester.
 
 The Daii'ii of Difficulties. 19 
 
 to further promotion. They looked to the king, not 
 to the Church, and regarded the temporal adjuncts 
 of prosperity and power rather than the spiritual 
 duties and obligations of the episcopal office. 
 
 Too often, also, the bishop of an important see 
 would be occupied in the management of the secular 
 affairs of state. Perhaps, even, he was paid for 
 these services by the emoluments of his ecclesias- 
 tical office. To the king all looked for hope of 
 reward, and to royalty all clung as long as there 
 remained any prospect of success. The Church had 
 few favours to give except at the wish and by the 
 hands of the king. " Even Cardinal's hats were 
 bestowed only on Royal recommendation."* The 
 episcopal see was, moreover, not unfrequently, 
 looked upon as a property conferred for political 
 services and out of which the most, in a temporal 
 point of view, was to be made. The higher spiritual 
 and pastoral duties were often forgotten when a 
 bishopric was sought or retained by one having no 
 higher ideal than that of temporal advantage. Only 
 when declining years made the struggle for position 
 less possible, or when failure to please made absence 
 from court advisable, did the bishop too often come 
 to spend his remaining years in his diocese, and 
 devote his expiring energies to his flock. The 
 w-orship of wealth and influence, the struggle after 
 power and position, in which too many churchmen 
 joined, and the employment of energy which should 
 * Friedmann i., p. 137.
 
 20 Henry VIII, and the English Monasteries. 
 
 have been devoted to purposes ecclesiastical upon 
 the secular business of state, were constantly at 
 work, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, 
 sapping the very life of the Church. 
 
 " I declare, indeed," says Cardinal Bellarmine, with 
 a preacher's exaggeration, but with a foundation of 
 truth, " that false teaching, heresy, the falling away of 
 so many peoples and kingdoms from the true faith, in 
 fine, all the calamities, wars, tumults, and seditions 
 of these distressing times, take their source from no 
 other cause than because pastors and the other 
 priests of the Lord sought Christ, not for Christ's 
 sake, but that they might eat His bread. For some 
 years before the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresy, as 
 those testify who were then living, there was in 
 ecclesiastical judgments hardly any severity, in 
 morals no discipline, in sacred learning no teaching, 
 towards holy things no reverence : well nigh there 
 was no religion. The renowned glory of the clergy 
 and sacred orders had perished ; priests were des- 
 pised, laughed at by the people, and lay under grave 
 and constant infamy. And whence came all this ? 
 Was it not because the pastors did not seek above 
 all else the glory of Christ and the salvation of His 
 sheep, but the loaves and fishes ; that is, in their 
 ecclesiastical ministrations they regarded chiefly the 
 income and payments. This was the origin, this 
 the fount of all these evils. "*t 
 
 * Bellarmine Concio de Dom. Lsetare. Ed. Cologne, 1617. Op. 
 vi., p. 296. Serai, xxviii. 
 
 | In the Parliament of 1529, among the complaints against the
 
 The Dawn of Difficulties. 21 
 
 The practice followed in more than one instance 
 of rewarding foreigners by nominating them to vacant 
 sees in return for services rendered, or as an induce- 
 ment to help on some royal scheme, was also most 
 obviously detrimental to the well-being of the Church. 
 At one time the three bishoprics of Salisbury, Wor- 
 cester, and Llandaff were all held in this way, by 
 those whose only interest in the dioceses appears to 
 have been the fees they obtained out of them. The 
 bishop of Worcester lived and died in Rome, and 
 his predecessor and successor were also foreigners. 
 
 No less detrimental to the well-being of the Church 
 in England at this time was the crying abuse and 
 scandal of pluralities. The holding of many livings 
 by one man was no new grievance. At the end of 
 the thirteenth century, according to archbishop Win- 
 chelsea's register, there were some that had fifteen, 
 others thirteen, while one held no fewer than twenty- 
 three benefices. The twenty-three clergymen given 
 in the list held an average of eight livings each.* In 
 the sixteenth century there was still grave cause of 
 complaint, some priests having as many as ten or 
 twelve benefices and very possibly resident on none, 
 while there were " plenty of learned men in the 
 universities"! for whom no preferment could be 
 
 clergy, " The fifth was that, spiritual persons promoted to great 
 benetices, and living by their flock, were living in the Court, in 
 lords' houses, and took all of their parishioners without spending 
 anything at all amongst them." Also relief of the poor was 
 neglected, as well as preaching. 
 
 * Bishop Gibson's " Codex,'' p. 946. 
 
 t " Complaints against Clergy in Parl." 1529, No. 6.
 
 22 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 found. Cardinal Wolsey himself set the example. 
 He held not only a plurality of livings, but was 
 bishop of more than one see, whilst he farmed 
 others. He also obtained the abbey of St. Albans 
 in commendam. Although the Parliament of 1529 
 especially legislated against this abuse, the excep- 
 tions were so numerous as to make the Act ridiculous 
 and nugatory. Every spiritual man of the king's 
 council, for example, was allowed to keep three 
 livings ; every chaplain of the queen or royal 
 family two each ; archbishops and dukes might 
 keep six chaplains ; each marquis and earl five, and 
 every chaplain might hold two benefices. The same 
 privilege was extended to every doctor of divinity 
 and to so many others that the holding of more than 
 one benefice could hardly be called an exception. * 
 At this time also benefices were bestowed upon the 
 young of good family, who had sufficient influence 
 to secure these preferments. Thus, for example, 
 Reginald Pole, the future Cardinal, when only seven- 
 teen was nominated to the prebendal stall of 
 Roscombe, and two years later to Gatcombe 
 Secunda, both in the Salisbury diocese. At eigh- 
 teen he received the deanery of Wimborne Minster, t 
 The non-residence of bishops in their dioceses 
 was a fruitful source of evil. The episcopal func- 
 
 * " Statutes at Large," ed. 1763. Vol. iv., p. 181. 
 
 t Calendar ii., No. 3943. " Starkey's Dialogue between Pole 
 and Lupset," E. Eng. Text Soc., Preface, cxiii. 21 Hen. VIII., 
 c. 13.
 
 The Dawn of Difficulties. 23 
 
 tions were very generally relegated to suffragans, 
 who instead of being assistants became practically 
 substitutes for their principals in all the spiritual 
 work of a diocese. Not unfrequently, these suffra- 
 gans were bishops of Irish sees, who resided in 
 England to the neglect of their own cure, and under- 
 -took the supervision of more than one diocese. 
 Upon such auxiliaries rectories or other ecclesiastical 
 preferments were bestowed in lieu of payment for 
 their services, and these in turn were left to the care 
 of ill-paid curates. Neglect of duty more or less 
 extended to the entire body of the clergy, who 
 deprived of proper oversight and paternal guidance, 
 quickly followed the example of non-residence set by 
 their superiors. The result was lamentable so far as 
 the care and instruction of the people was concerned. 
 By law the clergy were appointed to preach in their 
 parishes at least four times in the year, but even from 
 this minimized obligation exemptions were frequent, 
 all chaplains and graduates of the university having 
 an immunity. The successor of Wolsey in the 
 archiepiscopal see of York, Dr. Edward Lee, reports 
 that in the whole of his diocese he could find only 
 twelve of the parochial clergy able and willing to 
 preach to their people.* 
 
 For many successive years, for example, the diocese 
 
 of Bath and Wells knew its bishops more by report 
 
 than personal contact. From the death of bishop 
 
 Beckington in 1464, the work of the see had been 
 
 * R. O., Box. R. 60. Strype Eccl. Mems. i., p. 291.
 
 24 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 almost invariably carried on by commissioners in 
 spiritualibus and suffragans. It had the ill-fortune 
 to fall into the hands of some too busily engaged 
 in the king's matters to attend to the spiritual 
 wants of their diocese ; it had been held by a 
 foreigner, and then farmed by Wolsey. From neg- 
 lect and its remaining long unoccupied and unfur- 
 nished, the very episcopal palace at Wells had fallen 
 into utter ruin and decay. Richard Fox, one of the 
 bishops, was an excellent example in that age ; yet 
 what can be said in his defence, when his episcopal 
 duties sat so lightly upon his conscience that though 
 he was consecrated as bishop of Exeter in 1487, 
 removed to Bath and Wells in 1491, and translated to 
 Durham in December, 1494, he yet never saw his 
 cathedral at Exeter nor set foot in his diocese of 
 Bath and Wells. 
 
 The occupation of the bishops in affairs of state, 
 besides its disastrous effect on the clergy, had 
 another result. By it a jealous opposition to eccle- 
 siastics was created in the minds of the new nobility. 
 The lay lords and hungry officials not unnaturally 
 looked with dislike upon this employment of eccle- 
 siastics in secular concerns. The occupation of 
 clerics in all the intrigues of party politics, and in the 
 wiles of foreign and domestic diplomacy, conduced to 
 keep them out of coveted preferment. Hence when 
 occasion offered they did not need much inducement 
 to turn against the clergy and enable Henry to carry 
 out his coercive legislation against the Church.
 
 77/6? Dawn of Difficulties. 25 
 
 Under such circumstances it is not surprising to 
 "find that neglect of religion and practical heresy was 
 largely on the increase at the beginning of the six- 
 teenth century. Foxe records the names of no fewer 
 than twenty-three heretics who were compelled to 
 abjure their errors by Fitz-James, the bishop of 
 London, during 1510-11. In November, 1511, so 
 .serious were these heretical opinions considered that 
 Henry VI 1 1. ordered the archbishop of Canterbury 
 to summon a convocation to meet in the February of 
 the following year at St. Paul's, and amongst other 
 things to take into consideration the extirpation of 
 heresy.* Archbishop Warham made choice of Colet, 
 dean of St. Paul's, to preach on the occasion of 
 this assembly of the clergy, and his sermon is, 
 perhaps, the most valuable contemporary account of 
 the state of the Church in England at that time. 
 
 Taking for his text the words of St. Paul to the 
 Romans " Be not conformed to this world, but be 
 ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that 
 ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and 
 perfect will of God " the learned and uncompromis- 
 ing dean proceeded to speak boldly against '' the 
 fashion of secular and worldly living in clerks and 
 priests." 
 
 To this secularity of priests' lives dean Colet 
 
 attributed all the evils which had befallen the 
 
 Church, and he earnestly begged the English clergy 
 
 to turn their mind to reformation of abuses if they 
 
 * Calendar i., 2004, 4312.
 
 2,6 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 would desire to escape from the dangers to religion 
 which could be so plainly foreseen. There was no 
 need for new laws, but that those which existed 
 should be put in force. Ordination should be given 
 only to such as led pure and holy lives, and the laws 
 against clerics and monks occupying themselves in 
 secular business should be put in force. Also " let the 
 laws be rehearsed," begged the preacher, " that com- 
 mand the personal residence of curates (rectors) in 
 their churches. For of this many evils grow, because 
 all things nowadays are done by vicars and parish 
 priests ; yea, and those foolish, also, and unmeet and 
 oftentimes wicked, that seek none other thing in the 
 people than foul lucre, whereof cometh occasion of 
 evil heresies and ill Christianity in the people." 
 
 So, too, in this respect bishops should first look to 
 themselves. They should diligently look after the 
 souls of those committed to them, and reside in 
 their dioceses. Their revenues should not be spent 
 on "feasting and banqueting," nor upon "sumptu- 
 ous apparel and pomps," but " in things profitable 
 and necessary to the Church. For when St. Augus- 
 tine, some time bishop of England, did ask pope 
 Gregory how that the bishops and prelates of Eng- 
 land should spend their goods that were the offerings 
 of faithful people, the said pope answered (and this 
 answer is put in the decrees, in the twelfth chapter 
 and second question) that the goods of bishops 
 ought to be divided into four parts, whereof one part 
 ought to be to the bishop and his household, another
 
 The Dawn of Difficulties. 27 
 
 to his clerks, the third to repair and uphold his tene- 
 ments, the fourth to the poor people." * 
 
 The state of affairs thus described in the sermon 
 of the dean to the clergy in 1512, was doubtlessly 
 reflected in the monastic orders of England. Thej 
 events of the previous century and a half must neces-. 
 sarily have done much to lower the tone of the 
 religious houses and rob them of their primitive 
 fervour. Before they could recover from the effects 
 of the great plagues of the fourteenth century the 
 civil disturbances of the fifteenth century intensified 
 the evils from which they were suffering, and became 
 to them "specially disastrous." f Their numbers 
 were so materially diminished by the pestilences, and 
 those that were spared were so far weakened, that it 
 became impossible to maintain the ancient rigours of 
 religious life. Moreover, as has been pointed out, 
 death destroyed rather the fervent religious than 
 those, who through fear of pestilence would be led 
 to neglect the austerities and obligations of their 
 state of life. This must have told greatly against 
 the maintenance of a high moral tone in the religious 
 houses. The same cause plunged the monastic 
 establishments into poverty. In sweeping away their 
 tenants and producing an alteration in the tenure of 
 land, it at the same time weakened their hold on the 
 affections of the people. The long and deadly strife 
 
 * Knight's " Life of Colet," pp. 252-264. See also Blunt's 
 "Reformation," pp. 10-18. 
 
 t Brewer. " Henry VIIL," i., p. 50.
 
 28 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 which preceded the reign of Henry VII., coming 
 upon these troubles, would have also contributed to 
 destroy discipline and engender a spirit of unrest 
 wholly alien to the truer characteristics of the clois- 
 tered life. Hence, without doubt, there may have 
 arisen a defection from the fervour of earlier years, 
 and here and there some individual cases of serious 
 delinquency might be found. 
 
 The financial state of the monasteries at the com- 
 mencement of the sixteenth century was undoubtedly 
 deplorable. Although many of them were possessed 
 of considerable estates, which in itself was regarded 
 as a matter of reproach, they were yet suffering 
 from acute poverty. Denuded of their tenants, the 
 monastic lands became neglected and unproductive. 
 " Debt with no chance of redemption weighed heavily 
 upon all."* Claims, however, upon their charity, and 
 the exactions of royal and other founders, increased 
 rather than diminished, till the burden was more than 
 the crippled resources of the religious could bear. 
 The State papers of Henry VIII.'s reign contain 
 abundant proof of the increasing demands made by 
 king and courtier upon monastery and convent. 
 Farm after farm, manor after manor, benefice after 
 benefice, office after office were yielded up, in com- 
 pliance with requests that were in reality commands- 
 Pensions in ever-increasing numbers were charged 
 on monastic lands at the asking of those it was 
 impossible to refuse. " In some cases," writes Mr. 
 * Brewer. " Henry VIII.," Vol. i., p. 50.
 
 The DaiL'n of Difficulties. 29 
 
 Bre\ver, " the abbots were bound to give endowments 
 to scholars of the king's nomination * or provide 
 them with competent benefices ; pensions and corro- 
 dies were granted under the privy seal to yeomen 
 ushers of the wardrobe and the chamber, to clerks 
 of the kitchen sewers, secretaries and gentlemen of 
 the chapel royal ; f and these were strictly enforced, 
 whatever might be the other encumbrances of the 
 house."| 
 
 The royal munificence was liberally exercised in 
 grants of pensions and perquisites when others had 
 to satisfy the recipients of the royal generosity. By 
 established custom every bishop on entering upon 
 the emoluments of his see was bound, " ratione novce 
 creationist to allow a fitting pension to any clerk 
 recommended by the crown until such time as he 
 had provided a suitable benefice for him. So, in the 
 same way, founders and their descendants claimed 
 and exercised the right of billeting poor relations 
 or needy dependents for maintenance and often for 
 lodging on the religious houses of which they were 
 patrons. Thus, at the command of Henry VIII., the 
 last abbot of Tavistock, on January i6th, 1526, 
 granted to one John Amadas the corrody which 
 had previously been allowed to Henry Coleis, a 
 
 * Calendar i., 1235, 1360. Mr. Brewer adds : " One of the most 
 interesting of these cases is that of a pension paid by the Prior of 
 St. Frideswide's, Oxford, to Reginald Pole, then a student at the 
 University of Oxford, afterwards Cardinal." Note, p. 50. 
 
 | Calendar i., 49, 60, 106, 615, 920, &c. 
 
 % Brewer. " Henry VIIL," i., p. 50.
 
 30 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 former nominee of the Crown, then lately dead. 
 This corrody is described as " one white loaf," 
 another loaf called " trequarter ; " a dish called 
 "general;" another dish of flesh or fish called 
 " pitance ; " three "potells" of beer or three silver 
 half-pence daily ; also a furred robe at Christmas 
 yearly, of the same kind as that of our squires, or 
 the sum of 205. When John Amadas was at the 
 abbey he was to be provided with a suitable chamber, 
 stabling for one horse, three candles called " Paris 
 candles," with a fire in his chamber and hay for his 
 horse, " such as one of our esquires receives." When 
 the monastery was dissolved the court of Augmenta- 
 tion, on April 29th, 1539, allowed John Amadas, " in 
 lieu of all these daily comforts and perquisites, an 
 annuity of $."* 
 
 In their endeavour to meet the demands upon their 
 revenue, the abbots and superiors of the religious 
 houses endeavoured to accommodate their farming 
 arrangements to the requirements of the time. Like 
 the nobles and other landowners, they tried to turn 
 their estates to the most profitable account by form- 
 ing large enclosures, and devoting land hitherto 
 cultivated to the pasture of sheep. This was regarded 
 with great disfavour by the people, who were no 
 longer required in the same numbers as before to 
 make the monastic estates profitable to their owners. 
 In the parliament of 1529 this and the fact that the 
 religious kept " tan houses and sold wool and cloth," 
 * See Dr. Oliver's "Monasticon Dioec. Exon.," vi.
 
 The Daicn of Difficulties. 31 
 
 &c., were causes of complaint against them by the 
 Commons. The fact also that the same grievance 
 was mentioned by Sir Thomas More in his " Utopia," 
 and that Wickliffe had complained that " Where in 
 many abbeys should be, and sometimes were, great 
 houses to harbour poor men therein, now they be 
 fallen down or made swinecots, stables, or bake- 
 houses," seems to show that the change was bitterly 
 felt by the people, who were unable to understand 
 the need which compelled the religious to make the 
 most of their property. There is no doubt that the 
 writings and declamations of Wickliffe and the Lol- 
 lards had done something to undermine the reverence 
 in which the religious orders were held by the mass of 
 the people. " Writers/' says Edmund Burke, of the 
 period of the French Revolution, " especially when 
 they act in a body and with one direction, have great 
 influence on the public mind. . . . These writers, like 
 the propagators of all novelties, pretended to a great 
 zeal for the poor and the lower orders, whilst in their 
 satires they rendered hateful, by every exaggera- 
 tion the faults of courts, of nobility, and of the priest- 
 hood."* 
 
 It is difficult for the popular mind to resist the in- 
 fluence of attractive pictures presented to it. The 
 advantages to be derived from a redistribution of the 
 worldly wealth of the Church, and in particular of the 
 religious bodies in England, were constantly insisted 
 upon. And the poison instilled into the people by 
 
 * Reflections on French Revolution, ed. Bohn. ii., p. 384.
 
 32 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 scurrilous tales and descriptions of clerical and 
 monastic life, circulated by their authors for the pur- 
 pose of bringing discredit upon the Church, was no 
 doubt insidious. These generally were not indi- 
 genous, but imported, venerable stories, Eastern in 
 their origin and adapted from Mahometan life to suit 
 the Christian character ; but even they could not de- 
 prive the religious bodies of popular respect. 
 
 The most celebrated and perhaps most dan- 
 gerous attack against the religious orders made in 
 the early sixteenth century was in the " Supplication 
 of Beggars," written by one Simon Fish. It was 
 answered by Sir Thomas More, step by step, in his 
 " Supplication of Poor Souls ; " but, like all such 
 stories, the answer probably reached only a few 
 of those who had accepted the wild statements of 
 Fish's fables. Although aimed chiefly against the 
 mendicant friars, the " Supplication of Beggars " in- 
 volved in one sweeping condemnation the whole of 
 the spirituality, described as " bishops, abbots, priors, 
 deacons, archdeacons, suffragans, priests, monks, 
 canons, friars, pardoners, and summoners." This 
 curious collection of personages was declared by the 
 writer to have got into their hands more than a third 
 part of the realm, and this estimate of the wealth of 
 the Church was constantly quoted and accepted by 
 subsequent authors. The value of the computation 
 may, however, be judged by the fact that it is based 
 on the assertion that there were at the time in Eng- 
 land fifty-two thousand parish churches. Upon this
 
 The Dawn of Difficulties. 33 
 
 statement Sir Thomas More remarks : " That is one 
 plain lie to begin with." Not contented with this 
 estimate, the author goes on to assert that the 
 Church really has nearer one-half than .a third of the 
 entire wealth of the realm. It is only one step further 
 to declare, as he does in the next sentence, that it 
 has this half. Then, with natural indignation, he 
 asks why the spiritual portion of the population, who 
 are to the laity only in the ratio of one to four 
 hundred, should thus have half of the riches of the 
 country ? 
 
 A still more wonderful calculation was made by 
 Simon Fish as to the amount collected by the mendi- 
 cant friars each year. He starts with his old pre- 
 miss of the fifty-two thousand parishes, and counts 
 an average of ten households in each. These, he 
 considers, would every one contribute a penny each 
 quarter to every one of the five orders of friars. By 
 a simple process of multiplication he thus obtains no 
 less a sum than ^436,333 6s. 8d. contributed yearly 
 to the begging friars in England. According to such 
 a calculation, these orders obtained by begging twice 
 as much as the entire revenues of all the monas- 
 teries,* and more than the whole yearly income of 
 the Church in England, which, according to the 
 Valor Ecclesiasticus of Henry VIII., was only 
 ^320,280 los. 
 
 Still, even these and similar falsehoods, although 
 appealing to the cupidity of the people, do not seem 
 * Stated by Tanner as ^142,914 125. 9fd. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 to have alienated from the monks the affections of 
 the general population. The insurrections in their 
 favour is an indication of the opinion of the people 
 themselves, in spite of all that had been said and 
 written against them. Henry Brinklow, a mendi- 
 cant friar who had thrown off his frock, and was 
 therefore on two accounts little likely to favour the 
 monasteries, bears testimony to the way in which 
 they discharged their duties to the people. " And 
 when they," he writes, " had gifts of any (churches) 
 not impropriated, they gave them unto their friends, 
 of which always some were learned ; for the 
 monks found of their friends children at school. 
 And though they were not learned, yet they kept 
 hospitality, and helped their poor friends. And if 
 the parsonages were impropriated, the monks were 
 bound to deal alms to the poor, and to keep hospi- 
 tality, as the writings of the gifts of such parsonages 
 and lands do plainly declare, in these words : ' in 
 puram eleemosinam- And as touching the alms 
 that they dealt, and the hospitality that they kept, 
 every man knoweth that many thousands were well 
 relieved of them, and might have been better if they 
 had not had so many great men's horses to feed, and 
 had not been overcharged with such idle gentlemen* 
 
 * A curious illustration of this may be seen in a letter from the 
 son of the Duke of Buckingham to Henry VIII. It is evidence of 
 the services rendered by the monasteries to honourable families in 
 reduced circumstances. "And because," the writer says, " he hath 
 no dwelling place meet for him to inhabit (he was) fain to live poorly 
 at board in an Abbey this four years day, with his wife and seven 
 children."
 
 The Dawn of Difficulties. 35 
 
 as were never out of the abbeys. And if they had 
 any vicarage in their hands they set in sometimes 
 some sufficient vicar (though it were but seldom) to 
 preach and to teach."* He goes on to say that the 
 land was given to the monastic houses for education, 
 hospitality, and to give alms to the poor, and that 
 they were pulled down on the " pretence " of amend- 
 ing what was amiss. " But see," he continues, " how 
 much that was amiss is amended, for all the godly 
 pretence. It is amended, even as the devil amended 
 his dame's leg (as it is in the proverb) : when he 
 should have set it right he broke it quite in pieces, 
 The monks gave too little alms, but now, where ^,20 
 was given yearly to the poor in more than a hundred 
 places in England, is not one meal's meat given. 
 This is fair amendment." 
 
 Into the general state of moral discipline to be 
 found within the monasteries of England at the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century it will be neces- 
 sary to examine more particularly in considering the 
 charges brought against them to justify their disso- 
 lution. It may, however, be here stated that the 
 most authentic evidence upon the subject is to be 
 found in the episcopal registers of the various 
 dioceses. These contain records, more or less 
 minute, of the visitations made by the Bishops 
 to the monasteries within the limits of their special 
 jurisdiction. Their injunctions and other acts prove 
 the care with which the duty of supervision was 
 
 * " Complaint of Roderyck Mors." E. Eng. Text. Soc. ed., 
 P- 33-
 
 36 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 exercised. Many monasteries, and even orders, 
 were, of course, altogether exempted from episcopal 
 control ; but such exemptions were by no means as 
 common as is generally stated. There is no reason 
 whatever to suppose that the condition of the exempt 
 religious was in any way worse than the rest. On 
 the contrary, they were, as a rule, the larger monastic 
 houses* which enjoyed the privilege, and in these, 
 as the preamble of the Act of Parliament which 
 suppressed the lesser houses expressly declares, 
 " thanks be to God religion is right well kept." It 
 is not too much, therefore, to regard the evidence 
 furnished in the pages of these episcopal registers 
 as giving a faithful picture of the state of the 
 religious houses. It is certainly very different from 
 that which Crumwell's agents have drawn, and which 
 has been traditionally regarded as trustworthy by 
 subsequent generations of Englishmen. The acts 
 of many of these visitations are still preserved to us.f 
 They prove conclusively the extreme care taken by 
 
 * Tliis will hold good of Cistercians and Cluniacs with some 
 others. But in regard to the Benedictines, who held nearly all the 
 monasteries of the first rank, absolute exemption in practice must 
 not be too easily assumed. To say nothing of the wealthy cathedral 
 priories, such monasteries as Glastonbury in the south and St. 
 Mary's, York, in the north, seem from the bishops' registers to have 
 been subject to little less than ordinary episcopal visitation. These 
 are cited as instances only. 
 
 f Besides those to be found in the Registers, two valuable volumes 
 of the visitations of the religious houses of the diocese of Norwich 
 from 1514 to 1532 are among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian 
 Nos. 132 and 210.
 
 The Dawn of Difficulties. 37 
 
 the bishops in the examination of the individual 
 members of a community, and in the correction of 
 such faults as they were thus enabled to discover. 
 " They " (the bishops), writes Dr. Oliver, " appear 
 to have considered this as a duty of primary import- 
 ance ; in fact, the attention which they paid to 
 this point contributed above all other things to 
 support regular discipline and to prevent licentious- 
 ness."* 
 
 From a careful study of the records of the diocese 
 of Exeter the same learned authority is able to state 
 positively that the " grosser immoralities were far 
 from common " in the conventual establishments of 
 that diocese. This view will be endorsed by all 
 those who may take the trouble to examine into this 
 source of authentic information. The graver irregu- 
 larities which are recorded against the religious after 
 the most searching scrutiny, made by the bishops or 
 their commissioners, are after all few and far between ; 
 and the extreme punishment with which such irregu- 
 larities were visited proves that, so far from not being 
 heeded, the moral reputation of the monastic and 
 conventual establishments was considered of the first 
 importance. The faults principally noted are breaches 
 of regular discipline, such as absences from choir or 
 laxity as regards enclosure. Breaches of the vows 
 of poverty or obedience are sternly corrected. 
 Perpetual silence is enforced in the dormitory and 
 elsewhere. Necessary repairs for the conventual 
 
 * " Historic Collections for Devon." Preface, p. n.
 
 38 Henry VIII. and the Euglisli Monasteries. 
 
 buildings are ordered and provision is made for the 
 proper support of the members of the community. 
 Such are the injunctions which are generally to be 
 found as the result of the episcopal scrutiny, and 
 not uncommonly, when things were more than ordi- 
 narily out of order, the visitation, so far as the pleni- 
 tude of episcopal power went, was continued for six 
 or even twelve months. Then another visit deter- 
 mined whether the faults complained of were 
 sufficiently corrected to warrant the termination of 
 the visitors' supervision. 
 
 It would be affectation to suggest that the vast 
 regular body in England was altogether free from 
 grosser faults and immoralities. But it is unjust to re- 
 gard them as existing to any but a very limited extent. 
 Human nature in all ages of the world is the same. 
 The religious habit, though a safeguard, gives no 
 absolute immunity from the taint of fallen nature. 
 The religious of the sixteenth century had passed 
 through many difficulties dangerous to their spiritual 
 no less than to their temporal welfare. Yet, while 
 their moral tone had probably been lowered by the 
 influence of the spirit of the times, the graver falls 
 were certainly confined to individual cases. Any- 
 thing like general immorality was altogether unknown 
 among the religious of England. This much is clearly 
 proved by the testimony of the acts of episcopal 
 visitations, as well as by the absence of any such 
 sweeping charge till it became necessary for Henry 
 and his agents to blast the fair name of the monastic
 
 The Daivu of Difficulties. 39 
 
 houses in order the more easily to gain possession of 
 their property. 
 
 The reports of C rum well's visitors no doubt repre- 
 sented the religious houses as being in the worst 
 possible state of moral degradation. Still, subsequent 
 authors have improved upon the picture, and have 
 drawn to a great extent upon their imagination. It 
 is to be hoped that a better knowledge of the 
 methods employed by Henry's agents to blacken 
 the character of those they were about to despoil 
 may lead to a truer appreciation of the value to be 
 attached to their testimony.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PRECEDENTS FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF 
 MONASTERIES IN ENGLAND. 
 
 BEFORE considering the systematic suppression of 
 monasteries inaugurated under cardinal Wolsey the 
 various precedents for confiscation of this nature 
 afforded by English history may be briefly stated. 
 They mostly relate to religious houses known as 
 " alien priories," and the action taken at different 
 times against them was dictated rather by patriotic 
 and prudent motives in periods of foreign wars, than 
 by any royal desire to dispossess the monks of their 
 property for the purpose of increasing the kingly 
 revenues. 
 
 Alien priories were almost entirely the result of 
 the Norman Conquest. The bishops and barons, 
 who obtained so much of the conquered land, were 
 connected by blood and interest with the country 
 from which they came. Many of them were the 
 descendants of the noble founders of the great 
 foreign monasteries, and many were united to these 
 houses by close personal ties. It was but natural
 
 Precedents for Suppression in England. 41 
 
 that these monasteries should share in the wealth 
 which the fortune of war had bestowed upon their 
 friends and patrons. When churches, manors, and 
 tithes in England came thus into the possession of 
 the Norman abbeys, the monks, to guard their rights 
 and collect their revenues, built small cells or con- 
 vents on their lands which are known as alien 
 priories. 
 
 Under the first kings of the Norman dynasty, 
 from William I. to Henry II., many such establish- 
 ments sprang up in England. Some were conventual, 
 paying a yearly tribute,* which at first was the sur- 
 plus of the revenue, to the foreign mother house. 
 Others depended entirely upon the houses abroad, 
 which appointed the superiors at will and maintained 
 the English establishment solely for the purpose of 
 collecting and guarding the rents and tithes which 
 were sent over the sea to support the abbey and its 
 foreign dependencies. The religious inhabiting these 
 cells, in some cases few, in others more numerous, 
 were at first obviously aliens, ,with their sympathies 
 and affections centred in their foreign home. The 
 very object of their existence, which was to forward 
 money out of England, tended to keep these estab- 
 lishments in the possession of foreign religious and 
 to exclude English subjects. 
 
 In number, from their first foundation to their final 
 suppression, there are stated to have been from 100 
 
 * Apportus or acknowledgment.
 
 42 Henry /"///. and Hie English Monasteries. 
 
 to 150 alien priories established in England.* And 
 the Cluniac houses alone during the reign of Edward 
 III. are said to have forwarded no less than ^2,000 
 a year (about ^"60,000 of our money) to the monas- 
 tery of Cluny. When France and England were at 
 peace this transmission of wealth out of the country 
 was tolerated by the English rulers. War, however, 
 brought the subject prominently before them and led 
 to various acts of suppression and confiscation. 
 King John, it is said, seized the priories dependent 
 on the foreign houses and applied their revenues to 
 the relief of his own necessities, f These, number- 
 ing eighty-one, were compelled to pay into the royal 
 treasury the sum hitherto sent abroad. The first 
 serious action, however, was taken against them 
 by king Edward I. In 1294 that monarch de- 
 termined to make war upon France for the re- 
 covery of the province of Guienne, and in the fol- 
 lowing year hostilities commenced. Edward had 
 the greatest difficulty in finding money to defray 
 his expenses for the coming campaign, and had re- 
 course to many bold and despotic expedients, j 
 With difficulty he obtained a tenth from the laity, 
 and from the clergy he personally demanded half the 
 income arising from both their lay fees and benefices. 
 To this unheard-of exaction, after vigorous opposi- 
 
 * Dugdale in the " Monasticon '' gives only 100. Weever. p. 
 338, says they were in number no. The author of a small work 
 on "Alien Priories," A.D. 1779, gives the names of 146. 
 
 f Dixon, " Hist, of Church of Eng.," i., p. 321. 
 
 J Lingard. Vol. iii., capt. 3.
 
 Precedents for Suppression in England. 43 
 
 tion, they submitted. To avoid, however, future de- 
 mands of a similar nature, they applied to Boniface 
 VIII. for a bull, by which the clergy, under pain of 
 excommunication, were forbidden to grant the re- 
 venues of their benefices without the previous per- 
 mission of the Holy See. At this time the king 
 seized all the alien priories, to the number of about 
 a hundred, and used their revenues for the prosecu- 
 tion of his French war. In order, moreover, to pre- 
 vent the foreign monks in England acting as spies 
 and rendering other assistance to his enemies, he 
 forced them to remove from their houses to a distance 
 of twenty miles from the sea-coast. * 
 
 This precedent was subsequently often followed 
 during the English wars with France. Edward II., 
 for example, on the same plea, took the alien priories 
 into his own hands, appointing the priors or guardians 
 to pay to him the various sums they were otherwise 
 bound to transmit to their foreign superiors. The 
 priories of Pantfield and Wells, for instance, were 
 given to the custody of Robert de Stokes, then prior 
 of the former, on condition of his paying to the king 
 the accustomed ^76 a year. That these sums were 
 paid is not so certain, for when Edward III. came to 
 the throne in 1327, on restoring the alien priories to 
 their original owners, he expressly remitted and par- 
 doned all arrears, f 
 
 * Dixon, p. 321. 
 
 t Rymer, iv., p. 246. Claus. Rot., i Ed. III., p. i, m. 22. This 
 seizure by Ed. II. of the alien priories is not mentioned by his-
 
 44 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Under Edward II. the suppression of the order of 
 Knights Templar took place. In the first year of 
 his reign, acting on the bull of pope Clement V., 
 which desired the arrest of the knights and inquiry 
 to be made into the charges against them, he appre- 
 hended all on the same day. " The process against 
 them," writes Dr. Lingard, "lasted for three years ; 
 and if it be fair to judge from the informations taken 
 in England, however we may condemn a few in- 
 dividuals, we must certainly acquit the order." * In 
 1312 the pope, however, suppressed the institute, 
 not as the necessary result of established guilt, but 
 " as a measure of expediency rather than of justice." f 
 By a subsequent brief, pope Clement bestowed their 
 property upon the kindred order of Hospitallers. 
 Edward, however, suspended the action of this latter 
 bull for more than a year. When, in 1313, he as- 
 sented, he protested that it was for purposes of 
 national policy, and that it in no way affected his 
 regal rights, or those of his subjects, to the posses- 
 sions of the suppressed Templars. j The matter 
 remained in abeyance for eleven years, when the Act 
 for their final suppression passed through parlia- 
 ment. This Act declared that by law all the lands 
 
 torians, but the document leaves no doubt of the suppression which 
 was carried out on account of the French war " by the late King 
 our Father " (nuper rex Angliae pater noster). 
 
 * Hist, iii., capt. 4. The whole process may be seen in Wilkins 
 ii., 329. 
 
 f Rymer, iii., p. 323. 
 
 { Ibid., iii., 451, 457.
 
 Precedents for Suppression in England. 45 
 
 of these knights had reverted to the crown or chief 
 lord. Still, in this particular instance, it ordained 
 that they should not so escheat. The Templars, so 
 parliament declared, had been instituted " for the de- 
 fence of Christendom, the augmentation of God's 
 service, and liberal almsgiving," and that, according 
 to the minds of the original benefactors and donors 
 of the possessions, the lands ought to be disposed 
 "to goodly uses." "And, therefore, in the same 
 parliament, it is agreed, ordained, and established by 
 law, to continue for ever, that neither our lord the 
 king, nor any other lords of the fees aforesaid, or 
 any other person, hath title or right to retain the 
 foresaid lands and tenements ... in respect to the 
 ceasing or dissolution aforesaid." The Act further 
 provided that, as the brethren of the hospital of St. 
 John of Jerusalem were instituted for much the same 
 purposes as the suppressed Templars, so the confis- 
 cated possessions should be given over to them, ac- 
 cording to the presumed wishes of the original donors. 
 These purposes were declared to be, relieving the 
 poor, maintaining hospitality, celebrating divine ser- 
 vice and the defence of the Holy Land. * Some 
 portion of the lands, however, had already passed 
 from the king's hands into the possession of lay- 
 men, f 
 
 Edward III., at the beginning of his reign, re-estab- 
 
 * Statutes of the Realm, i., p. 194 ; 17 Ed. II. (A.D. 1324). Ed. 
 Rec. Comm. 
 
 t Rymer, iii., 323.
 
 46 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 lished many of the alien priories, * but in 1337, ten 
 years later, on account of the war, he reverted to the 
 policy of his two predecessors. To raise money he 
 not only had recourse to forced loans and pawned 
 his crown and jewels, but once more seized all the 
 property of French aliens, both lay and ecclesiastical. t 
 Amongst the latter the estates of the alien priories 
 again passed into the royal possession. In the 
 Cluniac houses there had long been a feeling of dis- 
 content on the part of those English subjects who 
 had there embraced the religious life. In the fourth 
 year of this king's reign, A.D. 1331, they laid their 
 grievances before parliament in the shape of a 
 petition. They stated that, in the opinion of many, 
 the houses were not governed properly ; that in some 
 priories, such as Montacute and Bermondsey, which 
 ought to have had from thirty to forty members, 
 there were not a third of the number ; that all 
 the revenue thus saved was being sent out of the 
 country ; that there was no election allowed them ; 
 that not twenty were professed in the province, 
 and that some of the English members were kept 
 forty years before being allowed to take their vows, 
 whilst others were never permitted to do so. The 
 petitioners begged that parliament would insist upon 
 some one in England having powers to settle the ques- 
 tion of profession, and they suggested that the prior 
 of Lewes would be a fitting person. Finally, they 
 pointed out that the great evil (magnum malum) 
 
 * Rymer, iv., p. 246. f Ibid, iv., p. 777.
 
 Precedents for Suppression in England. 47 
 
 was that the French monks, however few, were 
 always the masters and that English subjects were 
 habitually treated as inferiors. It was difficult, if 
 not impossible, they urged, for them to live together 
 in this way. To this remonstrance the king replied, 
 ordering the matters complained of to be looked to 
 " lest he should have reason to act in a more severe 
 manner."* 
 
 Edward III. kept the foreign houses in his hands 
 for twenty-three years. During this time he granted 
 portions of their lands, or lay pensions out of their 
 revenues, to several of his nobles. f In 1361, how- 
 ever, on the conclusion of peace with France, many 
 of these alien priories were restored ; | but only to be 
 again sequestrated eight years later, for the purpose 
 of raising money to continue the war, which had 
 broken out once again. 
 
 A few years later parliament called the attention 
 of the king to the foreign houses. Under several 
 statutes of this and previous reigns it had been 
 declared unlawful for religious persons to send money 
 to their houses beyond the sea, and foreign im- 
 positions of all kinds had been forbidden. The 
 commons at this time pointed out that, " in conse- 
 quence of the priories and other religious houses 
 subject to foreign monasteries being filled with 
 
 * Reyner, " Apostolatus.'' Append. Hi., p. 147. 
 t Tanner, Pref. x. Dugdale, " Bar." ii., 74. 
 | Rymer, vi., 311. 
 e.g., 32 and 35 Ed. I. ; 25 and 38 Ed. III.
 
 48 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Frenchmen, who acted as spies," such houses 
 became a real national danger. They therefore 
 petitioned " that so long as the war lasted all 
 Frenchmen should be banished the kingdom." But 
 Edward was at this time, in the midst of trouble at 
 home and abroad, approaching the end of his long 
 reign. 
 
 In the earlier years of that king some of these 
 monasteries had been naturalized on their own peti- 
 tion. For example, the monks of Thetford abbey 
 represented that the appointment of their superior 
 was in the hands of the abbots of Cluny. This might 
 have been tolerated when the religious were foreigners, 
 but not when they and their prior were all of them 
 English. They wished, therefore, to be freed from 
 their union with the French abbey and from the sub- 
 sidy required of them by their foreign brethren. In 
 the same way the priory of Holy Trinity, York, 
 asked to be declared an English foundation on the 
 same footing as other religious houses.* 
 
 During the reign of Richard II. the estates of 
 these alien priories appear to have remained in the 
 king's hands. For a great number of years the 
 foreign abbeys had derived little profit from their 
 English cells and appear to have been anxious 
 to get rid of them on any advantageous terms. 
 About 1390, therefore, William of Wykeham, having 
 obtained the pope's leave, bought the estates of the 
 alien priories of Hornchurch and Writtle, in Essex,. 
 
 * Reyner, " Apostolatus." App. iii., p.
 
 Precedents for Suppression in England. 49 
 
 for his foundation of New College.* In the same 
 way the priory of Tutbury, in Staffordshire, a cell of 
 the abbey of Dinan, was sold in 1394. It was then 
 in the hands of one Waldgrave, " paying ^40 a year 
 into the exchequer, as John Chater, the prior, had 
 wont to do." The abbot and convent of the French 
 abbey declared in their instrument that " by reason 
 of the wars, and distance of the place, they had not 
 received any benefit from it for 50 years." Their 
 charges in sending over always exceeded the profit, 
 and they calculated that " were there perfect peace 
 concluded betwixt the kings of England and France, 
 the benefit would be so small to them that it would 
 suffice for the maintenance of but one religious 
 person." For these reasons, and because the pro- 
 perty would be of service to the Carthusian Priory 
 at Coventry, which King Richard II. had lately 
 established there, and in consideration of 2,400 
 francs "in good gold of French coin" which the 
 Carthusians had paid, they surrendered all their 
 rights over their English cell and its possessions.! 
 
 Richard's successor, Henry IV., began by show- 
 ing favour to the alien priories. In the first year of 
 his reign, 1399, he restored the conventual houses, 
 to the number of thirty-three, reserving in time of 
 war for himself the subsidy they paid in time of 
 peace to their foreign abbeys.j A few years after- 
 
 * Tanner, Pref. xxii. 
 
 f Dugdale, " Warwickshire," by Thomas, i., p. 37. 
 
 \ Rymer, viii., 101-6. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 wards, on the advice of his privy council, he again 
 suspended them, taking certain of their revenues for 
 the support of his own household.* In the parlia- 
 ment of 1402 it had been arranged that all these 
 priories should be again suppressed, and the privy 
 council had discussed the question who were the 
 founders of these houses. The archbishop of Can- 
 terbury was opposed to the measure, and " accused 
 his opponents," writes dean Hook " (and by the 
 accusation he silenced the present anti-church 
 faction), of having diverted the revenues of the 
 friars-alien from the public purse to their own. . . . 
 And so," he said, " if the King were now to comply 
 with your project, he would not in a year's time be a 
 farthing richer than he is now."f 
 
 The fact is, that by this time the influence of the 
 anti-ecclesiastical agitation of Wickliffe's adherents 
 was being felt. The boldness with which his " poor 
 priests " had inveighed against the real or imputed 
 shortcomings of spiritual superiors and the riches with 
 which the church was unduly endowed, had gained 
 for them amongst the laity a considerable following. 
 These, under the name of " Lollards," took up 
 specially the outcry against the endowments of the 
 church at large. In the parliaments of the reign 
 of Henry IV. they were the occasion of many laws 
 against church interests, and their favourers proposed 
 even more sweeping acts than passed into law. 
 
 * Hook, " Lives of Archbishops," vi., p. 63. 
 
 t Ibid., iv., p. 489. " Minutes of privy council," 190, 199.
 
 Precedents for Suppression, in England. 5 1 
 
 In 1405, when the king represented his needs to 
 the assembly known as the " unlearned Parliament," 
 the speaker suggested that he should replenish his 
 exhausted exchequer by helping himself to the 
 goods of churchmen. They possessed, he said, a 
 third part of the property of the country.* The 
 effect of this communistic proposal was destroyed 
 by the action of Thomas Arundel, the archbishop 
 of Canterbury, who having spoken strongly in the 
 assembly against the suggestion, fell on his knees 
 before Henry and begged him not to listen to such 
 counsel. The king declared that nothing should 
 induce him to touch property which had been once 
 devoted to the uses of the church. Then, turning 
 to the commons, the archbishop said : " You and 
 such like as you have advised both our lord king 
 and his predecessors to confiscate the goods and 
 lands of the alien priories and religious houses, on 
 pretence he should gain great riches by it, as, 
 indeed, they were worth many thousands ; " but 
 since you have begged from him the lands thus 
 taken, so now again " you hope to be further en- 
 riched."! 
 
 Although the bill was thrown out, other pro- 
 posals, of a like nature, were made during this 
 
 * Spelman, '-Hist, of Sacrilege,'' p. 200, ed. 1853, gives an 
 estimate of the Church lands in the reign of Edward I. It was 
 then found that the whole land of England amounted to 67,000 
 knights' fees, of which 28,000 were in the hands of ecclesiastics. 
 
 f Cobbett's " Parl. Hist.," i., p. 296.
 
 52 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 reign. In 1408 Henry, by the advice of his council, 
 took for his household expenses all the revenues of 
 alien priories and the income of all vacant bishoprics 
 and abbeys.* " From the attempts made against 
 them," writes the learned Tanner, " in the reigns of 
 Henry IV. and Henry V., it is evident that the 
 revenues of these houses had been long envied and 
 thought too great, and perhaps that small part of 
 the alien priories which had been given to the laity 
 might make them long for more."f 
 
 The most serious attack against the monasteries, 
 as far as proposals for plunder were concerned, was 
 made in a bill introduced into parliament in the 
 eleventh year of Henry IV., A.D. 1410, by John 
 Oldcastle, better known as lord Cobham. " In this 
 year also," the account of this wild and impossible 
 scheme relates, " the king held his parliament at 
 Westminster, during which the commons of this 
 land put up a bill to the king to take the temporal 
 land out of the spiritual men's hands and possession. 
 The effect of which bill was that the temporalities 
 disordinately wasted by many of the church might 
 suffice to find the king, fifteen earls, 1,500 knights, 
 6,200 squires, and 100 houses of alms to the relief 
 of poor people more than at that day were within 
 England ; and above all these foresaid charges the 
 king might put yearly in his coffers ^20,000, pro- 
 vided that every earl should have yearly 3,000 marks 
 rent, every knight 100 marks, and every house of 
 alms 100 marks, under the oversight of two true 
 * Rymer, viii., 510. f Notitia, Pref. xxii.
 
 Precedents for Suppression in England. 53 
 
 seculars to every house, and also with provision that 
 every township should keep all poor people of their 
 own inhabitants, who could not labour for their 
 living, with the condition that if more fell in a town 
 than that town could maintain, then the said alms- 
 houses were to relieve such townships ; and for to 
 bear these charges, they alleged by their said bill 
 (that what was) in the possession of spiritual 
 men amounted to 323,000 marks a year." There 
 follows a list of various monasteries arranged in 
 different dioceses, which it was proposed to dis- 
 possess. And " they alleged by the said bill that 
 over and above the said sum of 320,000 marks, 
 divers houses of religion in England possessed 
 as many temporalities as might suffice to find yearly 
 40,000 priests and clerks, each priest to be allowed 
 for his stipend seven marks a year." 
 
 To this extraordinary proposal " no answer was 
 made," continues the writer, " but that the king of 
 that matter would take deliberation and advice ; and 
 with that answer it ended, so that no further labour 
 was made,"* Stowe, the historian, relates that 
 " when they went about to declare out of what 
 places those great sums were to be levied, whereby 
 the foresaid states should be endowed, they wanted 
 in their account : wherefore the king commanded 
 them that from henceforth they should not presume 
 to move any such matter." f 
 
 * B. Mus. Lansdowne MSS., i., No. 26. 
 
 f Annales, ed. 1600, p. 549. Hollinshed Chronicles, ed. 1587, 
 iii., p. 536.
 
 54 Henry VI II. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 In the second year of this same reign, A.D. 1400, 
 action was taken by parliament against the practice 
 of religious procuring from Rome bulls of exemption 
 from the ordinary tithes. Originally, all religious 
 had paid the tithe on the land granted to them, and 
 although for a period there had been a general 
 exemption granted by Paschal II. on lands farmed 
 by the monks themselves, in the twelfth century 
 Adrian IV. had limited the privilege to the Templars, 
 Hospitallers, and Cistercians. The Council of 
 Lateran, which in 1215 confirmed the exemption, 
 confined it to lands managed by the religious and 
 to such property as they possessed at the date of 
 the Council. After the passing of the Mortmain 
 laws, which were legitimate and politic restraints on 
 perpetual possession of lands, many of the privileged 
 orders obtained bulls granting exemption also to 
 such lands as came into their possession after 1215, 
 and were let to farmers. This method of procur- 
 ing exemption from tithe, which had the force 
 of law when obtained, was put an end to by the 
 statute (2 Hen. IV., cap. 4), which subjected any- 
 one procuring such bulls of exemption from tithe, to 
 the penalty of prcemunire ; or forfeiture of goods to 
 the king and imprisonment at his pleasure.* 
 
 * Selden, pp. 406-7. Lands exempted from tithe at the final 
 dissolution of monasteries under Hen. VIII. are exempted at the 
 present day by special provision (31 Hen. VIII., c. 13). Hence 
 some holders of these lands pay tithes, others do not, while 
 others again are tithe owners. Cf. Clarke's " Hist of Tithes," 
 chap. viii.
 
 Precedents for Suppression in England. 55 
 
 In the reign of Henry V. the Lollard party in 
 parliament again petitioned the king to confiscate 
 monastic and church property. The proposal was 
 rejected as subversive of all political morality and 
 good faith. " When," says dean Hook, "we speak 
 of the Lollards as martyrs we ought to regard them 
 as a kind of political martyrs rather than religious ;. 
 they made religion their plea in order to swell the 
 numbers of the discontented, but their actions all 
 tended to a revolution in the State as well as in the 
 Church." . . . They " directed their first attacks 
 upon the Church because the Church was the most 
 vulnerable part of the Constitution. But the civilians 
 the citizen people were quite as much alarmed 
 at their proceedings as ecclesiastics. Both the 
 Church and the State regarded the principles of the 
 Lollards as subversive of all order in things temporal 
 as well as in things spiritual.''* 
 
 The final end came to the system of alien priories 
 in 1414, the second year of Henry the Fifth's reign. 
 Having determined to tread in the footsteps of his 
 ancestor, Edward III., he revived his claim to the 
 French throne. To carry on the threatened war he 
 asked, and obtained, large grants from parliament. 
 On the old pretext that money was being constantly 
 drained out of England by the foreign cells f he dis- 
 solved them all, to the number of 140. He vested their 
 estates in the Crown, except some lands which had 
 
 * "Lives of Archbishops,'' iii., p. 72. 
 t " Parl. Rolls," Vol. iv., p. 22.
 
 56 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 been granted to the college of Fotheringhay.* These 
 possessions did not, however, remain long in the royal 
 hands. Most of the lands, tenements, tithes, and other 
 property which at this or previous times had been 
 confiscated by king or parliament was bestowed 
 upon other monasteries, colleges, or schools for ec- 
 clesiastical or educational purposes. Still, as in 
 the case of the property of the Templars in the time 
 of Edward II.. the crown did not lose sight of what 
 
 7 & 
 
 it considered its strict legal right in respect to 
 these alienated estates. When it was thought pro- 
 bable that some action would be taken at the Council 
 of Basle by the foreign monasteries to obtain the 
 restitution of the dissolved alien priories, the Eng- 
 lish ambassadors were instructed to refuse to enter- 
 tain the idea. They were to say " that those lands 
 and tenements being given to religious places, con- 
 ditionally only and for a certain determinate use, if 
 the donees neglected to fulfil the condition, design, 
 or use of the original grant, the donors or their repre- 
 sentatives might, upon such default or neglect, 
 resume and repossess the forfeited estates."! And in 
 this case the fact that the foreign colonies had been 
 
 * Rymer, ix., 283. Harpsfield, " Hist. Angl. Ssec.," xiv., c. 8, 
 says, " A synod of clergy, in the last year of Henry IV., peti- 
 tioned the king that the laymen might not invade the possessions 
 of the alien priories, but those foundations might be furnished 
 and native English substituted in the room of (aliens). The king 
 died shortly afterwards, but the request shows that at the time they 
 were undissolved by law." See Fuller, " Hist.," iii., p. 352. 
 
 t Kennet, on " Impropriations," p. 1 14-115.
 
 Precedents for Suppression in England. 57 
 
 found during several reigns a peril to the state 
 was considered ground sufficient to enforce forfeiture. 
 Moreover, in the sixth article of the instructions, 
 besides justifying the alienation on the ground of 
 state policy, it is declared that Henry V., instead of 
 appropriating the possessions, as according to law 
 he might have done, had applied for and procured 
 the permission of Pope Martin V. to convert the 
 revenues into endowments for religious houses, 
 colleges, and other pious purposes. The ambas- 
 sadors are to say that this had in fact been done, and 
 that liberal compensation beside had been made to 
 the foreign churches and abbeys for the loss of their 
 English property.* 
 
 Still, if such were law, the claims of justice had 
 greater weight. The possessions taken from the 
 foreign religious houses were, as a rule, devoted 
 to other ecclesiastical purposes. Thus, to aid William 
 of Wykeham's foundations, the priories of Takeley 
 in Essex, and Hamell in Hants, were settled on New 
 College at Oxford, and that of Andover, on Winchester 
 School. In the same way archbishop Chicheley ob- 
 tained from Henry VI., in 1437, the possessions of 
 the priories of Rumney, Weedon Pinkney, St. Clare, 
 Llangenith, and Abberbury for All Souls, at Oxford. 
 About the same time also the king endowed his 
 royal foundations of Eton and King's College, Cam- 
 bridge, with lands of other dissolved monasteries 
 
 * Vide " Beckington Corresp.," " Rolls " series, Vol. i., Preface 
 Ixxxix.
 
 58 Henry VI IL and the English Monasteries. 
 
 in fulfilment of his father's design to appropriate 
 them all to a noble college at Oxford.* The royal 
 founder also granted to his colleges many of the 
 sums of money which the houses in England had 
 been accustomed to pay to the foreign monasteries 
 by way of tribute, and also several portions of the 
 alien priory lands, which, after their suppression, had 
 already been partially granted away.f 
 
 Some of the priories, which had formerly been 
 alien, were united to existing English monasteries. 
 Thus Goldcliff, in Monmouthshire, was, on the 
 permission asked by Henry Beauchamp, Earl of 
 Warwick, annexed to the abbey of Tewkesbury. 
 A bull allowing this was obtained from pope 
 "Eugenius in 1452,^: and by virtue of it the priory 
 was transferred from the abbey of Bee, in Nor- 
 mandy, to which it had belonged since the reign of 
 Henry I., and became a ceil of the English abbey. 
 The abbot of Tewkesbury got rid of the French 
 monks, and one, Dom Hugh de Noramville, we 
 know, became chaplain to a Somerset family, 
 and subsequently obtained faculties from bishop 
 Beckington.|| The English monks, however, were 
 not allowed to keep peaceful possession of their cell. 
 After three years the neighbouring Welsh drove 
 
 * Tanner, xii., "Alien Priories." Append, ii., Nos. i, 2. 
 
 t " Monasticon," Vol. vi., p. 1435. 
 
 } " Rot. Pat.," 22 Hen. VI., p. 2, m. 13. 
 
 " Monasticon," vi., p. 1021. 
 
 || "Reg. Beckington, Bath and Wells," f. 1936.
 
 Precedents for Suppression in England. 59 
 
 away the Tewkesbury prior and his brethren, and 
 when, after a year, they were restored they only kept 
 the cell for three years. After that time Henry VI. 
 granted the property to Eton College, and although 
 in 1461, when Edward IV. came to the throne, the 
 cell was restored to the monks, six years later it was 
 taken from them and again given to the college, 
 which still possesses it.* 
 
 The foreign monasteries did not submit to be 
 deprived of their English cells without an attempt 
 to regain their jurisdiction over them. In 1458, for 
 example, the abbey of Cluny sent over a deputation 
 of three monks to Henry VI. The king was at St. 
 Albans, and thither they proceeded and were well 
 received by the abbot, to whom they had brought 
 presents and special letters. Henry did not receive 
 them personally, but at a conference with the royal 
 advisers, held in the abbey church, they explained 
 the object of their mission. It was to beg that the 
 king would restore to their order the rents and 
 revenues which had been paid to them for many 
 centuries, but which for some years had been kept 
 back from them. They also asked to be allowed 
 free access to, and government of, the houses which 
 belonged to them in England. This had of late 
 been denied to them, and they complained that in 
 one way or another the abbey of Cluny, had been 
 deprived of the obedience of thirty-eight houses in 
 the country. The deputation was told to return to 
 * " Monasticon," vi., p. 1021.
 
 60 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 London and there await a reply, but it was finally 
 obliged to return to France without satisfaction.* 
 
 Another example of the protests of foreign monas- 
 teries is that of St. Evroul, in 1416. The abbot 
 and convent of this Benedictine abbey in Normandy 
 wrote an earnest appeal to the Carthusians at Shene 
 to restore the property with which Henry V. had 
 endowed the Charterhouse, and which for many 
 generations had belonged to them. In fact, as they 
 said in their letter, their English possessions had 
 been their chief source of income, as they received 
 ^2,000 a year from them. Owing to the frequent, 
 wars they had lately obtained nothing from this 
 source, and as a consequence their numbers had 
 diminished from 40 choir monks to less than 20. 
 They appealed to justice and ecclesiastical tradition 
 to persuade the Carthusians to give up the estates, 
 protesting that no State policy or fear of foreign 
 war could justly take them away. Finally, in their 
 opinion, even if the pope had given leave for the 
 transfer of their rights, it was a stretch of his 
 authority, for "such power was given him to build, 
 not to destroy."! Eleven years were consumed in 
 the vain endeavour of the monks of St. Evroul to 
 regain their English property. In 1427 they carried 
 their case to Rome, but even then could not succeed 
 in obtaining any satisfaction from the English king.| 
 
 * " Whethamstede Chron.," Vol. ii., p. 317. " Rolls" series, 
 t Martene Thes. anecd., T. i., p. 1746. 
 t Ibid., p. 1 773.
 
 Precedents for Suppression in England. 61 
 
 Besides the case of the alien priories, the 
 history of England previous to the reign of Henry 
 VIII. furnishes few precedents of such suppres- 
 sions. In every one of the few cases, however, 
 exceptional reasons appear, justifying and ex- 
 plaining the extinction of these religious houses. 
 Their possessions also were applied to other 
 ecclesiastical and educational purposes. In 1459 
 bishop Waynfleet of Winchester founded Magdalen 
 College at Oxford. The revenues proved altogether 
 inadequate for the establishment, and " the college 
 supplicated the founder to augment its income." 
 They suggested that they might, perhaps, obtain 
 the estates of the Augustinian priory of Selborne, 
 " now become a deserted convent, without canons 
 or prior."' The bishop appointed a commission to 
 consider the matter, which found that the circum- 
 stances were as the college authorities had stated. 
 On August 3, 1485, the estates were, therefore, 
 incorporated with those of Magdalen college. The 
 president and fellows upon this petitioned the pope 
 for his sanction to the arrangement, and after con- 
 siderable difficulties on the part of the Roman 
 authorities, Innocent VIII. confirmed what had been 
 done by his bull of July 8, 1486^ 
 
 A few years later, in 1494, pope Alexander VI., at 
 the request of Henry VII., granted bulls for the 
 
 * White's " Selborne" Letter, 24. 
 
 t About the same time Waynfleet also obtained the Priory of 
 Sele, in Sussex.
 
 62 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 suppression of Mottisfont and Luffield, and the in- 
 corporation of their property with the chantry and 
 hospital the king was establishing at Windsor.* 
 The grounds upon which the action of the Pope 
 was asked, were that practically these religious 
 houses had ceased to exist. There were only three 
 canons at Mottisfont, and a prior and two monks at 
 Luffield. In each, by their foundation, there should 
 have been a dozen. The fewness of their numbers 
 rendered it impossible to perform the religious duties 
 of their institutes. At Luffield, moreover, it was 
 represented that through poverty the buildings were 
 in ruins. f 
 
 A few years later John Alcock, bishop of Ely, 
 obtained leave to suppress the convent of St. Rhade- 
 gund for educational purposes. It was, at the time, 
 in a state of great poverty and ruin, owing, as the 
 royal license stated, " to the dissolute lives of the 
 nuns by reason of its proximity to Cambridge 
 University. "| The community had dwindled down 
 to two ; " one professed at another house, and the 
 other a child." Hence, in 1496, with the leave of 
 Henry VII., the bishop asked and obtained per- 
 mission from pope Alexander VII. to convert the 
 property into a college. This was to have been 
 called the house of " St. Mary, St. John, and St. 
 Rhadegund," but subsequently it became " Jesus " 
 College. f In 1507, again, the abbey of St. Mary 
 
 * Rymer, xii., p. 562. t Tanner, Pref. xxii. 
 
 \ Rymer, xii., p. 652. " Monasticon," iv., p. 215.
 
 Precedents for Suppression in England. 63 
 
 de Pratis, at Creyke, in Norfolk, was looked upon as 
 dissolved because the abbot had died and there was 
 no community to elect another.* By what was held 
 to be the law, its possessions thus escheated to 
 the Crown, and Henry VII., by letters patent, 
 granted the abbey and its revenues to the countess 
 of Richmond, with leave to assign them to Christ's 
 College, Cambridge. This she did, having pre- 
 viously obtained the pope's license. 
 
 Two further precedents were furnished in the 
 reign of Henry VIII. by the suppression of Brome- 
 hall, in the diocese of Salisbury, and Lillechurch, or 
 Heigham, in that of Rochester. Both of these 
 were dissolved by the advice and at the instance of 
 the holy bishop Fisher, of Rochester. The King's 
 zeal in the matter, however, suggests that both he 
 and Wolsey, who at the time were contemplating 
 extensive suppressions, were anxious to obtain a pre- 
 cedent backed by the authority and concurrence of 
 so learned and holy a man. Both the cardinal and 
 the king wrote their permission to the bishop of 
 Salisbury to proceed against the nuns " for their 
 enormities, misgovernances, and slanderous living." 
 And in December, 1521, Henry VIII. thanked the 
 bishop " for the excluding and putting out of the 
 prioress and nuns . . . for such enormities as was by 
 them used contrary to their religion, and for the 
 bestowing of them in other virtuous houses of re- 
 
 * Ibid., vi., p. 486. " Out of the copy of a bill in Chancery, 
 exhibited on the part of Bishop Nix against Christ College."
 
 64 Henry YIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 ligion." He concluded by asking for the deeds 
 and " evidences " of the convent now belonging to 
 the crown, " by reason of the vacation of the said 
 place, and as there be no nuns restant within the 
 same."* On the i6th of January following all the 
 deeds, to the number of 121, were delivered to the 
 officer at St. John's College, Cambridge,! and by a 
 singular inquisition taken on the 3rd March of the 
 same year (1522), "it was found that Joan Rawlins, 
 late prioress, having resigned, the only nuns belong- 
 ing to the house had abandoned it," and that the 
 possessions thus escheated to the crown. By letters 
 patent, on October 21, 1522, these were granted to 
 St. John's. | It is worthy of remark, that nowhere 
 except in the letters of Henry and Wolsey, which 
 contain vague suggestions of " slanderous living," 
 is there any trace of charges against the nuns, whilst 
 the zeal of the king and his minister is so remark- 
 able that it suggests other motives. 
 
 The case of Lillechurch or Heigham was different. 
 The convent was situated in bishop Fisher's own 
 diocese, and about four miles from Rochester. By 
 its original foundation it had to support sixteen 
 nuns, and in 1524 it had only three inmates. The 
 last prioress had died in January, 1520, and no 
 further election was made. At one time it had been 
 a prosperous and flourishing community, and in 1320 
 bishop Haymo de Hethe, at one visit, professed no 
 
 * Fiddes' Collec., p. 99. f Ibid., p. 293. 
 
 \ "Monasticon," iv.,p. 506. Baker's "Hist. of St. John's, ''p. 91.
 
 Precedents for Suppression in England. 65 
 
 fewer than eight novices.* At the time of bishop 
 Fisher's proceedings, which were very regular, the 
 convent bore a bad character and one at least of the 
 nuns had been accused of serious immorality ten years 
 before. No charge of later date was apparently 
 brought against any of the three nuns, and, as is re- 
 marked in the " Monasticon," " it seems to be pro- 
 bable that the fewness of the numbers had as much to 
 do with the dissolution as the life."f Be this as it 
 may, in the proceedings against the nuns, and before 
 the sentence of the bishop, or resignation of the 
 sisters, the king's grant of the possessions to St. 
 John's College was recitedj and at the close of the 
 inquiry the authorities were authorized to take pos- 
 session. By the second statutes of the college, 
 provision is made for prayers for the souls of the 
 benefactors of Bromehall and Heigham. 
 
 In connection with this last suppression, one point 
 is of interest. A bull was obtained from Clement 
 VII. assenting to the dissolution "for certain just 
 and legitimate reasons." Baker, however, has pre- 
 served the transcript of an earlier bull, apparently 
 intended for the pope's signature, but never executed. 
 It had been prepared in England, or by the English 
 agents abroad. " It is worthy of remark," says the 
 " Monasticon," " that the unexecuted bull is written 
 
 * Wharton's " Angl. Sac.," i., p. 361. 
 j- " Monasticon," iv., p. 378. 
 J Note ibid, from Baker. 
 Baker's " Hist, of St. John's," P- 91. 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 in a form which indicates that the king was paving 
 his way to the spoil of the religious houses." For 
 " our beloved son in Christ, Henry now king of 
 England," it runs, " may take possession of all 
 moveables and immoveables and rights of all and 
 every monastery or other religious place founded by 
 him and his predecessors, which for any reason or 
 by any means is left or deserted, by virtue of his 
 own authority, and without leave, asking, or consent 
 of anyone, and dispose of them in the same way as 
 of other royal property at his good pleasure." 
 These ample powers, however, were never granted. 
 Wolsey had consequently to rely upon other 
 methods of extorting unwilling permission from the 
 Pope, when his schemes were matured.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CARDINAL WOLSEY AND THE MONASTERIES. 
 
 ENGLAND, during some fourteen years of the reign 
 of Henry VIII., was ruled by the counsels of Wolsey. 
 On the king's accession, in 1509, the future lord 
 cardinal of York had already made his way to the 
 dignity of dean of Lincoln. Six years later pope 
 Leo X. yielded to the earnest demands of the English 
 king and the polite but persistent pressure of 
 Wolsey's agents in Rome, and created him cardinal. 
 He had already become archbishop of York, and 
 had gained an ever increasing influence over the 
 mind of his royal master. On December 24, 1515, 
 one year later, he took the oaths of office as a 
 Chancellor of England, in succession to the saintly 
 and venerable Warham. He then appeared to have 
 reached the summit of a subject's lawful ambition. 
 
 As the highest judicial officer of the realm the 
 " keeper of the King's conscience " Wolsey's power 
 in matters temporal was then practically unlimited. 
 "He is in very great repute," writes a foreign ambas- 
 sador in England, " seven times more so than if he
 
 68 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 were pope. He is the person who rules both the 
 king and the entire kingdom. On my (the ambas- 
 sador's) first arrival in England he used to say ( His 
 Majesty will do so and so.' Subsequently, by 
 degrees, he went on forgetting himself, and com- 
 menced saying, ' We shall do so and so.' At present 
 he has reached such a pitch that he says, 'I shall do 
 so and so.' ' 
 
 In addition to this almost regal authority in tem- 
 poral matters the Cardinal desired great and excep- 
 tional powers in ecclesiastical concerns. For a 
 while his appointment to a place in the august 
 college of cardinals seemed doubtful. He conse- 
 quently directed the English agent in Rome to hint 
 that the Pope's hesitation was damaging to papal 
 influence over Henry, and that refusal would be really 
 dangerous. " If the king forsakes the pope," he 
 added, " he will be in greater danger on this day two 
 years than ever was pope Julius."' A few days later 
 he again wrote to Silvester de Gigliis, the bishop of 
 Worcester and the king's ambassador to the pope. 
 In this dispatch he enclosed a communication, which 
 was not to be handed to the pope till his nomina- 
 tion as cardinal was secure. The note thus sent 
 made a further demand on the Holy See ; it was 
 that the Holy Father should appoint him Legate as 
 well as create him Cardinal. Should this demand be 
 refused the agent's instructions were to press for 
 special faculties empowering Wolsey to visit all 
 * Calendar, ii., No. 763.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 69 
 
 monasteries in England; powers which were to apply 
 even to such as were by law exempt from all except 
 papal authority. If this last request were skilfully 
 put, Wolsey considered that the pope could not 
 refuse it. No pope, he added, ever had a better 
 friend than Henry ''if he comply with his desires." 
 The letter concluded by saying that the Cardinal 
 was sending his agent 10,000 ducats propter liber- 
 alia, and with promises of great generosity to whom- 
 soever brought him the cardinal's hat.* Leo X., 
 however, was not to be coerced. He refused either 
 to appoint the newly-created cardinal his legate in 
 England, or to bestow upon him the extensive 
 spiritual jurisdiction he desired. f 
 
 Two years later, in March, 1518, the subject of 
 the coveted legateship was revived. The king's 
 secretary, Pace, informed Wolsey that his master 
 had received a communication from the pope. To 
 ask aid against the Turk four legates had been 
 appointed to the European powers, and cardinal 
 Campeggio was accredited for that purpose to Eng- 
 land. To this communication no reply was given for 
 a long time. The English agent wrote to say that 
 the pope was annoyed and astonished, and asked 
 him "ten times a day" when he might expect an 
 answer to his letters. At length Wolsey, after con- 
 sultation with Henry, wrote to de Gigliis in an imperi- 
 ous tone. It was not customary in England, he said, 
 to admit any foreign cardinal to exercise legatine 
 * Calendar, ii., No. 780, Aug. i. f Calendar, ii., Nos. 967-8.
 
 70 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 powers in the country ; still the king was willing, 
 under two conditions, to receive Campeggio as 
 papal envoy. Of these two conditions the first was 
 that all the ordinary faculties exercised by papal 
 Legates de jure should, in this case, be suspended 
 and that Campeggio should be confined to the 
 special purpose for which he had been appointed. 
 The second condition, coming from Wolsey himself, 
 is even more astonishing. It was simply that the 
 pope should associate him with Campeggio in the 
 business and should bestow upon him equal legatine 
 faculties. The dispatch then proceeded to state that 
 unless these conditions were complied with " the 
 King will in no wise allow Campeggio to enter Eng- 
 land."* 
 
 Leo X. surrendered to the undisguised threats of 
 Henry and Wolsey. On May 17, 1518, the latter 
 was nominated legate with Campeggio, who had 
 been previously appointed. In a very short time 
 Wolsey contrived to assume the first place, leaving 
 the subordinate one to the Italian cardinal.! The 
 latter arrived in England only after many delays 
 purposely interposed by the king and his minister. 
 He was at once made to feel his dependent position, 
 for Henry and the English cardinal kept the real 
 business in their own hands and did not conceal 
 their desire to get rid of the unwelcome foreign 
 visitor. 
 
 Wolsey 's diplomacy or threats, probably both, 
 * Calendar, ii., No. 4073. f Calendar, ii., No. 4179.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 71 
 
 scored another triumph. He obtained not only the 
 office of legate, but also the exceptional powers of 
 visitation, which he had previously asked for and 
 which had been refused. On August 27, 1518, 
 Silvester de Gigliis wrote from Rome that he had 
 been industrious in obtaining from the pope the 
 deprivation of cardinal Hadrian de Castello from the 
 see of Bath and Wells, and had secured the custody 
 of the diocese for his master. In fact, until this 
 was secured, at the the agent's suggestion, Cam- 
 peggio had not been allowed to cross into England. 
 The deprivation appears to have been obtained on 
 account of the Pope's desire for the success of his 
 legate's mission. De Gigliis also informed Wolsey 
 that he had secured for him a bull for the visitation 
 of monasteries in the same tenor " as that obtained 
 by the bishop of Luxemburg for France." He 
 added that he had often been struck with the 
 necessity of reforming the monasteries and especially 
 the convents of women ; but he thought that the 
 Cardinal " would find those of his own diocese 
 (Worcester) complain."' 
 
 Never before in England, or probably in Christen- 
 dom, had similar powers been vested in any single 
 individual. The high office of Chancellor and the 
 dominant influence Wolsey possessed over his royal 
 master gave him the control of all secular authority. 
 His legatine faculties, increased by the additional 
 powers of visitation he had extorted from the Pope, 
 * Calendar, ii., No. 439$.
 
 72 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 made him no less supreme in matters ecclesiastical. 
 In the hand of one man were grasped the two swords 
 of Church and State. One mind directed the policy 
 of secular and ecclesiastical administration in Eng- 
 land. Had that man been a saint the danger of 
 such a combination would have been considerable. 
 But when it was a worldly and ambitious man like 
 Wolsey it was fatal. In him the vast authority 
 already obtained only sharpened an unlimited 
 yearning for power. For the first time the English 
 people experienced supreme secular and spiritual 
 authority exercised by one individual. It was an 
 unfortunate precedent. In the minds of the people 
 at large it made little difference that the person was 
 an ecclesiastic. Not discriminating, they were 
 taught to regard it only as a slight change, when 
 a few years later, Henry assumed the spiritual head- 
 ship to himself. 
 
 No sooner had Wolsey obtained the powers of 
 visitation so long sought than he proceeded to put 
 them in force. On March ipth, 1519, he issued 
 statuta to be observed by the order of Canons 
 Regular of St. Augustin, which were to remain in 
 force till the feast of Holy Trinity, 1521.* The 
 ordinances thus enacted are valuable evidence as to 
 the state of the great Augustinian order at that 
 time in England. They point to a severity of 
 discipline and a mortified mode of life altogether 
 incompatible with that general laxity since attri- 
 
 * Wilkins' " Concilia," iii., p. 613.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 73 
 
 buted to them in common with the other great 
 bodies of regular clergy. The mere enactments of 
 the primary principles of the monastic life or declara- 
 tions of the unlawfulness of certain evil customs 
 must never be considered in such injunctions as 
 proof of the existence of evil. As well might the 
 vigorous denunciations of sin from the pulpit, or the 
 constant reassertion of the Ten Commandments, be 
 held as evidence that God's law was uniformly 
 violated by those to whom such words are ad- 
 dressed. The tendency of human nature is ever to 
 fall away from any standard of excellence. Hence 
 the necessity of unwearied iteration in setting out 
 the ideal to be aimed at, and this is sufficient to 
 explain why constitutions and statutes of religious 
 orders inveigh against abuses. 
 
 The special statutes of cardinal Wolsey for the 
 Augustinian canons are eighteen in number. They 
 provide for the assembly of a General Chapter every 
 three years and for various matters connected with 
 poverty, obedience and the general discipline of 
 the cloister. The abbots are charged to diligently 
 watch over their subjects, to be constantly at their 
 posts among their community, to correct by daily 
 chapters whatever there may be amiss, and to pro- 
 vide in each monastery " a prison where, if it shall 
 be necessary, the more notable and graver offences 
 may be punished." 
 
 Not the least interesting of these statutes is that 
 appertaining to the choral duties. To these the
 
 74 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Augustinians, in common with other religious, were 
 bound. Their Divine office was to be said, neither 
 too fast nor too slowly, with due pronunciation of 
 the words and the accustomed pause in the middle 
 of each verse of the Psalms. It was enjoined as the 
 chief duty of each canon that he should be present 
 at the choral services, and especially at matins and 
 the principal mass. " And," the document pro- 
 ceeds, " with all ecclesiastics, and especially reli- 
 gious, that method of singing is deservedly approved, 
 which is not intended to gratify the ears of those 
 present by the levity of its rhythm, nor to court 
 the approval of worldlings by the multiplicity of 
 its notes. But that, which in plain chant (plaints 
 cantus] raises the minds of the singers and the 
 hearts of the hearers to heavenly things." Hence 
 the cardinal strictly requires its use and forbids that 
 of " pricksong." He further orders that no lay- 
 men or boys are to be allowed to join in the 
 canonical singing. They may, however, do so in 
 any of the numerous other masses " daily sung in 
 most religious houses." On Sundays and feast-days 
 the canons, if they can do it of themselves, may 
 use some simple melodies at mass and vespers, pro- 
 vided that all the words are sung and the music 
 expresses the sense. Lastly, out of compassion for 
 the great labour undergone by the religious in the 
 masses, "of which three and more are sometimes 
 sung" in a day, besides the canonical hours, "so 
 that the voices of the canons are worn out, and
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 75 
 
 their souls, through fatigue, unable to attend to the 
 service of God," the cardinal encouraged the use of 
 the organ as a support to the voice, even if it were 
 necessary to employ a secular priest or a layman to 
 play it.* 
 
 It is impossible not to approve the spirit which 
 dictated constitutions such as these. And it would 
 have been well had Wolsey continued in the same 
 way the work he thus begun, and by watchful care 
 endeavoured to recall the religious orders to greater 
 fervour. Unfortunately his ambitious^ schemes soon 
 involved him in a conflict with them. Those who 
 might tolerate criticism and even welcome whole- 
 some correction could hardly be expected to look 
 with approval, or even indifference, on total extinc- 
 tion. And this, more especially, when the dissolution 
 of their houses was desired merely to sweep the 
 riches of their poverty into a common fund vast 
 enough to meet the call of the Cardinal's necessities. 
 Opposition to Wolsey's scheme might be expected 
 as the natural outcome of resentment at interference ; 
 still, on the whole, the State papers of this time 
 reveal very little springing from this cause. The 
 cardinal of York was, it is true, hated and feared ; 
 but not more by the religious than by secular 
 priests and laymen. Dislike and distrust is perhaps 
 inseparable from power such as he exercised. It 
 must, however, be confessed that he did much to 
 create, and little or nothing to disarm suspicion of his 
 * " Statuta," No. ix.
 
 76 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 ends and means. Previously to 1524, however, 
 Wolsey does not appear to have encountered much 
 hostility from the regulars of England, except from 
 such as were connected, like the friars, with other 
 branches of their order in foreign countries, or were 
 under the rule of a foreign general. The Franciscan 
 Friars of Observance were, perhaps, the most difficult 
 to deal with, owing to their general good repute and 
 the great influence possessed by them in Rome. 
 
 At the close of 1523 the Cardinal had determined 
 to rival other great churchmen as a founder of an 
 Oxford college. The example of Waynfleet and 
 Wykeham, and the more recent establishment at 
 Cambridge, through the exertions of the venerable 
 bishop Fisher, impelled him to add the glory of 
 " founder " to the titles he already possessed. At this 
 time he was engaged on the erection of magnificent 
 palaces and he had as much difficulty in supplying 
 funds for these ambitious undertakings as in keeping 
 his master, the king, from constant beggary. His 
 connection with Magdalen College may have sug- 
 gested the plan of acquiring the necessary money 
 for his new undertaking by the dissolution of monas- 
 teries. As bursar, he would doubtless have had 
 access to the muniments ; and he would have learnt 
 from them that fifty years before bishop Waynfleet, 
 of Winchester, had supplemented the revenues of 
 his new foundation by the estates of the priory of 
 Selborne, to which arrangement the Pope, after 
 some difficulty, had consented.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 77 
 
 The same had been done in other well-known 
 instances and, only a year or two before, bishop 
 Fisher had been encouraged to help out the new 
 foundation of St. John's, Cambridge, by the same 
 policy. It has, indeed, been suggested that there 
 was a diplomatic purpose on Wolsey's part in the 
 encouragement he gave the bishop of Rochester in 
 this matter. 
 
 Pressure was put upon pope Clement VII. to 
 grant leave for the dissolution of certain religious 
 houses to enable Wolsey to carry out his project. 
 To understand this it is necessary to recall some- 
 thing of the Cardinal's methods in dealing with the 
 Holy See. It has already been seen that he 
 obtained the red hat, the high office of legate, 
 and the further powers of visitation, by threats. 
 This policy he persevered in during the whole of 
 his career. On December 2nd, 1521, pope Leo, 
 in the hour of his signal success at Milan, and 
 the almost unexpected dissipation of "the grisliest 
 nightmare of the Church's dream,"" died at Rome. 
 The attention of all the Powers was concentrated on 
 the choice of a successor. " In most cases," wrote 
 the Imperial ambassador to his master, " two or 
 three cardinals endeavour to obtain the election ; 
 now all aspire to it."f Wolsey was amongst the 
 number. He had already made preparations for 
 the event, and had canvassed even in Leo's lifetime. 
 At a meeting in Bruges, Charles V. had pledged his 
 * Calendar, ii., No. 1824. t Ibid.) iii., Preface, p. 187.
 
 78 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 word that he would aid him in his ambition ; and on 
 the first notice of the pope's death the Emperor 
 instructed his ambassador to see " Mons. the 
 Legate ... to let us know his wishes, and what are 
 his inclinations that way. We will exert ourselves 
 very willingly in his behalf and spare no pains."* 
 In reply to this communication, the ambassador 
 wrote that Henry was resolved on the election of 
 Wolsey. Further, that he was sending Richard 
 Pace, his own secretary, " as if he sent his very 
 heart," in order " to induce and persuade the 
 cardinals to give their votes to the Cardinal of 
 York." As for Wolsey himself, he openly de- 
 clared, according to the same authority, that he 
 would not accept the election except at the nomi- 
 nation of the king and the emperor. " And so," 
 the ambassador concludes, " your Majesty, like 
 father and son, shall dispose of that See, its 
 authority and power, as if they were your own, and 
 give laws to the rest of the world. "f 
 
 Subsequently, the same writer says that he has 
 seen Wolsey, who told him of the instructions given 
 to Henry's agent, Richard Pace. " One thing," he 
 added, " at which I was greatly astonished, and, 
 however strange it may seem, I will repeat to your 
 majesty. He said that to secure the election which 
 he desired, for no earthly reason except for the 
 king's exaltation and yours, it would be very 
 important that your majesty's army now in Italy 
 * Calendar, iii., No. 1876. t Ibid., No. 1884.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 79 
 
 should advance to Rome. Then if, after liberal 
 monition and offers, the cardinals continued re- 
 fractory they should be compelled to elect him by 
 force." Wolsey, he also declared, even told him 
 that if 100,000 ducats were required to accomplish 
 the object " they would be forthcoming."* Wolsey, 
 in his schemes, seems altogether to have forgottten 
 the sacred character of his office. In his desire to 
 coerce, bribe, or intimidate the electing cardinals 
 into making choice of himself, he overlooked the fact 
 that he was with them the guardian of the Church's 
 honour and that he professed to believe in the 
 protecting direction of God's providence over the 
 conclave. Wolsey's endeavours to obtain the Pope- 
 dom failed. But his demeanour to the successors of 
 Leo X. remained as haughty and exacting as ever. 
 
 To the other emoluments, ecclesiastical and lay, 
 which Wolsey possessed, and in addition to the 
 pensions he received from foreign countries, he 
 added in 1521 the revenues of the abbatial office of 
 St. Albans. He was away from England when 
 abbot Ramridge died in November. On the I2th 
 of that month, the monks appeared before the king 
 at Windsor to request permission to proceed to the 
 election of a successor. Henry made them a speech, 
 about which, on account of " its princely and godly 
 motion," Secretary Pace wrote to Wolsey the 
 following day. Whilst actually engaged on this 
 letter a communication was brought to him from the 
 * Ibid., No. 1892.
 
 80 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Cardinal " touching the monastery of St. Albans.' r 
 " And after I had perused," writes Pace, <( and 
 diligently debated with myself the contents of the 
 same, I went straight to the king's grace, with your 
 grace's letters, to him directed, in the same 
 matter. And I found him ready to go out a 
 shooting ; and yet, that notwithstanding, his grace 
 happily commanded me to go down with him by his 
 secret way into the park ; whereby I had as good 
 commodity as I could desire to advance your grace's 
 petition as much as the case required. And the 
 king read your grace's letters himself, and made me 
 privy to the contents of the same. And the few 
 words his Highness spoke to me in this cause were 
 these : ' By God ! my lord cardinal hath sustained 
 many charges in this his voyage and expended 
 ; 1 0,000,' which I did affirm and show his grace of 
 good congruence, he oweth you some recompence. 
 Whereunto his grace answered ' that he would 
 rather give unto your grace the abbey of St. Albans 
 than to any monk.' " * Thus at the Cardinal's 
 petition the revenues of the premier abbey were 
 given in reward for secular services. 
 
 At the commencement of the year 1524 Clerk, the 
 Cardinal's agent in Rome, wrote that he was 
 " almost at a point with the Pope about Wolsey's 
 matters." Clement VII. was " contented to confirm 
 the legateship," he said, "with all faculties for 
 life, which was never heard before." Further, that 
 " the ordering of Frideswide's in Oxford was also at 
 * Calendar, iii., No. 1759.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 81 
 
 Wolsey's pleasure." * The pope was in a miserable 
 plight at this time. He would have given way, ap- 
 parently, in anything that was not vital to the 
 interests and honour of the Holy See. Still, he was 
 not so ready to acquiesce as Wolsey wished. To- 
 wards the end of February, therefore, the English 
 cardinal wrote that he was not overpleased at the 
 difficulties that had been raised about the extended 
 faculties of his legateship. The pope's prede- 
 cessors, he said, had given him as much, "and 
 with all its faculties, whatever people may report, 
 it will not be worth 1,000 ducats a year" to him. 
 He hence desired secretary Pace to urge the Holy 
 Father to amplify "as of himself." f 
 
 Later on the agents report further attempts to 
 obtain extended powers from Clement VII. The 
 pope appeared willing, but said, "what a busi- 
 ness other men made " about it. They conclude 
 their communication by a significant hint to their 
 master. It would be well, they think, for him to 
 secure a pension out of the revenues of the bishopric 
 of Worcester for one of the pope's officers who has 
 been "good to him." j By this time, however, 
 Wolsey had obtained the bull, which enabled him to 
 dissolve the monastery of St. Frideswide at Oxford 
 and apply its property to the foundation of his 
 college. The document had been sent off from 
 
 * Calendar, iv., No. 15. Jan. 9. 1524. 
 f Ibid., No. 126. Feb. 28. %Ibid., No. 252. 
 
 The King's " inspeximus " is dated May 10, and the Bull 
 April 3, 1524. 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Rome by the end of April. It had been procured 
 at the earnest request of the cardinal's agents, yet 
 they made it appear to be the result of Clement's own 
 desire. It was not exactly such a faculty as they 
 wished to obtain. Still, it contained, as they said, 
 *' the clause motus proprii/' and they trusted that 
 it might be made more advantageous. In fact, 
 Clerk altered the document in this sense without 
 asking the pope ; but at the last moment he found 
 that the enlarged faculties would not be granted. 
 The agent again concluded his communication by 
 saying that Ghiberto, one of the Pope's officials, 
 <( openly will not be known," but he has done his 
 best, and he thinks that he is waiting to see, whether 
 he gets the pension from the See of Worcester. 
 This Clerk advises Wolsey not to refuse, "as he 
 may be useful." 
 
 For the next few months great pressure was 
 put upon the Holy Father to grant permission 
 for further suppressions in order to help out the 
 cardinal's design at Oxford. The pope appeared 
 favourable, but cardinal Sanctorum Quatuor was 
 " untreatable." He apparently influenced Clement 
 VII. against the scheme. In August, 1524, Clerk 
 wrote that the Holy Father made hardly any 
 objection to his demands for Wolsey, <( except the 
 extinction of the monasteries and the collector- 
 ship."* They had been told in Rome (as the bull 
 subsequently obtained asserts) that the need for 
 * Calendar, iv., Nos. 511, 568.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 83 
 
 increased facilities of study in England was at this 
 time most pressing, and that the Oxford university 
 " seemed likely to come to an end by reason of its 
 slender revenues."* Further, that the position of St. 
 Frideswide's in the city of Oxford was admirably 
 adapted for the purpose of a college, and that, 
 owing to the objection of the English people to 
 allowing land to be held for such purposes, it was 
 impossible to buy or procure it. Lastly, they were 
 told that there were many religious houses in England 
 where the numbers had diminished to five or six, and 
 where, on this account, the divine service could 
 not be fittingly carried out. 
 
 Urged by these motives, the pope at first granted 
 the cardinal of York the amplified faculties for visita- 
 tion so long and diligently sought. Subsequently 
 he consented to another bull for increasing the 
 revenues of the Oxford college by further suppres- 
 sions. He warned Wolsey 1 s agent, however, " for 
 God's sake to use mercy with those friars," as to 
 the matter of visitation, adding, according to Clerk 
 (what sounds much more like the agent's sentiment 
 than the pope's) " that they were desperate beasts, 
 past shame, that can lose nothing by clamour."f 
 The bull allowing Wolsey to suppress monasteries 
 to the value of 3,000 ducats a year for the purpose 
 
 * Rymer, xiv., p. 23 : " Et qiiod Universitas studii generalis 
 Oxoniensis ob penuriam reddituum propemoditm extinctum iri vide- 
 batur" 
 
 t Calendar, iv., No. 610. The bull granting the additional 
 faculties of visitation is in Rymer, xiv., p. 18.
 
 84 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 of adding to the funds of his college, left Rome on 
 September I2th, 1524.* It provided that the king 
 and the various founders should give their sanction, 
 and that the religious persons should go to other 
 monasteries. f 
 
 Power having been thus obtained from Rome, 
 the cardinal commenced early in the following year, 
 1525, to possess himself of the revenues of various 
 monasteries, besides those of St. Frideswide's, in 
 Oxford. The papal bull was ratified by the king on 
 March I5th. The various parish churches, formerly 
 belonging to the suppressed religious houses, were ap- 
 propriated by letters patent to the new foundation.]: 
 But both the time and the agents Wolsey employed, 
 however, to effect the dissolutions conduced to 
 render the matter unpopular. Just at this period 
 Henry was endeavouring to raise a large loan from 
 his people "against the time the king should pass 
 the sea." The amount asked was no less than (< the 
 sixth part of every man's substance," and that it 
 " should without delay be paid in money or plate to 
 the king for the furniture of his war." Warham 
 warned Wolsey in the spring of the year how un- 
 popular this " amicable grant " was in Kent. [| The 
 work of suppression which engaged Wolsey at this 
 time was disliked by both clergy and laity. 
 
 * Calendar, iv., No. 652. 
 t Rymer, xiv., p. 23. 
 
 \ Rot. Pat., 1 8 Hen. VIII., p. i., mm. 21, 22. 
 Hall, " Union of the Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke," ed. 
 1548, fol. is8d. 
 
 || Ellis, " Orig. Lett.," ist Series, iii., p. 367.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 85 
 
 In the July of 1525 archbishop Warham again 
 wrote to the cardinal about the difficulties his policy 
 was creating in the southern parts of England. The 
 inhabitants of Tunbridge strongly objected to the 
 dissolution of a monastery of Austin canons from 
 which they had derived many advantages. Warham 
 was commissioned to go there and endeavour to 
 persuade them that it was much better to have 
 " forty children of that country educated and after 
 sent to Oxford " than to have six or seven canons 
 living amongst them ; but the people did not think 
 so. After discussing the matter for five or six days 
 they again met Warham, and gave him a list of 
 those who desired the continuance of their ancient 
 priory. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood no 
 less than of the town " would rather have the said 
 place not suppressed," wrote the archbishop, '' if 
 it might stand with the king's pleasure." The 
 murmurs about the matter were very difficult to 
 repress, and this he told Wolsey, who had a 
 " suspicion that the bruit" was against himself.* 
 
 In the neighbouring county of Sussex the agita- 
 tion against W r olsey's dissolution of monasteries 
 
 * Calendar, iii., 1470-1. Warham to Wolsey, July 2nd and 3rd, 
 1525. Hall, ut sup., fol. 137, gives the following account of these 
 suppressions : The Cardinal "suddenly entered by his commis- 
 sioners into the said houses and put out the religious and took all 
 their goods, moveables, and scarcely gave to the poor wretches any- 
 thing except it were to the heads of the house. And then he caused 
 the escheator to sit and find the houses void, as relinquished, and 
 found the king founder where other men were founders, and with 
 these lands withall he endowed his colleges."
 
 86 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. 
 
 was more serious and led to a riot. Beigham 
 abbey, " the which was very commodious to the 
 country,"* was a monastery of Premonstratensians, 
 and although Wolsey had commissioned the bishop 
 of Chichester to visit and inquire into certain alleged 
 scandals there, t the religious evidently maintained a 
 hold on the affections of their neighbours. On the 
 cardinal's proceeding to dissolve the house, under 
 the powers of pope Clement's bull, the people 
 assembled in "a riotous company disguised and 
 unknown, with painted faces " and masked. They 
 turned out the agents engaged on the suppression 
 and reinstated the canons. Before separating they 
 begged the religious, if they were again molested, 
 to ring their bell, and they pledged themselves to 
 come in force to their assistance. J 
 
 The work of dissolution was certainly unpopular. 
 Rumour, apparently, attributed to the cardinal even 
 larger schemes of confiscation than were at the time 
 contemplated. No sooner was the bull of Clement 
 VII. put into force than petitions against the exer- 
 cise of Wolsey's legatine powers were presented to 
 the pope, especially by the Grey friars and the 
 Franciscan observants. The latter were very power- 
 ful in Rome, and, as the cardinal's agent wrote, the 
 pope may, perhaps, "give them some brief," but not 
 one derogatory to Wolsey's honour. The cardinal 
 of York himself had also representations made to 
 
 * Hall, ibid., fol. 143. t Calendar, iii., 1252. 
 
 \ Hall, ut sup. Ellis, " Orig. Lett.," 2nd Ser., iii., p. 57. 
 Calendar, iii., No. 1521.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 87 
 
 him against the work in which he was engaged. 
 The duke of Suffolk, for example, wrote to him in 
 favour of the priory of Conished, in Lancashire, 
 which by common report had been doomed to ex- 
 tinction. The monastery, he said, was " a great 
 help to the people," and " the prior of good and 
 virtuous disposition." * 
 
 Complaints were also carried to the king of the 
 harsh and unjust way in which Wolsey's agents, Dr. 
 Allen and Thomas Crumwell, carried out the sup- 
 pressions and the visitations of the religious houses 
 upon which they were then engaged. Early in 1525 
 the cardinal had been informed by Sir Thomas 
 More that complaints had been made to Henry, 
 " touching certain misorders supposed to be used by 
 Dr. Allen and other my officers in the suppression of 
 certain exile and small monasteries wherein neither 
 God is served nor religion kept. These, with your 
 gracious aid and assistance, converting the same to a 
 far better use, I purpose," writes Wolsey to the king, 
 " to annex unto your intended college of Oxford." 
 He further assures Henry that he can disprove any 
 such reports, saying "I have not meant, intended, or 
 gone about, nor also have willed mine officers to do 
 anything concerning the said suppressions, but under 
 such form and manner as is, and hath largely been, 
 to the full satisfaction, recompense, and joyous con- 
 tentation of any person, which hath had, or could 
 pretend to have, right or interest in the same."f 
 
 * Calendar, iii., No. 1253. t State Papers, i., p. 154.
 
 88 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Whatever may have been Wolsey's belief, at the 
 time, in the integrity of his agents there is little doubt 
 that the reports about them were well founded. Sub- 
 sequently, indeed, the cardinal practically admitted 
 the truth of the charges suggested against those 
 he employed in dealing with the religious. Fiddes 
 in the "Life of Wolsey" says: "The revenues 
 of the cardinal, from the privileges of his visitatorial 
 power, of making abbots, of proving wills, granting 
 faculties, licenses, and dispensations from his pensions 
 and preferments, and other visible advantages were 
 thought by this time to be equal to the revenues of 
 the crown. But in the methods of enriching him 
 under the first article no one contributed so much as 
 his chaplain, John Allen, LL.D., who, accompanied 
 with a great train, and riding in a kind of perpetual 
 progress from one religious house to another, is said 
 to have drawn very large sums for his master's service 
 from them."* 
 
 This Dr. Allen was, apparently, the object of great 
 dread and intense dislike. He was an astute, hard 
 man, and, like his fellow, Crumwell, had evidently 
 been trained up in business habits to the detriment 
 of his humanity or even honesty. He was after- 
 wards made archbishop of Dublin, " where his im- 
 periousness and rapacity brought him to a violent 
 end."f At a somewhat later date, when, as minister 
 to the greed of Henry, Crumwell was at work upon 
 
 * Fiddes' " Wolsey," p. 351. Hall, ut siifl., fol. 143. 
 t Brewer's "Henry VIII.," Vol. ii., p. 270.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 89 
 
 the wholesale suppression of monasteries, the memory 
 of Dr. Allen's behaviour was still fresh in the minds 
 of the religious. John Ap. Rice, one of the visitors, 
 writing of his fellow, Legh, says that the monks and 
 nuns " were never so afraid of Dr. Allen as they be 
 of him, he useth such rough fashion with them."* 
 A discontented monk of Worcester also complains 
 in 1535 that some ten years before, the doctor had 
 accepted a bribe of 20 angels and a white palfrey 
 from his prior, f 
 
 The courtesy and consideration, which the monks 
 were likely to receive at the hands of Crumwell, may 
 be best understood by his subsequent dealings with 
 them. "Of Crumwell," writes Mr. Brewer, "it 
 is enough to say that even at this early period of his 
 career his accessibility to bribes and presents in the 
 disposal of monastic leases was notorious." % For 
 some years before the cardinal's fall, report had 
 spoken badly of Thomas Crumwell. " Loud outcries 
 
 * R. O. Crum. Corr., Vol. xxxv., No. 38. 
 
 t Calendar, ix., No. 52. The account which Hall, ut sup., fol. 
 143, gives of Dr. Allen, is worth quoting. " The Cardinal," he says, 
 " about this season by his power legatine sent a chaplain of his called 
 John Allen, a man of more learning than virtue or good conscience, 
 to visit all places religious. This priest rode in his gown of velvet, 
 with a great train, and was received into every religion, with pro- 
 cession as though the legate had been there. And (he) took such 
 great sums for his visitation that the religious were sore grieved and 
 murmured much against it, and especially for they were charged 
 with great sums of money to the king. And now this sudden 
 visitation or predation clean shaved them." 
 
 J " Henry VIII.," ii., p. 270.
 
 90 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 reached the king's ears of the exactions and pecula- 
 tions of Wolsey's officers, in which the name of 
 Crumwell was most frequently repeated, and more 
 than once the king had to express his grave dis- 
 pleasure at the conduct of a man who soon after was 
 destined to occupy the highest place in his favour." * 
 
 In 1527, when Wolsey was at Amiens and proposed 
 to send Dr. Allen to England with a message to the 
 king, Knight, who was afterwards bishop of Bath and 
 Wells, wrote to warn the cardinal against his selec- 
 tion. "And, sir," he said, "in case Mr. Allen be 
 not departed hitherwards on your message, or may 
 be in time revoked, your grace might use better any 
 about you for your message unto the king than him, 
 I have heard the king and noblemen speak things 
 incredible of the acts of Mr. Allen and Crum- 
 well." t 
 
 In subsequent times the superiors of religious 
 houses endeavoured to buy off the threatened dis- 
 solution by presents and bribes or by readily ac- 
 ceding to requests which were tantamount to 
 demands. Under Wolsey they tried to purchase 
 favour by offers of gifts to the cardinal's college, 
 The bishop of Lincoln, who greatly aided the 
 foundation in more ways than one, put great pressure 
 on the abbot of Peterborough to resign, or to bestow 
 the large sum of 2,000 marks on the undertaking. 
 He tried much the same system of blackmail on the 
 prior of Spalding. The prior, however, would not 
 
 * Ibid.) p. 394. t State Papers, i., p. 261.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 91 
 
 resign, " though all legal means were tried." * There 
 are also several indications of distinct bribes offered 
 for various offices. One man will give 500 marks 
 and other considerable presents to the college, if the 
 cardinal will make him under-treasurer.f When 
 the prior of St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield, was sick 
 of the plague and likely to die, the friends of 
 " William Finch, cellarer of the same," offered 
 Wolsey " ^300 to your college at Oxford for your 
 favour towards his preferment." j Lastly, to allow 
 him to illegally imprison some one who has offended 
 him, Henry, earl of Northumberland, offers to give 
 the cardinal " the chapel books of his late father," 
 which he has been asked to bestow on the college. 
 To induce him to make the bargain, the earl says he 
 will let him have four antiphonals and graduals, 
 " such as were not seen a great while," ^200 in 
 money, and a benefice of ^100 for his college. 
 
 At length, on the eve of the lord cardinal's fall, 
 the king is more explicit as to the methods employed 
 by Wolsey's agents and his own condemnation of 
 them. The letters were called forth by a difference 
 between Henry and his minister as to the appoint- 
 ment of an abbess to Wilton. The king had de- 
 termined to favour the election, or what might be 
 more truly called the appointment, of Dame Elinor 
 Gary. She was supported by powerful friends, 
 amongst whom was reckoned Anne Boleyn herself. 
 
 * Calendar, iv., Nos. 2378, 4708. f Ibid., No. 4452, also 4483. 
 J Ibid., No. 3334. Ibid., No. 4603.
 
 92 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 The cardinal, probably with quite sufficient reason, 
 approved of the choice of the former prioress, Dame 
 Isabell Jordayn, and in distinct opposition to the royal 
 wishes. Wolsey wrote to offer humble apologies, 
 on being informed of Henry's displeasure, and, in 
 accepting the explanation, the king wrote : "As 
 touching the help of religious houses to the building 
 of your colleges, I would it were more, so it were 
 lawfully ; for my intent is none but that it should 
 appear so to all the world, and the occasion of all 
 their mumbling might be secluded and put away. 
 For surely there is great murmuring of it throughout 
 all the realm, both good and bad. They say not 
 that all that is illgotten is bestowed on the college, 
 but that the college is the cloak for covering all 
 mischiefs. This grieveth me, I assure you, to hear 
 it spoken of him whom I so entirely love. Where- 
 fore methought I could do no less than thus friendly 
 to admonish you. One thing more I perceive by your 
 letter, which a little, methinks, toucheth conscience, 
 and that is that you have received money of the 
 exempts for having their old visitors. Surely this 
 can hardly be with good conscience. For if they 
 were good why should you take money ? and if they 
 were ill it were a sinful act. Howbeit, your legate- 
 ship herein might peradventure apud homines be a 
 cloak, but not apud Deum." * 
 
 *Lord Herbert, "Henry VIII.," p. 164. Ficldes' "Wolsey," 
 p. 379. Fuller, "Church Hist.," Hi., p. 357, ed. 1845, says: 
 " God's exemplary hand ought to be heeded in the signal fatality of
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 93 
 
 In his reply the cardinal thanks his master "for 
 the great zeal that (he) had for the purity and clean- 
 ness of my poor conscience, coveting and desiring 
 that nothing should be by me committed or done, 
 by the colour of my intended college or otherwise, 
 that should not stand with God's pleasure and good 
 conscience, or that thereby any just occasion might 
 be given to any person to speak or judge ill of my 
 doings. And albeit, as is contained in my other 
 letters, I have acknowledged to have received of 
 divers, my old lovers and friends, and other exempt 
 religious persons, right loving and favourable aids 
 towards the edifying of my said college, yet your 
 majesty may be well assured that the same ex- 
 tendeth not to such a sum as some men doth 
 untruly bruit and report, or that any part thereof, 
 to my knowledge, thought, or judgment hath been 
 corruptly or contrary to law taken or given." He 
 then declares that henceforth he will take nothing 
 " from any religious person, being exempt or not 
 exempt, so that thereby I trust, nor by any other 
 
 such as by the Cardinal were employed in this service. Five they 
 were in number, two whereof challenging the field of each other, 
 one was slain and the other hanged for it. A third throwing him- 
 self headlong into a well, perished wilfully. A fourth, formerly 
 wealthy, grew so poor that he begged his bread. The fifth, Dr. 
 Allen, one of especial note, afterwards archbishop of Dublin, was 
 slain in Ireland. What became of the Cardinal himself is notori- 
 ously known, and as for his two colleges, that in Ipswich (the emblem 
 of its builder, soon up soon down) presently vanished into private 
 houses ; whilst the other, Christchurch in Oxford, was fain to dis- 
 claim its founder."
 
 94 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 thing hereafter unlawfully taken, your poor cardinal's 
 conscience shall not be spotted, encumbered, or 
 entangled." 
 
 Notwithstanding Wolsey's excuses, Henry seems 
 to have had just grounds for his suspicion that the 
 cardinal had made use of his legatine authority 
 to serve his own purposes. Popular report had 
 spoken of immunities purchased by presents to 
 the cardinal's colleges, which were adverse to 
 the king's interests, and which ought not to 
 have been granted. The archbishop of Canterbury 
 complained that, in raising the loan known as 
 the "amicable grant," he had no power at all over 
 the religious houses in his district. " They must be 
 left," he writes, "to your grace (Wolsey), and 
 unless they contribute to the loan according to the 
 value of their benefices the clergy will complain. 
 Had the religious houses not been exempted, but 
 appeared before me, the loan derived from my 
 diocese would be much greater."! The king like- 
 wise complains with much bitterness that among the 
 religious are found the most strenuous and success- 
 ful opponents of this enforced benevolence. " These 
 same religious houses," he writes to the cardinal, 
 "would not grant to their sovereign in his necessity, 
 not by a great deal so much as they have to you for 
 the building of your college. These things bear 
 shrewd appearance, for, except they were accustomed 
 to have some benefit, they, and no other I ever heard 
 
 * State Papers, i., p. 317. f Calendar, iv., p. 2010.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 95 
 
 of, have used to show that kindness, tain enim est 
 aliena ab eis ipsa humanitas." He concludes by 
 urgently requiring Wolsey to look well into the 
 conduct of those to whom he has entrusted this 
 " meddling with religious houses."* 
 
 During the spring of 1527 the question of the 
 divorce of Henry from Catherine began to be mooted 
 in England. In the autumn the first communication 
 on the subject between the king and the pope took 
 place. When the royal agents arrived in Rome, on 
 November 25th, the}' found Clement VII. a prisoner 
 in the castle of St. Angelo, with some few cardi- 
 nals. The city had been taken and sacked by the 
 duke of Bourbon in the previous May. At this 
 time Wolsey had conceived the desire to further 
 emulate the example of bishop Wykeham and 
 establish a school, which should feed his founda- 
 tion at Oxford as that at Winchester had done 
 New College. For this purpose further funds were 
 imperatively necessary. The success of his previous 
 scheme having been secured by the dissolution of 
 various monasteries, the agents, who had gone to 
 Rome on the divorce question, were instructed to 
 seek additional powers in the same direction. The 
 cardinal at this time appears to have hesitated at 
 nothing to carry out his designs. In the summer of 
 this year, 1527, he had been in France, where he 
 made three treaties with the king. It was agreed 
 that, during the captivity of the pope, no bull or 
 
 * Brewer's "Henry V11I.," ii., p. 283. Fiddes' Collect., p. 139.
 
 96 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 brief should be received in either country ; that, with 
 the consent of Henry, the cardinal of York should 
 have control of all ecclesiastical affairs in England, 
 and that Francis I. should take the like power in his 
 dominions. Wolsey also proposed to ask Clement 
 VII. to make him his vicar-general, as long as he 
 was a prisoner, and to entrust him with supreme 
 authority. In fact, according to the tenor of the bull, 
 written ready for the pope's seal and signature, the 
 cardinal proposed to obtain power of dispensing even 
 from the divine law.* 
 
 What is more extraordinary still is, that Wolsey, 
 before leaving France, acted as if he had obtained 
 these full and unheard of powers. He even ordered 
 the chancellor of France to assume the dignity and 
 dress of cardinal, which Clement had promised but 
 not bestowed, f 
 
 In December, 1527, the pope escaped from Rome 
 to Orvieto, and thither Gardiner and Foxe, Wolsey's 
 agents, followed him. The Holy Father was power- 
 less, and at the mercy of any who chose to exert 
 pressure upon him. On March 23rd, 1528, Foxe 
 wrote describing the miserable state in which they 
 had found the pope on their arrival at Orvieto. He 
 had taken up his quarters in the bishop's ruined 
 palace. Three small chambers, " all naked and 
 unhanged," with the ceiling fallen, and about thirty 
 
 * Pocock, Records, i., p. 19 : " Eliamsiad divincc. legis rdaxa- 
 tionem" See Lewis' Trans, of Sanders, Introd., p. liii., &c. 
 t Lewis, Introd., Iv. Pocock, Records, ii., p. 88.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 97 
 
 persons of the " riff-raff " standing about " for a 
 garnishment," led to the pope's private apartment. 
 The furniture of this, " bed and all," was not worth 
 " twenty nobles." * 
 
 For some weeks the agents were engaged in 
 trying to force from the defenceless pope a de- 
 cision on the divorce question. Gardiner had even 
 threatened to settle the matter in England inde- 
 pendently of Clement, and his insolence had 
 astonished the cardinals who were present. f Failing 
 to obtain what he desired, the agent endeavoured to 
 purchase compliance by promises " for the recovery 
 of the See Apostolic with maintenance of the 
 same/' Finally, on April 4th, he and his fellow- 
 priests " returned unto the pope's holiness, and 
 spake roundly unto him ... as our instructions 
 purporteth, and to that point that the king's 
 highness would do it without him."| In the midst 
 of this perplexity and difficulty a further demand 
 was made on Wolsey's behalf. Powers were asked 
 to suppress the priory of St. Peter's, Ipswich and 
 other monasteries to obtain funds for the foundation 
 of a college at Ipswich. The pope gave way ,- nor 
 could he well have refused any demand which 
 conscience would have enabled him to grant. In 
 the middle of May, 1528, the necessary bulls were 
 dispatched to Wolsey. 
 
 Gardiner appears to have acted as unscrupulously 
 
 * Calendar, iv., No. 4090. t Lewis, Introd., Ixxv. 
 
 J Calendar, iv., No. 4167. 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 Henry Fill, and the English Monasteries. 
 
 in this matter as in the divorce question. The pope, 
 on the first suggestion of further suppressions, had 
 asked from the agents particulars about the 
 cardinal's colleges. He was pleased with the 
 account given him, and told the cardinals de Monte 
 and Sanctorum Quatuor " what a good " work it 
 was. " In particular it rejoiced the pope," writes 
 Strype, " when they told him that Wolsey had taken 
 order that, in letting the farms belonging to his 
 college, no man should have them but such as would 
 dwell upon them and maintain hospitality . . and 
 he (the pope) justified and maintained the com- 
 mutation and alteration of those religious places, 
 whereof only did arise the scandal of religion as he 
 spoke. For the cardinal, for the endowing of his 
 college, had lately obtained of the pope a bull for 
 the dissolving of divers monasteries wherein much 
 vice and wickedness was harboured, as he informed 
 the pope, to incline him thereby the easier to grant 
 his request."* 
 
 In this way the convent of Pre, near St. Albans, 
 was dissolved, and united to that great abbey. The 
 pope was told that the nuns did not keep a good 
 rule of life, and that religious discipline was much 
 relaxed. The revenues, therefore, were transferred 
 to St. Alban's abbey in order that an increased 
 number of monks might be supported for the better 
 celebration of the divine office. f It may be, that 
 
 * Strype. " Eccl. Mems.," i., p. 168. Calendar, iv., No. 4120. 
 \ Rymer, xiv., p. 240.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 99 
 
 the nuns of Pre merited the bad character for laxity 
 of life given to them in the papal bull. In view, 
 however, of Wolsey's motive in giving a bad char- 
 acter to monasteries whose possessions he desired, 
 the mere fact of the statement by the pope is not 
 proof positive. Neither does the fact that the con- 
 vent was united to the abbey of St. Albans show that 
 Wolsey had no motive in the suppression. To this 
 arrangement the cardinal really objected, and 
 authorized his agent to obtain another bull from 
 Clement uniting Pre to Cardinal college, Oxford. 
 At the same time he wished that the impropriation 
 of a living, also obtained for St. Albans, should be 
 changed to the college at Ipswich.* 
 
 In the various suppressions which followed com- 
 plaints were again made of the high-handed action 
 of Wolsey's servants. The abbot of Beaulieu, who 
 was also bishop of Bangor, wrote to the cardinal of 
 the unjust seizure of certain lands in the parish of 
 St. Keverans, Cornwall, belonging to his abbey. 
 He represented that Beaulieu had possessed the 
 property for 400 years and that now two servants 
 had taken it. And one " gentleman hath written to 
 me," he said, " that the benefice there, which is im- 
 propriated to Beaulieu, he mindeth to give to the 
 finding of scholars, and feigneth that some time 
 there was a cell of monks there. "f 
 
 The abbot of York, also, complains of Wolsey's 
 
 * Calendar, iv., No. 5714. 
 
 t Ellis, ' Orig. Lett.," iii. Ser. 2, p. 60.
 
 ioo Henry Fill, and the English Monasteries. 
 
 seizure of Romburgh priory, in Suffolk, which was a 
 cell of St. Mary's abbey. He says, that on the i ith 
 of September, 1528, certain officers of the cardinal 
 came to the priory, read the authority of the pope 
 and king, " entered into the same priory, and 
 that done took away as well the goods moveable 
 of the said priory . . and also certain muniments, 
 evidences, and specialities touching and appertain- 
 ing unto our monastery, which we had lately sent 
 unto our said prior and brethren there." The cell, 
 he says, had been given to them by Alan Niger, 
 earl of Richmond, 400 years before, and the abbey 
 was burdened, by reason of the gift, with masses, 
 suffrages, and alms. Further, as the revenues of 
 the priory do not amount to more than ^30, the 
 abbot offers "towards your special, honourable, 
 and laudable purpose concerning the erection and 
 foundation of the said college and school . . 300 
 marks sterling, which shall be delivered " at once, if 
 the cardinal will spare the monastery.* The repre- 
 sentation was of no avail, and Romburgh was 
 annexed to the Ipswich college. 
 
 The papal permissions to alienate monastic property 
 thus obtained only served to increase Wolsey's desire 
 for further dissolutions. In October, 1528, Clement 
 VII. was being worried and bullied by the cardinal's 
 agents in the matter of the divorce. In turn they 
 were threatening, exhorting and beseeching the 
 pope to comply with Henry's royal will and even if 
 * Wright, " Suppr. of Mons.," p. i.
 
 Cardinal Wohey and the Monasteries. 101 
 
 necessary permit him to have two wives * at once. 
 At this time also Wolsey instructed his agents to 
 make further overtures about monastic property. 
 On behalf of the king they presented a petition that 
 certain religious houses might be given over to 
 support the college at Windsor and King's at 
 Cambridge. These two establishments the agents 
 represented as having been founded by the grand- 
 parents of the English king, for education and for 
 the support in old age of court officials. The pope 
 was informed that they were now reduced to poverty, 
 and that Henry could not finish the work through 
 want of means. Clement VII. was, no doubt, only 
 too willing at this critical time to give way in any 
 possible matter to the English king. Hence, " because 
 of all that Henry had done against heresy and for 
 the Holy See," he granted him permission to suppress 
 monasteries to the value of 8,000 ducats, provided 
 that there were not six religious in them and that 
 the inmates were placed in other religious houses. f 
 
 At this same time the king and cardinal told their 
 agent Casali to suggest a wholesale suppression, in 
 order to establish more cathedrals in England with 
 the property thus procured. The question was 
 mooted in the consistory, and, according to the agent, 
 all present seemed ready to assent to the king's 
 desire. " As it is a matter, however," he writes, " of 
 
 * Calendar, iv., 4897. See Lewis' " Sanders/' Introd., p. cxxvi., 
 &c. 
 t Rymer, xiv., p. 249.
 
 IO2 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 the greatest importance it should be granted with 
 greater authority than could be done then. Power 
 might be asked for the legates to decide which 
 monasteries are fit to be erected into cathedrals, to 
 arrange the revenues &c., and then the whole referred 
 to the pope for confirmation. Cardinal S. Quatuor 
 and De Monte advise this, thinking it too important 
 to be finally settled except in consistory, the pope 
 being present, lest it should be thought that the 
 legates were influenced by private interest." He 
 concludes by asking to be informed exactly of the 
 nature of the king's requests.* 
 
 At the same time the writerof the above letter to the 
 king sends another to the cardinal. He tells hismaster 
 that he has " showed his Holiness the integrity of his 
 intentions towards the Church." He has also pointed 
 out the need of reformation in the English monasteries, 
 " and the suitableness of the present time, when a 
 legate had gone to England," so that Wolsey might 
 not be suspected of acting for his own advantage. 
 Casali thought that the pope was persuaded of the 
 necessity of the erection of new cathedrals and the 
 reform of monasteries ; but " he considered for some 
 time the alleged necessity of suppressing monasteries 
 of any order." The writer added he was " sure the 
 matter will be managed with dexterity."! What 
 this kind of " dexterity " was likely to be, can be 
 understood from a letter of Gregorio Casali, the 
 brother of the former writer. In this he says that 
 * Calendar, iv., No. 4886. f Ibid, No. 4900.
 
 Cardinal JVolsey and the Monasteries. 103 
 
 he "has told his brother the protonotary and Vincent 
 (his nephew) that importunity is the only way to get 
 anything from the pope."* 
 
 The result of the "importunity" soon appeared. 
 Two bulls were issued by Clement VII. on November 
 14, 1528. In the first it is stated that the king had pre- 
 sented a petition showing that in England there were 
 many monasteries, " in which the proper number (i.e., 
 twelve monks or nuns) were not to be found and 
 which had no proper income for their support. 
 Hence regular discipline was not kept up and the 
 divine office not properly performed. By laxity of 
 restraint the rule of good life was not kept by the 
 monks and nuns therein." The petition further 
 suggested, that if these were united to other religious 
 houses, where the day and night office was properly 
 performed and in which good discipline was main- 
 tained, it would be better for religion. Acting on 
 this information and in accordance with this petition, 
 the pope by bull granted Wolsey faculties for the 
 suggested union. f 
 
 The second bull had reference to the question of 
 the proposed cathedrals. Henry represented to 
 Clement that monasteries had previously been sup- 
 pressed for that purpose in England. He suggested 
 that several more should now have their revenues 
 granted to this purpose, and that each cathedral, so 
 erected, should have a revenue of 10,000 ducats from 
 the monastic lands. The pope, having consulted 
 * Calendar, iv., No. 4956. f Rymer, xiv., p. 272.
 
 104 Henry Fill, and the English Monasteries. 
 
 with his cardinals, issued a bull desiring further 
 information, which he directed Wolsey to furnish. 
 First, he wished to know whether any and what 
 monasteries had previously been suppressed for such 
 a purpose ; secondly, whether there was any need of 
 increasing the number of cathedrals ; thirdly, ho\v 
 many monasteries would be required for the purpose 
 and whether the monks were to remain in the 
 cathedrals as canons, bound by the three vows, 
 but taking the dress of seculars. Lastly, he asked 
 what would be the position of the bishop, whether 
 he would be a suffragan of the archbishop, or 
 immediately dependent on the Holy See. Wolsey 
 was directed by the bull to examine witnesses as to 
 these matters, and to send their evidence attested 
 by oath to the pope.* 
 
 Even yet, the cardinal of York was not satisfied. 
 He asked to be allowed to suppress a few more 
 monasteries for his colleges. These had ap- 
 parently already been dissolved on his own 
 authority. " The cardinal further demands," 
 writes Jacobo Salviati to Campeggio, " the union 
 to his college of three monasteries, which are 
 not mentioned in the other bulls. This, too, 
 shall be granted, although his Holiness could have 
 wished that it had not been requested of him. But 
 as it is his most reverend lordship who makes the 
 demand, and for such a purpose, he cannot refuse 
 him, as the elect (bishop) of Bellun is to write to him 
 * Ibid,, xiv., 273.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 105 
 
 at greater length, the elect being here and solicit- 
 ing this ' expedition ' with much importunity." 
 
 In the beginning of the following year, 1529, pope 
 Clement VII. fell ill. It was reported, and for the 
 time believed, that he was dead. Upon this the king 
 determined once more to further, as far as he possibly 
 could, the election of Wolsey to the Popedom.f In 
 this design he directed his agent to bribe the cardi- 
 nals, and in his efforts he was seconded by Wolsey 
 himself. The latter writes to Gardiner, his old 
 secretary, on February )th : "When all things be 
 well considered absit verbnm jactantioe there 
 shall be none found that can and will set remedy in 
 the aforesaid things, but only the cardinal Ebor." 
 He adds, that he wishes .his agent to spare no 
 expense in this matter, but to use all his power, 
 promises and labour to bring it to pass. J It is 
 certain also from the king's instructions that it was 
 seriously contemplated, in the event of the electors 
 refusing the cardinal of York, to set up an anti-pope 
 and create a schism. The emperor foresaw this 
 and when expressing his regret at the illness of 
 Clement, added : " His death might create a schism 
 in Christendom." || 
 
 The Pope recovered. Henry and Wolsey were 
 
 * Calendar, iv., No. 4920. 
 t Ibid., No. 5270. 
 J Ibid., No. 5272. 
 
 Pocock. Records, ii., p. 598. See Lewis' "Sanders," Introd., 
 p. cxxxv. et seq. 
 
 || Calendar, iv., No. 5301.
 
 106 Henry J^III. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 thus again disappointed in their plans. The bulls,, 
 which had been obtained in the autumn of the pre- 
 vious year through the persistent importunity of the 
 English agents, had not been altogether according 
 to Wolsey's pleasure. He desired the removal of 
 the clause ce de consensu quorum interest " in the 
 permission for the union of various monasteries. 
 The agent had deliberately and on his own authority 
 changed "less than twelve monasteries" into "less 
 or more than twelve monasteries," which had dis- 
 pleased the cardinal S. Quatuor, and delayed the 
 transmission of the bulls to England. The cardinal 
 
 O 
 
 of York had neglected also to forward, as requested, 
 copies of the bulls by which, as was said, monas- 
 teries had previously been turned into bishoprics.* 
 
 At the beginning of June, 1529, the question was 
 still being discussed. Wolsey wrote to Sir Gregory 
 Casali that he wanted certain clauses amplified in 
 bulls he had received. As to the union of monas- 
 teries, he desired to have the power of uniting 
 small monasteries as well as of annexing them to 
 greater. The bull for erecting cathedrals only 
 empowered him to inquire and report, but the king 
 and he desired powers to act. He promised that 
 there should be no loss of fees to the court of Rome. 
 He desired the omission of the clause " de consensu 
 omnium quorum interest/' not because he thought 
 such interests ought to be neglected, but to prevent 
 factious and malicious opposition. No such clause, 
 * Calendar, iv., No. 5226.
 
 Cardinal Wolsey and the Monasteries. 107 
 
 he urged, was inserted in his former bulls for the 
 suppression of monasteries.* 
 
 On the 4th June 1529, the final bull, to allow 
 Wolsey to act on the king's petition for the erection 
 of additional cathedrals, was signed by Clement VII. 
 It was of exactly the same nature as the previous 
 brief, but allowed the king's suggestion to be carried 
 into effect and put the burden of the matter upon 
 the Cardinal's conscience, f On the 3ist of the 
 following August the second bull for the union of 
 monasteries, in the required form, received the Pope's 
 seal and signature. The fall of Wolsey, however, 
 prevented any further action under the powers thus 
 granted him. 
 
 Among the articles of impeachment which, accord- 
 ing to the authority of Lord Herbert, were exhibited 
 in the House of Lords against the Cardinal, several 
 relate to his action against the monasteries. These 
 articles, forty-four in number, were signed by Sir 
 Thomas More and many others. The i3th runs 
 thus : " And where good hospitality hath been used 
 to be kept in houses and places of religion of this 
 realm, and many poor people thereby relieved, the 
 said hospitality and relief is now decayed and not 
 used. And it is commonly reported that the 
 occasion thereof is, because the said lord Cardinal 
 hath taken such impositions of the rulers of the said 
 houses, as well for his favour in making of abbots 
 and priors as for his visitation by his authority lega- 
 * Calendar, iv., No. 5639. f Rymer, xiv., p. 291.
 
 loS Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 tine, and yet, nevertheless, taketh yearly of such 
 religious houses such yearly and continual charges, 
 as they be not able to keep hospitality as they were 
 used to do, which is a great cause that there be so 
 many vagabonds, beggars, and thieves." 
 
 The 1 4th article charges the cardinal with having 
 raised the rents of the lands he received through the 
 suppressions, and made it impossible to farm them 
 with profit. 
 
 The 1 9th says : " Also the said lord Cardinal hath 
 not only, by his untrue suggestion to the Pope, 
 shamefully slandered many good religious houses 
 and good virtuous men dwelling in them, but also 
 suppressed, by reason thereof, above thirty houses 
 of religion. And where, by the authority of his 
 bull, he should not suppress any house that had more 
 men of religion in number above the number of six 
 or seven, he hath suppressed divers houses that had 
 above the number, and thereupon hath caused divers 
 offices to be found by verdict, untruly, that the 
 religious persons so suppressed had voluntarily for- 
 saken their said houses, which was untrue, and so 
 hath caused open perjury to be committed, to the 
 high displeasure of Almighty God." 
 
 In the 24th it is stated : " Also the same lord 
 Cardinal at many times, when any houses of religion 
 hath been void, hath sent his officers thither, and 
 with crafty persuasions hath induced them to ' com- 
 promit ' their election in him, and before he named 
 or confirmed any of them, he and his servants re-
 
 Cardinal Wohey and the Monasteries. 109 
 
 ceived so much great goods of them, that in a 
 manner it hath been to the undoing of the house." 
 
 Lastly, the 25th says : " Also, by his authority 
 legatine, the same lord Cardinal hath visited the most 
 part of the religious houses and colleges of this realm, 
 and hath taken from them the twenty-fifth part of 
 their livelihood, to the great extortion of your subjects 
 and derogation of your laws and prerogative, and no 
 law hath been to bear him so to do." 
 
 " Here," says Lord Herbert, " certainly began the 
 taste that our king took of governing in chief the 
 clergy, of which, therefore, as well as the dissolution 
 of monasteries, it seems the first arguments and 
 impressions were derived from the Cardinal. "f It is 
 difficult to read the record of Wolsey's arbitrary 
 action as regards the religious houses, and the 
 account of his methods in dealing with the pope, 
 without endorsing this opinion. 
 
 * Fiddes, Collect., p. 172 et seq. t ' Henry VIII.," p. 209.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE HOLY MAID OF KENT. 
 
 THE story of Elizabeth Barton, known as the "holy 
 maid of Kent," must form a part of any detailed 
 account of Henry's dealings with the English 
 monasteries. " On all this" (the history of the nun 
 and her companions), writes Burnet, " I have dwelt 
 the longer, both because these are called martyrs by 
 Sanders, and that this did first provoke the king 
 against the regular clergy, and drew after it all the 
 severities that were done in the rest of the reign."* 
 Without wishing to accept this view, it is impos- 
 sible to pass the incident of the "nun of Kent" 
 without considering the new light thrown upon the 
 story by the calendars of state papers, and also by 
 the publication of some letters of Chapuys, the 
 Imperial ambassador in England at this time. 
 In 1525 Elizabeth Bartonf was a domestic servant 
 
 * u Hist, of Reform.," Ed. Pocock, i., p. 246. 
 
 t This account is from W. Lambard's " Perambulation of Kent," 
 written in the year 1570. The author says he took the facts from 
 a little pamphlet " containing four-and-twenty leaves," which was 
 written by Edward Thwaites in 1527. It was called "A miraculous
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 1 1 1 
 
 with one Thomas Cobb, a farmer of known respect- 
 ability. She lived in the parish of Aldington, some 
 twelve miles from Canterbury. About Easter time 
 of that year, when she would have been about 
 eighteen years of age, she was seized with a severe 
 illness. During the progress of the sickness, which 
 continued for seven months and more, she appeared 
 to have frequent ecstasies, or trances. Whilst in one 
 of these and apparently unconscious of all around 
 her she spoke of things taking place at a distance 
 and foretold coming events. At a subsequent date 
 it was declared, by those who condemned her to 
 death, that " she was brought in such debility and 
 weakness of brain because she could not eat nor 
 drink for a long space, that in the violence of her 
 infirmities she seemed to be in trances and spoke 
 and uttered many foolish and idle words."* But at 
 this period, and for years after, no such suggestion 
 was made. Certainly those who knew her best did 
 not look upon her sayings as "foolish and idle." 
 Amongst other things she is sajd to have foretold 
 the death of one of her master's children, who was 
 ill and the event followed shortly after her prediction. 
 In one of her trances, she declared that the Blessed 
 Virgin had directed her to go to the chapel at Court 
 of Street, where she would be cured of her sickness. 
 
 work at Court of Street, in Kent, published to devout people of 
 this time for their spiritual consolation." As all books connected 
 with Elizabeth Barton were destroyed under a provision in the act 
 of her attainder, the pamphlet is known only in Lambard's book. 
 * Rot. Parl., 25 Hen. VIII. (No. 142).
 
 112 Hennj F^III. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 On her first visit to the shrine, according to the 
 account given of her, she did not receive her health. 
 That, however, did not discourage her and she 
 professed perfect confidence that what had been 
 promised would in good time be granted. Mean- 
 while her reputation became noised abroad. Either 
 through the parish priest of Aldington, Richard 
 Masters, or by some other means, the rumour 
 reached the ears of the venerable Warham, arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury. He "directed thither Dr. 
 Bocking, with masters Hadleigh and Barnes, three 
 monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, Father Lewis 
 and his fellow (two observants), his official of 
 Canterbury and the parson of Aldington, with a 
 commission to examine the matter and to inform 
 him of the truth." Their report was favourable. 
 They declared to the archbishop that " they found 
 her sound therein." So that when next she went to 
 our Lady at Court of Street " she entered the chapel 
 with the ' Ave Regina Ccelorum ' in prick-song, 
 accompanied with these commissioners, many ladies, 
 gentlewomen and gentlemen of the best degree and 
 three thousand persons besides of the common sort 
 of people." 
 
 During the mass, which was celebrated at the 
 shrine, Elizabeth Barton fell into one of her usual 
 trances and was restored to health. She afterwards 
 declared that our Lady desired the shrine of Court of 
 Street to be honoured more faithfully and supported 
 with greater generosity, and that she herself should
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 1 13 
 
 enter some convent. Acting on this declaration, 
 archbishop Warham obtained her reception into the 
 Benedictine convent of St. Sepulchre's, near Canter- 
 bury. There she subsequently became a nun and 
 continued to preserve a universal reputation for 
 holiness. From time to time, during the seven years 
 of her religious life, she was to all appearance wrapt 
 in ecstasy.* 
 
 Little is known of the life which Elizabeth Barton 
 led in the convent. But in this period she spoke 
 strongly and uncompromisingly against sin, and ex- 
 horted to penance when chance afforded her an 
 opportunity. If she was moved by an evil spirit, as 
 her enemies afterwards pretended, there never was a 
 clearer case of Satan's kingdom divided against 
 itself. She blamed the general laxity of the age 
 and the " corruption of manners and evil life " to be 
 found then in England. She exhorted people to 
 approach the sacraments and in particular to 
 frequent confession and other good Catholic prac- 
 tices, f Her influence over the .minds and hearts of 
 
 * The account given on the parliament roll in the act of 
 attainder agrees with the main facts of the story as related above, 
 which is taken from Lambard's account of Thwaites' pamphlet. 
 The attainder, however, declares, as will be subsequently related, 
 that the whole matter was a deception arranged by the two priests, 
 Richard Masters and Dr. Edward Bocking. 
 
 f Lambard, p. 148. The act of attainder seems to admit her 
 reputation for sanctity and her influence for good. Richard Mori- 
 son, the uncompromising supporter of Henry's policy, in a work 
 printed so soon after the execution of- the " Holy Maid" as 1537, 
 admits the general opinion of her sanctity. "Tandem comparata 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 those she came in contact with, as far as is known, 
 was a powerful incentive to their leading a better 
 life. Henry Man, for example, a Carthusian monk 
 and procurator of their house at Sheen, writes early 
 in 1533 to Dr. Bocking, the confessor of the nun, 
 in enthusiastic terms of her. " Let us praise 
 God," he says, "who has raised up this holy virgin, 
 a mother, indeed, to me and a daughter to thee for 
 our salvation. She has raised a fire in some hearts 
 that you would think like unto the operation of the 
 Holy Spirit in the primitive Church if you saw with 
 what frequent tears some bewailed their transgres- 
 sions."' At a subsequent date the same monk 
 writes, that it is only " of late it has pleased God to 
 give me some knowledge of His secret and wonderful 
 works, which He works daily in His special spiritual 
 daughter. This ' accends ' my heart in the love 
 of God." I beg you, he continues in his letter to 
 Dr. Bocking, " to accept me as your spiritual son, 
 and ask the prayers of Elizabeth Barton to obtain 
 grace to mortify myself and live only for Christ. "j 
 Another monk of the same monastery writes to the 
 nun asking her prayers for himself, as he finds as 
 yet but little profit to his soul by his leaving the 
 
 sanctimonise fama, caepit mirum in modum non plebem, non vulgus 
 imperitum, sed magnates alioqui viros, multos preterea doctores, 
 abbates aliquot, Warramum ipsum archiepiscopum Cantuariensem, 
 atque adeo legates apostolicos, deludere." Apomaxis Calumniarum, 
 fol. 72 (1537). 
 
 * Calendar, vi., No. 835. 
 
 t Ibid., No. 1149.
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 1 1 5 
 
 world.* His letter shows what an exalted idea he 
 had formed of her holiness of life. 
 
 Without doubt, however, the most important 
 testimony as to the character of the " holy maid " 
 is the opinion as to her virtues entertained by the 
 venerable bishop Fisher. It must be remembered 
 that the bishop of Rochester was no ordinary man. 
 He was an ecclesiastic of extraordinary ability and 
 learning ; and unlike so many other bishops of his 
 age, he had not spent his life and thus, perhaps, 
 blunted his judgment as to spiritual matters, in 
 attendance at court, or by occupation in affairs 
 of state. He was esteemed with justice the 
 most learned bishop in England, and at one time 
 Henry thought there was no ecclesiastic equal to 
 him in Christendom, f Of advanced age and 
 possessed of practical prudence, his judgment 
 balanced by vast and varied experience, he was 
 hardly likely to be at fault in reading the characters 
 of Elizabeth Barton and of her adviser and con- 
 fessor, Dr. Becking. | 
 
 * Ibid., No. 1468. 
 
 f " Quid quod tanta virtus viri, tanta integritas, tanta fama fuit 
 per inimicorum ora eruperit. Nam Henricus ipse octavus (ut 
 reverendissimus Polus Cardinalis scnptum reliquit), eum in 
 Europse totius theologos primas tenere multis audientibus fassus 
 est." B. Mus. Arund. MS., 152, f. 238 b. MS. Life of bishop 
 Fisher. 
 
 \ The venerable bishop Fisher's own opinion as to the care 
 which should be taken in not too readily accepting so-called 
 prophecies may be gathered from the following declaration about 
 Savonarola : " How can he" (Luther), he writes, "be sure that
 
 1 1 6 Henry VI IT. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 When Henry and Crumwell determined to proceed 
 against the nun and her companions, the bishop of 
 Rochester's name was at once noted as one of those 
 who had been connected with them. He had been 
 from the first one of the chief opponents of the 
 divorce of Henry and Catherine, and the esteem in 
 which he was held made him, perhaps, the most 
 dangerous opponent of the royal policy. To Crum- 
 well, whose position depended on the maintenance 
 of the divorce and the completion of the marriage 
 of the king with Anne Boleyn, the chance of striking 
 a blow at Fisher, by connecting him with the business 
 of the nun of Kent, was not to be lost. He sent 
 the bishop a message, with what was, no doubt, a 
 
 all his teaching is from heaven, unless it was clearly revealed to 
 him ? Even if it had been revealed, such revelations are generally 
 deceitful. For what are thought to emanate from God are often 
 found to proceed from the devil. Does not St. Paul say, Satan 
 transfigures himself into an angel of light ? . . . And there was 
 also in our own times a not unlearned man, Jerome, of Florence, 
 who persistently foretold to the Florentines many things that were 
 to happen, on which account he was greatly thought of by rulers 
 and people. But after his death none of the things lie had 
 prophesied came to pass, by which indication it is clear (if we 
 believe Jeremiah) these prophecies were not from God. . . . 
 Jerome himself was, therefore, deceived (as may be seen), although 
 he was a man illustrious in his preaching and life (as far as human 
 judgment can know), not swerving a hair's breadth in his teaching 
 from the orthodox Fathers, except that he despised the excommuni- 
 cation passed against him and taught others also to disregard it. 
 Wherefore, if so great and Catholic a man could be seduced by 
 revelations, what certainty can we have of the revelations of 
 Luther ? " Assertionum Regis Defensio, Cap. i., Opera, ed. 1597. 
 p. 109.
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 1 1 7 
 
 treacherous piece of advice. He urged that his 
 best policy was to plead guilty and throw himself on 
 the royal mercy. Fisher's reply is not known to 
 exist ; but the long rejoinder of Crumwell gives us 
 a clear knowledge of the contents of the lost letter. 
 "Where," writes the minister, "you labour to 
 excuse yourself of your hearing, believing, and con- 
 cealing of the nun's false and feigned revelations and 
 of your manifold sending your chaplain unto her, by 
 a certain intent, which you pretend yourself to have 
 had, to know by 'commonyng' with her, whether 
 her revelations were of God or no, alledging divers 
 scriptures that you were bound to prove them and 
 not to receive them before they were proved ; my 
 lord, whether you have used a due mean to try her 
 and her revelations or no, it appeareth by the proof 
 of your own letters. For where you write that you 
 had conceived a great opinion of the holiness of 
 this woman for many considerations rehearsed in 
 your letters, whereof the first is grounded upon the 
 bruit (general report) and fame of her ; the second 
 upon her entering into religion after her trances and 
 disfiguration ; the third upon rehearsal that her 
 ghostly father, being learned and religious, should 
 testify that she was a maid of great holiness ; the 
 fourth upon the report that divers other virtuous 
 priests, men of good learning and reputation, should 
 so testify of her, with which ghostly father and 
 priests you never spoke as you confess in your 
 letter ; the fifth upon the praises of my late lord of
 
 ii8 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Canterbury, who showed you (as you write) that 
 she had many great visions ; * the sixth upon this 
 saying of the prophet Amos, ' Non favet Dominns 
 Dens verbum nisi revelaverit secretnm suum ad 
 servos suos prophetas.' "\ 
 
 Crumwell, as might be expected, made light of 
 these reasons given by the bishop for " conceiving a 
 great opinion as to the holiness " of Elizabeth 
 Barton. He declared that, in his opinion, the 
 bishop's belief in her was founded on his opposition 
 to the king's divorce and because her revelations 
 agreed with his own view and wishes in the matter. 
 He told him plainly that his excuses for not having 
 told the king that he had knowledge of the nun's 
 revelation were worthless. " If the matter come to 
 trial," he added, " your own confession in these 
 letters, besides the witnesses which are against you, 
 will be sufficient to condemn you. "I He concluded 
 
 * N. Harpsfield, " Pretended Divorce," Camd. Soc., p. 178, says 
 of Warham's part in this : " This Warham was brought up in New 
 Colleges of Winchester and Oxford, a man, besides his great learn- 
 ing, of deep profound wisdom, and was lord chancellor of the 
 realm before the cardinal." He fell under the king's displeasure 
 " for concealing the matter of the nun, Elizabeth Barton . . . 
 and Crumwell, that after the fall of the cardinal grew in high esti- 
 mation and credit with the king, scornfully and spitefully said that 
 if the king would be ruled by him because he was an archbishop he 
 should be hanged on high that he might with his heels bless all the 
 world." 
 
 t Wright, " Suppress, of Monast.," Camd. Soc. p. 27. 
 
 J Amos, "Statutes of H. VilL," p. 52, says : " Fisher deserves 
 the admiration of posterity in withstanding Crumwell's tempting 
 promise of forgiveness on condition of ' writing to the king,
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 1 19 
 
 by again urging the bishop to throw himself on 
 the king's mercy for the " negligence, oversight 
 and offence committed against his highness in this 
 bahalf, and I dare undertake that his highness shall 
 benignly accept you into his gracious favour, all 
 matter of displeasure past before this time forgotten 
 and forgiven."* 
 
 The bid thus made for the support of bishop 
 Fisher to the royal policy at the expense of throwing 
 over the " maid of Kent," even when coupled with 
 the threat of condemnation if he refused to plead 
 guilty, failed in its purpose. His name, therefore, 
 was included in the act of attainder which was pre- 
 sented to parliament in February, 1534. The bishop 
 was ill, and begged to be allowed to remain away 
 from his place in the House of Lords. At the same 
 time, he declared to the king, that he would have 
 told him all he knew as to the nun's revelations 
 concerning himself, had he not learned for certain 
 
 & J 
 
 that he had already been informed of them by the 
 holy maid herself. f 
 
 In another letter, written at this period to the 
 " lords of parliament," Fisher repeats the reasons 
 he had already given in his letter to Crumwell why 
 he had listened to the nun. After appealing to 
 
 recognizing his offence and entreating pardon.' He refused to 
 purchase safety by a lie, and by denouncing himself as breaker of 
 a law that he had never violated ; his feigned penitence might 
 have prejudiced persons involved with him in the same indictment." 
 
 * Wright, ut sup. 
 
 f Calendar, vii., No. 239.
 
 I2O Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 them not to pass any act against him till his cause 
 has been heard, he says : "And for the mean 
 season it may please you to consider that I sought 
 not for this woman's coming unto me, nor thought 
 in her any manner of deceit. She was the person 
 that by many probable and likely conjectures I then 
 reputed to be right honest religious and very good 
 and virtuous. I verily supposed that such feigning 
 and crafty compassing of any guile or fraud had 
 been far from her. And what deceit was this in me 
 to think so when I had so many probable testimonies 
 of her virtue ? First, the report of the country, which 
 generally called her the ' holy maid ; ' secondly, her 
 entry into religion upon certain visions which it was 
 commonly said that she had ; thirdly for the good 
 religion and learning that was thought to be in her 
 ghostly father and in other virtuous and well-learned 
 priests that then testified to her holiness as it was 
 commonly reported ; finally, my lord of Canterbury 
 that then was, both her ordinary and a man reputed 
 of high wisdom and learning, told me she had many 
 great visions, and of him I learned greater things 
 than ever I heard of the nun herself."* The bishop 
 
 * It may be of interest to give here the testimony of the learned 
 Erasmus as to the worth of archbishop Warham, in order to judge 
 how much reason there was, and is, to trust to his opinion of the 
 Holy Maid. " Here I am reminded of a man worthy of the 
 memory of all posterity, William Warham, archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, primate of all England ; not only by that title, but in reality 
 a theologian. He was a doctor of both laws ; he had distinguished 
 himself in some embassies successfully accomplished ; and he had 
 acquired the favour and esteem of Henry the Seventh, a prince of
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 1 2 1 
 
 once more declared that he had every reason to 
 believe the woman " honest, religious, and of good 
 -credence," since she had so many reliable testimonies 
 " for goodness and -virtue."! To most people in 
 these days the opinion which the learned, prudent, 
 .and saintly bishop Fisher had formed of the "holy 
 maid of Kent " must weigh very strongly against 
 the views of her enemies. 
 
 the highest judgment. By these steps he was raised to the eminence 
 of the Church of Canterbury, which ranks foremost in dignity in 
 that island. To this charge, exceeding burdensome in itself, was 
 added another still more so. He was obliged to undertake the 
 office of chancellor, which indeed with the English is truly royal ; 
 and to this officer is the honour paid of having the royal crown, 
 with the sceptre placed upon it, borne before him whenever he 
 goes forth in public. For he is, as it were, the eye, the mouth, 
 and the right hand of the king, and the supreme judge of the 
 whole British dominion. This office he filled with such skill for 
 many years that you would have said he was born for that 
 very business and held no other charge. But at the same time 
 be was so vigilant and attentive in matters relating to religion 
 and his ecclesiastical functions that you would say he was 
 -engaged in no external concerns. He found time sufficient to 
 discharge religiously the solemn duty of prayer, to perform 
 mass almost daily, to be present besides at two or three services, 
 to hear causes, to receive embassies, to advise the king if any- 
 thing of importance had arisen in court, to visit his churches 
 whenever his presence was required, to receive his guests, often 
 amounting to two hundred. For occupations so various he found 
 one life sufficient, no part of which he bestowed on hunting, none 
 on dice, none on empty tales, none on luxury or pleasures. In the 
 place of all these amusements he had either some agreeable read- 
 ing or conversation with a learned man." (Ecclesiastes of Erasmus. 
 Note in '' Pilgrimages to Walsingham and Canterbury," ed. J. 
 Gough Nichols, F.S.A., 1875, p. 177.) 
 t Calendar, vii., No. 240.
 
 122 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 By the middle of 1533 Henry appears to have 
 arranged with Crumwell to take some steps to- 
 prevent any public condemnation of his marriage 
 with Anne, resulting from the denunciations of 
 Elizabeth Barton. Even before the death of arch- 
 bishop Warham, according to Harpsfield,* Crumwell 
 had contemplated the advisability of taking vigorous 
 measures against the nun and those that believed in 
 her. She had declared, more or less openly, that 
 in her trances God had commissioned her to bear 
 testimony to His displeasure at the king's proceed- 
 ings. She was known to have had interviews with 
 Wolsey and Warham, to have spoken to the legates 
 of the pope and to have written to his holiness him- 
 self. It is hardly likely that her influence had much 
 to do with the final attitude of the archbishop or the 
 cardinal towards the divorce. Neither is it probable 
 that it confirmed the bishop of Rochester and the 
 friars Observant in their persistent opposition to it ; 
 nor, still less, that it deterred the pope from giving 
 sentence in Henry's favour. But such things were 
 saidf and, perhaps, believed by Henry's adherents. 
 Even Cranmer, in writing to archdeacon Hawkins 
 an account of the nun, says : " I think she marvel- 
 lously hindered the king's marriage, for she wrote to 
 the pope charging him to stop it. She also had 
 communication with my lord Cardinal and with my 
 lord of Canterbury, my predecessor in the matter, 
 
 * "The Pretended Divorce," Camd. Soc., p. 178. 
 f Calendar, vii., No. 72, (i) and (3).
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 1 23 
 
 and in mine opinion staid them very much in the 
 matter."* 
 
 Whatever may have been her influence, she made 
 no secret of her opinions. The king was well 
 aware of it. In fact, she sought an interview with 
 him, in which she boldly blamed what he had done 
 and warned him that what he was contemplating 
 would bring upon him the displeasure of God. She 
 seems even to have ventured to tell him that to 
 persevere in his policy would be to forfeit his crown. 
 Unfortunately for herself she had not confined her 
 warnings to the royal ear. Her sayings, about God's 
 displeasure at the king's doings, as well as her hints 
 of further possible consequences to Henry, began to 
 be whispered about. And no doubt they were 
 magnified and multiplied on their passage to the ear 
 of the ever watchful Crumwell. 
 
 The position of affairs in England at midsummer, 
 1533, was critical. It became, therefore, vital to the 
 designs of minister and master, and indispensable to 
 Anne Boleyn, who now reigned supreme over the 
 heart of Henry, that any symptom of popular dis- 
 content should be instantly repressed. Anything 
 that might tend to stir up the latent feeling of 
 hostility to their triple alliance must at all costs be 
 prevented. Hence, as regards the " holy maid of 
 Kent," so universally revered and respected, it was 
 necessary in the first place to fix the stigma of 
 hypocrisy and deceit upon her. 
 
 * Calendar, vi., No. 1519.
 
 124 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 This was vital in order to discredit her in the eyes 
 of the people and to anticipate any ill effect that 
 might result from their belief in her supernatural 
 direction. Crumwell from the first, of necessity, 
 affected to regard her with contempt. Under his 
 direction parliament subsequently declared her to be, 
 what, even before any examination, he had suggested, 
 " the hypocrite nun." 
 
 Cranmer, acting on the orders of Crumwell, about 
 the middle of July, 1533, ordered the prioress of St. 
 Sepulchres to bring Elizabeth Barton to him at 
 Otford in order that he might examine her.f At 
 this interview the archbishop was apparently unable 
 to convict the nun of anything more than a firm 
 belief in the reality of her visions and revelations. 
 On August i ith Richard Gwent, the dean of Arches, 
 wrote to Crumwell an account of this examination. 
 " When," he says, " my lord of Canterbury had 
 examined the nun of Canterbury upon your interroga- 
 tories she began to come near home and desired to 
 speak with my lord apart, and then she confessed 
 many mad folies. And most of all was, that at 
 Whitsuntide last she, being in a trance, had partly 
 an answer of the king's highness and of the queen's 
 grace ; but it was no certain answer what end they 
 should have in the matter. But she had this answer, 
 that without fail at the next trance she should have 
 a determinate answer ; and therefore she desired 
 licence of my lord to go to Court of Street, and there 
 
 * Calendar, vi., No. 887. f Calendar, No. 869.
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 125 
 
 this week she shall have a trance and then she shall 
 know perfectly." He adds that the archbishop gave 
 her the permission, " hoping thereby to perceive her 
 foolish dissimulation." But for "your interroga- 
 tories," he concludes, " she would have confessed 
 nothing, for my lord doth yet but dally with her as 
 he did believe her every word / and as soon as he 
 hath all he can get of her, she shall be sent to 
 you."* 
 
 A month later Dr. Bocking " cellarer of Christ- 
 church, Canterbury, and Hadley, one of the peniten- 
 tiaries there," were arrested by the attorney general, 
 Christopher Hales, " as secretly as possible." At 
 the same time a promise was sent by Hales to Crum- 
 well that he should have the parson of Aldington 
 and the official of Canterbury within a few days.f 
 The nun herself had been in the minister's power 
 and subjected to his examinations since her visit to 
 Cranmer. It is worthy of note that from this time 
 all that is known of her recantations and confessions 
 emanate from Crumwell or his agents, who had 
 already determined to make her out to be a " hypo- 
 crite nun." 
 
 As to the connection of the tnonks of Christchurch, 
 Canterbury with the cause of Elizabeth Barton, a good 
 deal is to be learnt from a letter which at this time 
 Thomas Goldwell, the prior, wrote to Crumwell on the 
 matter. "As concerning the knowledge of such 
 
 * Calendar, vi., No. 967. 
 
 t Ibid, No. 1149. Christ. Hales to Crumwell, Sept. 25.
 
 126 Henry VI I L and the English Monasteries. 
 
 things as Elizabeth Barton, nun, has spoken," he 
 writes, " which as she said she had knowledge of in 
 trances and revelations, these be the things that I 
 have heard and have knowledge of. At the beginning 
 thereof, the which was about seven or eight years 
 past, as I think, my lord Warham, then being arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, sent his comptroller, called 
 Thomas Walle, of Canterbury, and caused me to 
 send two of my brethren, which were the cellarer, 
 Dr. Bocking, and Dom William Hadley, bachelor of 
 divinity, to a place called Court of Street, to see this 
 woman and to see what trances she had. They 
 went there at the beginning, as I suppose, somewhat 
 against their minds and also against my mind except 
 the obedience that I do owe unto my lord of Canter- 
 bury ; and (if) he had not been I would not have 
 sent them thither. After this he caused and gave 
 license to the cellarer to be this woman's ghostly 
 father." He then goes on to describe how he had 
 become acquainted himself with the nun through 
 father ' Risby, warden of the friars Observant at 
 Canterbury, who considered her <( a person much in 
 the favour of God and had special knowledge of 
 Him in many things," and that he would <( have 
 much spiritual comfort in her conversation." And 
 he concluded by an account of the various revela- 
 tions that, as he had heard, she had made from time 
 to time.* 
 
 Amongst others who were examined by Crum well's 
 * Wright, " Suppression of Mon.," Camd. Soc.,p. 19.
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 1 2 7 
 
 order to discover anything which could inculpate 
 Elizabeth Barton in treasonable practices, was a 
 certain Christopher Warner, an anchorite " within 
 the black friars, Canterbury." He acknowledged 
 that both Dr. Bocking and the nun had been to see 
 him often " out of charity, because," as he said, " I 
 am a prisoner." Dr. Bocking had always shown 
 himself a singular friend, "' wherefore," he added, " I 
 pray God comfort him." At the same time he declared 
 that he had never seen the nun in an ecstasy, though 
 he had often heard such reports about her. " And," 
 he continued, " by her perfect life and virtue I 
 thought it supernatural." He moreover never heard 
 her speak against the king, and all she had ever said 
 in his hearing about the marriage was, " that if it 
 went forward she thought it would turn to great 
 trouble." The anchorite concluded by expressing a 
 hope which must have raised a smile on the face of 
 Thomas Crumwell as he read the evidence. The 
 wish of the good man was twofold. That " this 
 matter might be indifferently handled, for it is like to 
 be the greatest scandal in the church," and that he 
 might not be troubled again, adding : " it is a great 
 hindrance to my contemplation that I should have 
 in Almighty God."* Crumwell was hardly likely to 
 handle any matter " indifferently " when it did not 
 suit his purpose, and he was certainly not the man to 
 care whether a thing interfered with an anchorite's 
 " contemplation." 
 
 * Calendar, vi., No. 1336.
 
 128 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 It is evident that at this time every endeavour was 
 being made to incriminate the " holy maid of Kent " 
 and her companions, together with many persons of 
 higher rank and social position, in a conspiracy 
 against the state. In- view of Crumwell's letter to 
 Fisher, already noted, and his persistently pressing 
 him to seek pardon of the king for " all matter of 
 displeasure past before this time," it is impossible 
 to resist the belief that the affair of the nun was in- 
 tended either to frighten the staunch adherents 
 of Catherine into submission, or to involve them in 
 common ruin as traitors. The dethroned queen and 
 her daughter Mary resolutely refused to acknowledge 
 by any act of theirs the justice of the king's action 
 in their regard, or the lawfulness of Cranmer's sen- 
 tence of divorce. This firmness was attributed to 
 the support derived from the secret suggestions of 
 Elizabeth Barton and her companions. Crumwell's 
 notes* at this period are full of items concerning the 
 doings, real and imaginary, of the supposed con- 
 spirators. The king likewise complained to the 
 French ambassador that Catherine and her daughter 
 had been seduced from all dutiful obedience to his 
 wishes by the baneful influence of the nun.f How 
 little truth there was in this suggestion may be 
 learnt from a letter of Chapuys written in Novem- 
 ber, 1533. "He" (the king), says the imperial 
 ambassador, " has lately imprisoned a nun who had 
 
 * Ibid., Nos. 1149, 1370, 1381-2. 
 
 I Ibid., No. 1372. Memoranda by the French Ambassador.
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 1 29 
 
 always lived till this time as a good, simple and 
 saintly woman, and had many revelations. The 
 cause of her imprisonment is, that she had a revela- 
 tion that this king in a short time would not only lose 
 his kingdom, but that he should be damned, and she 
 had seen the place prepared for him in hell. Many 
 have been taken up on suspicion of having en- 
 couraged her to such prophecies to stir up the people 
 to rebellion. It seems as if God inspires the queen 
 on all occasions to conduct herself well and avoid 
 all inconveniences and suspicions, for the nun had 
 been very urgent at divers times to speak with her 
 and console her in her great affliction, but the queen 
 would never see her. Yet the council do not desist 
 from making continual inquiry whether the queen 
 has had any communication with her. She has no 
 fear for herself, as she never had any, but she fears 
 for the marquis and marchioness of Exeter and the 
 good bishop of Rochester, who have been very 
 familiar with her."* 
 
 About this time Elizabeth Barton and her com- 
 panions underwent a strict examination in the Star 
 chamber. Almost simultaneously it became noised 
 abroad that she had confessed herself an impostor. 
 On the 1 6th of November John Capon, abbot of Hyde, 
 and at that time bishop-elect of Bangor, wrote to a 
 friend that "our holy nun of Kent" had admitted 
 " treason against God and the king ; " that is, he 
 explained, she is " not only a traitress but a heretic." 
 * Calendar, vi., No. 1419. Novemb. i2th, 1533. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 She and her accomplices are "like to suffer death." 5 
 Lady Rutland, also writing the following day to Sir 
 W. Paston, says she hears that the " holy woman of 
 Kent " has been examined by the council, " which 
 is," she concludes, " one of the most abominablest 
 matters that ever I heard of in my life, as shall be 
 published to all people within three or four days at 
 the furthest."! 
 
 The abbot of Hyde was somewhat premature in 
 his information as to the execution of the nun and 
 the others. Crumwell no doubt calculated on ob- 
 taining a conviction. Unexpected difficulties, how- 
 ever, were raised, which subsequently obliged him 
 to proceed against them by a bill of attainder 
 passed by a subservient parliament. Chapuys, who 
 was apparently present, gives an account of what 
 happened. " The king," he tells his master, " has 
 assembled the principal judges and many prelates 
 and nobles, who have been employed three days, 
 from -morning to night, to consult on the crimes and 
 superstitions of the nun and her adherents ; and at 
 the end of this long consultation, which the world 
 imagines is for a more important matter, the chan- 
 cellor at a public audience, where were people from 
 all the counties of this kingdom, made an oration 
 how that all the people of this kingdom were greatly 
 obliged to God, who by his divine goodness had 
 brought to light the damnable abuses and great 
 wickedness of the said nun and of her accomplices." 
 * Ibid., No. 1433- t Ibid., vi., No. 1438.
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 131 
 
 The ambassador then goes on to describe how the 
 chancellor declared the king's marriage with Anne 
 valid and good, and " the sentence said to have 
 been given by the pope against the king " of no force 
 " because his holiness had been induced to pass it 
 by improper means and especially by the diabolic 
 plot of the said nun, who had written to him a thou- 
 sand persuasions, which she authorized in a spirit of 
 prophecy and divine revelation in case he did not 
 give sentence." 
 
 " Up to this point no one dared to say a word or 
 to make the smallest sign of pleasure or displeasure. 
 But on the chancellor proceeding to say that the 
 nun and the accomplices, in her detestable malice 
 desiring to incite the people to rebellion, had spread 
 abroad and written that she had a divine revelation, 
 that the king would soon be shamefully driven from 
 his kingdom by his own subjects, some of them 
 began to murmur and cry that she merited fire. 
 The said nun, who was present, had so much resolu- 
 tion that she showed not the least fear or astonish- 
 ment, clearly and openly alleging that what the 
 chancellor said was true." . . . 
 
 " Many believe that those who have the said nun 
 in hand will make her accuse many unjustly in order 
 to take vengeance on the queen's party, and get 
 money from them, which is the thing he thinks most 
 of in this world. The said nun has been almost 
 entirely under the keepership of Crumwell or his 
 people, and is continually treated as a grand lady
 
 132 . Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 (grosse dame) which strongly confirms the above 
 named suspicion.''* 
 
 " The chief business still remains, for the king 
 insists a plus non ponvoir that the said accomplices 
 of the nun be declared heretics for having given 
 faith to her, and also be guilty of high treason for 
 not having revealed what concerned the king ; con- 
 sequently their goods should be confiscated. To 
 this the judges during the last three days will not 
 agree, as being without any appearance of reason, 
 even as to the last, since the nun a year ago had told 
 the king of it in person. It is to be feared, however, 
 that they will do what the king desires, as they did 
 when they condemned the Cardinal for having re- 
 ceived his legateship." f 
 
 The discussion here spoken of was adjourned for 
 a few days. Meantime a singular spectacle was 
 witnessed in London in connection with the holy 
 maid of Kent. On Sunday, November 23rd, 1533, 
 she and her companions, Dr. Edward Bocking and 
 John Bering, both benedictine monks of Christ 
 Church, Canterbury, Hugh Rich and Richard Risby, 
 two friars of Observants, with two secular priests, 
 
 * The translation here given of " grosse dame " is not that of the 
 editor of the Calendar. It would seem a more probable meaning than 
 -" stupid lady." Crumwell might hope by good treatment to get her 
 to " accuse many unjustly," while the accusations of a " fool " 
 would hardly serve his purpose. If this was his motive it was de- 
 feated by the constancy of the nun, who made no such accusation. 
 P. de Gayangos translates the phrase by '" high born lady " (Spanish 
 St. Papers iv., No. 1153.) 
 
 f Calendar, vi., No. 1445. Nov. 20.
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 133 
 
 Richard Masters, parson of Aldington and Henry 
 Gold, of Aldermary, London, together with a gentle- 
 man named Edward Thwaits, were placed on a high 
 scaffold at St. Paul's cross to do public penance, 
 The pulpit, over against them, was occupied by Dr. 
 Capon, the bishop-elect of Bangor, who, as Chapuys 
 relates, " for their vituperation repeated all the 
 chancellor had said against them, further affirming 
 that the nun, by her feigned superstition, had pre- 
 vented the cardinal of York from proceeding to give 
 sentence for the divorce." * To the companions of 
 the nun in this public humiliation the preacher 
 attributed " levity and superstition " in believing 
 these revelations, and "disloyalty" for not revealing 
 them. He specially blamed the two Observant friars, 
 " that under the shadow of the said superstition 
 they had suborned and seduced their companions to 
 maintain the false opinion and wicked quarrel of the 
 queen against the king." f 
 
 From this public penance, which was performed 
 in " as great a presence as was seen there (at 
 the cross) this forty winters, "j the nun and her 
 companions were again conducted " unto the Tower 
 of London, and much people (were gathered) through 
 all the streets of London " to witness the sight. 
 Before leaving the platform over against the prea- 
 
 * Calendar, vi., No. 1460. Chapuys to Chas. V. Nov. 24. 
 
 t Calendar, vii., No, 72. 
 
 % Calendar, vii., No. 72. 
 
 " Grey Friars Chronicle." Camd. Soc., p. 37.
 
 1 34 Henry VIII. and the KnglisJi Monasteries. 
 
 cher's pulpit, the nun was required to hand a form of 
 confession to Dr. Capon, who read it to the people. 
 " I, dame Elizabeth Barton," it ran, " do confess 
 that I, most miserable and wretched person, have 
 been the original of all this mischief, and by my 
 falsehood have deceived all these persons here and 
 many more, whereby I have most grievously offended 
 almighty God and my most noble sovereign, the 
 king's grace. Wherefore I humbly, and with heart 
 most sorrowful, desire you to pray to Almighty God 
 for my miserable sins, and ye that may do me good 
 to make supplication to my most sovereign for me 
 for his gracious mercy and pardon."* 
 
 A great deal was subsequently made of this so- 
 called confession of the nun. It requires, however, 
 very little knowledge of these times to see that 
 it proves exceedingly little. On the face of the 
 document it is not her own. It was written for her 
 by those in whose power she had been for the four 
 months previously and its terms are exceedingly 
 vague and general. Chapuys, as we have seen, 
 had already expressed the opinion of many, that 
 those who " had the nun in hand," who were " almost 
 entirely Crumwell and his people/' would make her 
 do something of this sort. Moreover, the demeanour 
 
 * Calendar, Vol. vii., No. 72 (n). It is generally stated that all 
 those who did penance handed similar confessions to the preacher, 
 but there does not appear to be any sign of this. In fact, the form 
 of confession used by the nun would tend to show that hers was the 
 only one. It certainly is the only one mentioned in the state papers 
 of this time.
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 135 
 
 which the ambassador describes as maintained by 
 the nun in public, when some of the audience, taking 
 the chancellor's cue, cried out that she merited fire, 
 is hardly to be reconciled with a voluntary confession 
 two days subsequently. Under the most trying 
 circumstances she declared at the trial, that the 
 chancellor's account of her revelation "was true." 
 The acknowledgment of falsehood, therefore, at the 
 Cross is, to say the least, suspicious. It was most 
 important for Crumwell's ends and the king's service, 
 that the popular mind should be disabused of any 
 belief in the reality of the nun's revelation. Of the 
 general agreement previously as to her sanctity there 
 can be no doubt. The ambassador of Charles V. 
 records the rumour that the spectacle enacted at 
 Paul's cross was to be repeated twice again at that 
 place, and then in other parts of England ; and this 
 " in order to efface the general impression of the 
 nun's sanctity, because this people is peculiarly 
 credulous, and is easily moved to insurrections by 
 prophecies, and in its present disposition is glad to 
 hear any to the king's disadvantage."' 
 
 Some acknowledgment, therefore, that Elizabeth 
 Barton had been for years wilfully deceitful was a 
 matter of vital necessity, and, with Crumwell to man- 
 age the affair, that confession would not be difficult 
 to procure. In fact, the draft of a letter exists, with 
 corrections in Crumwell's own hand, by which the 
 Marchioness of Exeter is made to ask pardon of 
 * Calendar, Vol. vi., No, 1460. Nov. 24.
 
 136 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Henry VIII. for putting such belief " in the most 
 unworthy and deceivable woman called the holy 
 maid of Kent."* What he did in this case, he may, 
 with better reason, have used every effort to do in 
 regard to the nun herself. According to the act of 
 attainder, indeed, the poor woman is said to have 
 confessed her duplicity and falsehood before " divers 
 of the king's counsel." Such evidence, however, 
 may reasonably be suspected, more especially 
 when it was noised abroad that the confession 
 attributed to her was a calumny,f and extreme 
 measures were taken to prevent the spread of 
 such an unwelcome report. One preacher at St. 
 Paul's cross, in particular, declared as much and 
 for his boldness found himself lodged in prison. In 
 his appeal to be let out, he stated that he was 
 treated even worse than other prisoners, being en- 
 closed in a cell of the narrowest limits and most 
 filthy description and absolutely prevented from 
 holding communication with his friends or even with 
 his fellow captives. This John Rudd, who accord- 
 ing to his own account had been a well-read pro- 
 fessor of the classics, assures the bishop-elect of 
 Chester, by whose good offices he hopes to obtain 
 his deliverance, that the only fault of which he is 
 accused is of having spoken about the confessions 
 
 * Calendar, vi., No. 1464. 
 
 \ Burnet, ed. Pocock, i., p. 251, says: "It is very probable 
 that the reports that went abroad of her being forced or cheated into 
 a confession, made the king think it necessary to proceed more 
 severely against her."
 
 The Holy Ma id of Ken t. 137 
 
 attributed to the nun of Kent and her companions. 
 He had, indeed, said "their wickedness deserved 
 even greater punishment ; nevertheless, that what 
 was imputed to them on published confessions was 
 altogether a calumny ; and, he was assured by per- 
 sons worthy of credit, that they were not convicted 
 of that matter before the king's council ; further, 
 that this was evident, because no mention was made 
 -of it in the abbot's sermon in which their misdeeds 
 were denounced."* 
 
 This confession, however, is of considerable im- 
 portance as evidence in favour of the religious and 
 priests, who a few months later were attainted and 
 suffered death with the Holy maid of Kent. The act 
 of attainder suggests that the secular priest, Richard 
 Masters the parson of Aldington was the first to 
 persuade Elizabeth Barton to pretend to ecstatic 
 favours from God and the gift of prophecy. Also 
 that, with the help of the Christchurch monk Dr. 
 Bocking, he had arranged with the woman to simu- 
 late the miraculous cure at Court of Street. Even 
 an unusually fair and able historian like Canon Dixon 
 evidently considers that the whole matter was an 
 arranged deception on the part of those connected 
 with it. In fact he states, that "the poor girl was per- 
 suaded to continue by simulation the contortions and 
 ejaculations, which owed their origin to infirmity ; she 
 became a professed nun, and the complete tool of a 
 gang of designing monks and friars. "f But if we ex- 
 * Calendar, vii., No. 303. f " Hist, of Ch. of Eng.," i., p. 200.
 
 138 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 cept the declaration of the attainder, which is really 
 only evidence of what Crumwell would willingly have 
 wished people to believe, and the so-called speech 
 the chronicler Hall puts into her mouth at Tyburn, 
 but which, without corroborative testimony, cannot 
 be unreservedly received, there is nothing to show 
 that any of the priests or religious did more than 
 put trust in what they considered undoubted signs 
 of holiness. In fact, if the confession made at SL 
 Paul's cross is worth anything at all, it is a proof 
 that at that time, so far from making accusations 
 against others, Elizabeth Barton declared that she 
 herself was the " original of all this mischief." The 
 same is evident also in every reference to a so-called 
 acknowledgment of guilt to be found in the state 
 papers of the period. 
 
 It would be unnecessary, even were it possible, 
 to examine into the revelations or prophecies of 
 Elizabeth Barton, except in so far as they had any 
 bearing upon the treason for which she and her 
 companions were condemned. As to the rest, no 
 doubt many of the tales told about her visions 
 were grossly, although perhaps unintentionally, exag- 
 gerated. Others were probably without any founda- 
 tion whatever. Sir Thomas More, at the time, took 
 this view. Writing to Crumwell as to the relations he 
 had maintained with the nun, about which it will be 
 necessary to speak later, he confesses that he thought 
 several of the stories improbable. As an example, 
 he takes the anecdote about the Sacred Host said to 
 have been brought to her from Calais, when the king
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 130 
 
 was hearing mass there. Of this he says, that he 
 " does not remember whether he heard it at the time 
 or since she was in hold ; but he thought it too 
 marvellous to be true, and very likely that she had 
 told some man her dream, who told it out for a reve- 
 lation. " He does not believe many of the stories 
 that are told of her and her visions, but, as he has 
 never heard them from her own lips, many of them 
 may be mere fabrications, " and she a very virtuous 
 woman, too, as some lies are peradventure written of 
 some that be saints in heaven, and yet many miracles 
 done by them for all that."' 
 
 The purport of the revelation, which concerned the 
 king and which was afterwards declared by the 
 parliament to be treason, may be learnt from bishop 
 Fisher's declaration as to what the nun had herself 
 told him. There were, it is true, certain variations as 
 to the precise nature of the declaration, but we may 
 take the testimony of the venerable bishop Fisher as 
 most likely to be exact. In his letter, addressed to 
 the Lords of Parliament, he states that what the 
 nun told him about the king was this : " She said 
 she had a revelation from God that, if the king went 
 forth with the purpose that lie intended, he should 
 not be king of England seven months after, and she 
 told me she had told the king." f This statement he 
 also made in his communication with Henry himself.j 
 
 * Calendar, vii., No. 287. f Ibid., No. 240. 
 
 % Calendar, No. 239. It is unnecessary to defend this saying of 
 the nun, but it may be well here to note as a coincidence that de 
 jure the prediction was verified. In April, 1533, Anne Boleyn was
 
 140 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 As to the use of force, or incitement to rebellion 
 against the king, there never was any suggestion of 
 such aids to Providence on the part of the nun or 
 those who believed in her. Again, on this point the 
 declaration of the bishop of Rochester is precise. 
 " I conceived not by these words," he writes to 
 Henry, " I take it upon my soul, that any malice or 
 evil was intended or meant unto your highness by any 
 mortal man, but only that they were the threats of 
 God as she did then affirm." * This he repeats in 
 his declaration to parliament ; " and, as I will answer 
 before the throne of Christ, I knew not of anv malice 
 
 J 
 
 or evil that was intended by her or by any other 
 earthly creature unto the king's highness, neither her 
 words did so sound that by any temporal or worldly 
 power such things were intended, but only by the 
 power of God of whom, as she then said, she had 
 this revelation to show the king." f 
 
 The venerable Bishop was included in the act of 
 
 declared Queen ; in May Cranmer pronounced a sentence of 
 divorce. In July the pope annulled this sentence and excom- 
 municated Henry and Anne if they did not separate before Sep- 
 tember, subsequently extended to October. Henry disregarded 
 the sentence, <uid was ip so facto excommunicated in October, just 
 seven months after Anne Boleyn was declared queen. And by the 
 laws of Christendom, which were then in force in England, and 
 by which the father of Henry VIII. had been confirmed on the 
 throne by the pope, every excommunicated person forfeited all civil 
 rights (Hergenrother, Vol. i., p. 307. Vol. ii., p. 387). Cf. Dub. 
 Review, April, 1877. 
 
 * Calendar, vii., No. 239. 
 
 f Calendar, vii., No. 240, ut sup.
 
 Tli e Holy Ma id of Ken t. 141 
 
 attainder with others, for having concealed the nun's 
 prophecy from the king. According to Crumwell's 
 plan, arranged before the meeting of parliament, 
 they were for this to be " attainted of misprision, 
 suffer imprisonment at the king's will, and lose all 
 their goods."* It is well therefore to state clearly 
 that it was known, the nun herself had declared the 
 matter to the king. Fisher told Henry in his letter 
 that " if she had told me this revelation, and had 
 not also told me that she had reported the same 
 unto your grace, I f had been very far to blame, and 
 worthy extreme punishment for not disclosing the 
 same unto your highness or else to some of your 
 counsell." To the lords also he declared that the 
 prioress of her convent and the servants had assured 
 him that the nun had been with the king. 
 
 Every endeavour was made to include Sir Thomas 
 More in the list of those to be dealt with in regard 
 to this matter. It has been more than once stated 
 that the absence of his name from the act was 
 due to the exertions of the chancellor Audley and 
 Thomas Crumwell in his behalf. There seems little 
 likelihood that this was the case. Crumwell had 
 no reason to spare More, Unless he could bring 
 him over to the king's side. To involve him, there- 
 fore, in the dangers of complicity in treason might 
 
 * Ibid., No. 70. 
 
 t Mr. Gairdner (Vol. vii., No. 239) makes the bishop say that 
 she would have been worthy of extreme punishment. The bishop's 
 words are as given above.
 
 142 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 have the effect of causing the ex-chancellor to try 
 and save his life or his goods at the expense of his 
 conscience. There would appear to be little doubt 
 that, with this view, the minister had striven to 
 include Fisher's revered name amongst those at- 
 tainted, or to drive him by pleading guilty to accept 
 the royal pardon on any terms.* There is a 
 curious revelation of Crum well's desire to fix the 
 charge upon More, in the depositions against Eliza- 
 beth Barton. Amongst the papers, stating by whom 
 and to whom the nun's revelations had been shown, 
 there is the following: "He" (Father Risby) "con- 
 fesseth that he hath showed other revelations to Sir 
 Thomas More, but none concerning the king for that 
 he would not hear them." This statement is run 
 through with a pen, and in its place is the entry, 
 "Sir Thomas More." This has every appearance 
 of being in Crum well's own hand f and is added to 
 the list of those, who had knowledge of the nun's 
 saying about the king. 
 
 If the project failed, it was because More had 
 clearly from the first refused even to listen to 
 anything the nun had said about the king ; in fact, 
 he had warned her of the danger of speaking about 
 any such revelations. Eight or nine years before, 
 the king had asked More's opinion about the nun 
 and had given him a parchment roll of her visions, 
 
 * More's name was included in the bill until after it had been 
 read the third time. Vide " Lords' Journals," p. 72. 
 f Calendar, vi., No. 1468 (2).
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 143 
 
 which Warham had lent him, and Sir Thomas had 
 told him that he did not think much of them, " but 
 did not like to be bold in judging the matter." 
 Many years afterwards, he had met her at the 
 convent of Sion and after an interview of some 
 length, which took place in a chapel, he formed a 
 good opinion of her virtue. It is true, that after he 
 had seen the open penance at St. Paul's cross, he 
 looked upon the whole matter as " a detestable 
 hypocrisy." He, however, founded this opinion on 
 the " confession " of falsehood and duplicity, which 
 Elizabeth Barton was said to have made. Perhaps, 
 had he known Thomas Crumwell, as history has re- 
 vealed him to us of a subsequent age, he would have 
 suspected the result of his " practising " with the 
 nun. More's letter to the minister concludes with 
 saying : " Verily this woman so handled herself, 
 with the help of the evil spirit that inspired her, 
 that after her confession at St. Paul's cross, when 
 I sent word by my servant to the proctor at the 
 Charterhouse that she was undoubtedly proved a 
 false, deceiving hypocrite, the good man had had so 
 good opinion of her so long that he could at the first 
 scarcely believe me therein. ' Howbeit it was not he 
 alone that thought her so very good, but many 
 another right good man besides, as little marvel was 
 upon so good report."' 
 
 * Calendar, vii., No. 287. The value to be attached to Fisher's 
 and More's belief in the nun is thus stated by Richard Morison in 
 1537: "Thomas Morus, et Joannes Roffensis, quoniam saepius 
 .illam adierunt, omnique honore dignabantur, paucissimi erant qui
 
 144 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 The day following the public penance of the nun 
 and her companions Chapuys again refers to the 
 difficulty experienced by the king and Crumwell to 
 obtain a conviction for treason. " The king," he 
 tells his master, " has not yet prevailed on the 
 judges to make the oration against those who have 
 practised against him with the said nun in the form 
 that I last wrote. He is going to have the affair 
 discussed with them on Friday (November 28th, 
 1533), and although some of the principal judges 
 would sooner die than make the said declaration, yet 
 when the king comes to dispute, there is no one who 
 will dare to contradict him unless he wishes to be 
 reputed stupid or disloyal. So that it seems as if 
 he had made a total divorce, not only from his wife, 
 but from good conscience, humanity and gentleness,, 
 which he used to have."* 
 
 The trial, however, ended without a sentence. In 
 the face of the opposition manifested by the judges 
 to the course proposed by Crumwell, it may have 
 been deemed more prudent to proceed by the surer 
 method of attainder by act of parliament. It seems 
 
 poterant, in anraium irxducere, non ope numinis geri quaecumque 
 illic genebantur. Roffensis enim sanctior putabatur, quam ut a 
 sanctimonia hypocris in a virtutibus vitia discernere non posset. 
 Morus ingeniosior habitus est quam ut monacha illi os oblinere 
 posset." " Apomaxis calumniaruin," f. 74. The same author 
 also says that Silvester Darius, an envoy of Pope Clement VII., 
 was so struck with the sanctity of the nun that he fell on the ground 
 " and reverently kissed," her feet, f. 74d. 
 * Ibid., vi., No. 1460, Nov. 24.
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 145 
 
 at one time, early in January, 1534, to have been 
 contemplated to try the issue of a new trial. Crum- 
 well notes, " to cause indictments to be drawn for 
 the offenders in treason and misprision concerning 
 the nun of Canterbury."* Shortly afterwards he 
 abandoned this plan, however, and notes that he 
 has to " know what the king will have done" in the 
 matter. Finally, it was determined to present a 
 bill of attainder to parliament, and for Crumwell 
 this was already tantamount to a condemnation to 
 death. Hence he notes that " Elizabeth Barton, 
 nun, Edward Bocking, John Bering, Richard 
 Masters, Henry Gold, Hugh Rich, and Richard 
 Risby, these by act shall be attainted of high 
 treason and suffer death." \ 
 
 There are many indications that, although the 
 existence of the bill and the general tenour of its 
 provisions were known, the names of those implicated 
 and against whom proceedings were to be taken 
 were purposely concealed. "The consequence was," 
 says an historian of this period, "that everybody who 
 ever encouraged the nun was in no little anxiety, and, 
 fearing that his name might be on the terrible list, 
 was anxious to please the king. In this way the 
 government bridled the opposition, and, as nearly as 
 they could, ensured the passing of the bills of suc- 
 cession." j By this concealment also money was 
 wrung from those, who had been associated with the 
 
 * Calendar, vii., No. 48. t Ibid., No. 70. 
 
 J P. Friedmann, " Anne Boleyn," Vol. i., p. 273. 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 nun in any way. For this both master and minister 
 were always ready. Richard Masters the parish 
 priest of Aldington, who was subsequently executed, 
 sends Crumwell two gold crowns for having expedited 
 his pardon. ~* 
 
 The Canterbury monks also professed themselves 
 very ready to serve the king in any way, if he would 
 only pass over their connection with the " Maid of 
 Kent." They even were willing, as Cranmer, then on 
 his visitation there, writes, to offer some substantial 
 sum of money. " Only a few," he says, " consented 
 to these revelations, almost all being Dr. Docking's 
 novices." The prior, a man of no malice, " has been 
 touched by this matter. They desire my mediation 
 and I think they will offer ^"200 or ^300 for their 
 pardon. The monastery," he adds, " is not ' afore- 
 hand ' but in debt, except the church ornaments and 
 plate." f Edward Thwaites, whose guilt consisted 
 in his belief in the nun and in having printed a 
 small volume with an account of her early life, 
 purchased " his pardon for 1,000 marks," \ and sub- 
 sequently bishop Fisher had to pay ^300 for his 
 share in thje matter. 
 
 On Saturday, February 2ist, 1534, the bill of 
 attainder " concerning the condign punishment of 
 Elizabeth Barton, the hypocrite nun, commonly called 
 the holy maid of Kent," was brought into the Lords 
 
 * Calendar, vi., No. 1666. f /&'</., No. 1519. 
 
 | " Which (^"300) was one whole year's revenue of his bishop- 
 rick." B. Mus. Arund. MS., 152, f. 49.
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 147 
 
 and read the first time.* At this sitting and through- 
 out the proceedings during the passage of the bill 
 the lay lords far outnumbered the lords spiritual. 
 The various steps were taken between the date of its 
 introduction and the I2th of March, when it was read 
 for the fourth time and accepted by the house. The 
 accused had apparently been condemned unheard, 
 since on March 6th, at the third reading of the at- 
 tainder, the lords " thought proper to inquire whether 
 it would accord with the king's wishes (cum Regio 
 aiiimo quadrare potest) that Sir Thomas More and 
 the others named in the said bill (except the bishop 
 of Rochester, now very ill, whose answer is known 
 through his letters) should be summoned before the 
 lords to the Star chamber in order to say what they 
 can for themselves." 
 
 It has been said that the parties attainted "were 
 not able to disprove a single article of the act." For 
 such a statement there is no warrant. It is by no 
 means easy to say what they could have done had 
 they been allowed. '*' They were all attainted of 
 high treason, and condemned without any answer 
 making for themselves," as an old writer asserts. f 
 And in this statement, history bears him out. It 
 is also frequently stated that the offences of the nun 
 and her associates were unquestionably treasons, 
 and that " they received a fate most necessary 
 and most deserved." The specific purposes, 
 
 * " Lords' Journals," p. 68. 
 
 j B. Mus. Arund. MS., 152., f. 49.
 
 148 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 pronounced by the statute of Edward I. to be 
 traitorous were war or the king's death. There 
 is not a shadow of evidence to connect Elizabeth 
 Barton with any overt act against the king, and 
 the time had not come when treason could be con- 
 strued from words or beliefs. " Her denuncia- 
 tions," writes Amos, " would appear to have had 
 reference to a special providence, such as Henry had 
 put in the heads of his subjects, when he represented 
 that the loss of his children by queen Catherine 
 plainly showed that heaven was opposed to his 
 marriage with her. The nun's revelations had chiefly 
 regard to the king's future and contingent conduct, 
 warning him of what he might incur or avoid 
 and they had been refuted by events that had 
 occurred. . . . 
 
 " Lord Coke lays it down in two of his works 
 that .the offences of the nun of Kent and her con- 
 federates were not treason. In his third Institute, 
 in his memorable commentary on the words in the 
 statute of treasons per overt fait he has this note : 
 ' See 25 H)enry VIII., c. 12. Elizabeth Barton and 
 others attainted by parliament for divers words and 
 conspiracies, which being not within this act without 
 an overt act they could not be attainted by common 
 law.' And in his fourth Institute he writes : ' And 
 where, by order of law, a man cannot be attainted of 
 high treason unless the offence be, in law, high 
 treason, he ought not to be attainted by general 
 words of high treason by authority of parliament (as
 
 The Holy Maid of Kent. 149 
 
 sometime hath been used) ; but the high treason 
 ought to be specifically expressed, seeing that the 
 court of parliament is the highest and most honour- 
 able court of justice, and ought to give example to 
 inferior courts.' Lord Coke's marginal note to 
 which passage is: '25 Henry VIII., c. 12, Eliz. 
 Barton and others.' " * 
 
 The nun and her companions were condemned, 
 therefore, by a tribunal which had not heard them 
 in their defence. In the very bill reference is made 
 for the truth of the facts to examinations not before 
 the parliament, but before the king's council. The 
 books and writings had been " seen and examined 
 by the king's most honourable council," and the 
 matters " confessed plainly before the king's most 
 honourable council," as the bill of attainder declared. 
 The tribunal that decided the case was not that 
 which had examined and the attainted persons, 
 though at hand, were not heard for themselves. 
 
 " It remains to be noticed," writes Amos, " that 
 the nun and her accomplices were doubly punished, 
 for, previous to their attainders, they had been 
 exposed on a platform at Paul's cross, by the side 
 of the pulpit ; and when the sermon was over they 
 were compelled, one by one, to deliver their ' bills ' 
 expressive of penitence for having offended God and 
 the king to the preacher, who read them aloud to 
 the surrounding crowd ; further punishment, it is 
 conceived, in the case of the nun herself, if not also 
 * Amos, " Statutes H. VIII.," p. 44.
 
 150 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 of her accomplices, was neither necessary nor 
 deserved ; and it may be thought that they were all 
 put to death, even upon the showing of the indict- 
 ment, by retrospective law." 
 
 On May 5th, 1534, Elizabeth Barton and her 
 companions were executed under this unjust act of 
 attainder at Tyburn. Father Thomas Bourchier, an 
 English Franciscan Observant, declares that the 
 lives of his two brethren, Fathers Risby and Rich, 
 were twice offered to them if they would accept 
 Henry as supreme head of the English Church. | 
 What was done to the Franciscans would in all 
 probability have been done in the case of those who 
 suffered with them, Dr. Bocking and father Bering, 
 the two monks of the Benedictine monastery of 
 Christ Church, Canterbury, and the two secular 
 priests, Richard Masters and Henry Gold. It is 
 needless to say that the offer was rejected. The 
 character of their deaths may be estimated accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 * " StatutesjH. VIII.," p. 45. 
 
 f " Hist. Ecc. de Martyrio FF. Ord. Min.," 1583. Bourchier is 
 an authority. He took the Franciscan habit at Greenwich about 
 1557 upon the restoration of the order by queen Mary. He would 
 thus have known some of the old Franciscan brethren of Fathers 
 Rich and Risby.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE FRIARS OBSERVANT. 
 
 THE session of Parliament, which commenced in 
 January, 1534, was chiefly occupied in framing 
 measures against the exercise of papal authority in 
 England. The Imperial ambassador, Chapuys, always 
 well informed as to the acts and intentions of Henry, 
 writing the following month to Charles V. says that 
 the commons had taken away all authority from the 
 Holy See, and given to the crown power to nominate 
 to vacant bishoprics. He adds that " the king is 
 very covetous of the goods of the church, which he 
 already considers as his patrimony."* Before Easter 
 he again writes that the lords, " to the great regret 
 of good men, who were in a minority," had been 
 obliged, " owing to the threats and practices of the 
 king," to ratify these enactments of the lower 
 house. f 
 
 * Calendar, vii., No. 171. Feb. n, 1534. 
 
 t Ibid., No. 373. In speaking of the Parliament of 1536 it will 
 be necessary to show what these " threats and practices" were. We 
 may here note that Bishop Tunstal, of Durham was prevented 
 attending parliament by positive orders from Crumwell and the 
 Kins;.
 
 152 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Amongst other provisions, made in this parliament 
 for cutting off England from the ancient jurisdiction 
 of Rome, was the transfer of papal authority 
 over the religious houses to the crown. The power 
 of archbishops and bishops to visit and control 
 the monasteries and convents, situated within the 
 limits of their individual dioceses, had long been a 
 subject of debate. Its exercise had often given rise 
 to difficulties and dissensions, which were settled 
 only by recourse to the supreme authority of the 
 Holy See. At all times, however, except in the case 
 of the comparatively few exempt monasteries and of 
 the various orders of friars and others associated in 
 congregations extending beyond the limits of the 
 country and directed by foreign superiors, the epis- 
 copal power of visitation was exercised at regular 
 periods. The bishop or his officers also directed 
 the canonical elections. 
 
 Henry had now, in defiance of the laws of the 
 Church, taken Anne Boleyn publicly as his queen. 
 This step hecessitated a policy of revolt against 
 papal jurisdiction. It might have been supposed, 
 that the authority over exempt monasteries would 
 now have passed to the bishops of the country. On 
 the contrary, it was specially enacted that neither 
 archbishop nor bishop, " nor any other person or 
 persons," should have power to "visit or vex" the 
 religious houses, but that the management of all 
 things concerning them should be left to the king
 
 The Friars Observant. 153 
 
 and such as he should appoint. At this time the 
 .greatest uncertainty existed as to the extent of 
 the royal prerogatives in matters ecclesiastical and 
 spiritual.* Ecclesiastics were warned to attempt 
 nothing except at their peril. This perplexity pre- 
 vented freedom of discussion and enforced passive 
 obedience to the royal will. The exemption of the 
 religious bodies from episcopal control, however, 
 while it appeared to shield them from unnecessary 
 interference, in reality veiled a deep design 
 against their liberties and existence. The re- 
 moval of all matters concerning the regular orders 
 from the bishops to the king in his court of 
 chancery was the first step towards their ultimate 
 destruction. 
 
 At the same time the pulpit was strictly guarded 
 and the Easter sermons of 1534, were directed as far 
 as could be against the pope and his authority.! 
 The definite sentence of the Holy See against the 
 divorce finally forced the king, although as it ap- 
 pears most reluctantly, to widen the breach between 
 England and Rome. He had to make his choice 
 between dutiful submission and active retaliation. 
 The Imperial ambassador, in the April of this year, 
 writes that after the news of the sentence, the king 
 
 * The bishops in their uncertainty took out royal licenses for the 
 execution of their episcopal functions. Wake, " State of Church," 
 
 P- 557- 
 
 t Calendar, vii., No. 464.
 
 154 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 " commanded the preachers for Easter to say the 
 worst they possibly could against the pope, in which 
 they have acquitted themselves desperately, saying 
 the most outrageous and abominable things in the 
 world. He also ordered that the statutes made in 
 parliament, which he had suspended and reserved in 
 pectore till St. John's day, should be immediately 
 published."* 
 
 Somewhat later Cranmer, acting no doubt 
 under Crumwell's orders to keep a check on pulpit 
 utterances, had recourse to the novel expedient of 
 revoking all preaching licenses throughout his 
 diocese. He further directed all the bishops of his 
 province to do the same, and this restriction was- 
 maintained in force for a year. Cranmer, in the 
 opinion of Chapuys, had now been established by 
 Henry as an English antipope. He " had begun 
 to exercise his antipapality, making bulls for three 
 bishoprics and consecrating" by virtue of his own 
 authority, f Still, at this moment, on account of the 
 share he had taken in the divorce, the archbishop 
 was the most unpopular man in the country. When 
 he held a visitation at Canterbury in the autumn, his 
 very life was supposed to be in danger and he had to 
 seek protection from the government during his stay 
 in his own cathedral city. J As an example, no 
 doubt, " Dan William Winchelsea," a monk of St, 
 
 * Calendar, vii., No. 469. April 12. 
 ^ Ibid., No. 530. 
 
 JDixon, " Hist, of Ch. of Eng.," i., p. 171. Hook's <; Lives," v. r 
 P 478.
 
 The Friars Observant. 155 
 
 Augustine's abbey there, was committed to prison. 
 He had turned the archbishop to ridicule among his 
 brethren in a place called " the sporte or Little Joy, 
 between the peals of evensong." His special offence 
 was that he had laughed at Cranmer and his " new 
 learning," calling him " a fool archbishop." * 
 
 To carry out his designs, it became necessary for 
 Henry to deal sternly and at once with the religious 
 orders. They and the friars were not so easily 
 controlled as the general body of English ec- 
 clesiastics. From the ranks of the friars in par- 
 ticular came most of the popular preachers of the 
 day and their utterances were more difficult to check 
 than those of the clergy, whose oratory had been 
 restrained by the directions of the archbishop. 
 Moreover, as they were possessed of no personal and 
 very little corporate property the fear and threat of 
 confiscation had not the same terrors for them as for 
 the beneficed clergy, f Other restraining influences, 
 therefore, had to be brought to bear upon them. 
 
 Of the whole body of the clergy, however, none with- 
 stood the policy of Henry with greater fearlessness 
 and pertinacity of purpose than the Franciscan 
 Observants. \ Two of these friars were implicated 
 
 * Calendar, vii., No. 1 608. 
 
 f Ibid., Preface, xxviii. 
 
 J Sanders, " Schism," Lewis' trans, p. 112. The Observant friars 
 were a reformed branch of the great Franciscan order. They were 
 instituted about 1400 by St. Bernadine of Sienna, and confirmed 
 by the Council of Constance in 1414, and afterwards by Eugenius 
 IV. and other popes. King Edward IV. is said to have brought
 
 156 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 with the " Holy maid of Kent." As partakers of her 
 unjust sentence they were executed at Tyburn a 
 fortnight after Easter, 1534. Death, however, had 
 seemingly no terrors for men, who had fled from the 
 pleasures of life as they had. " Secluded from the 
 commerce and pleasures of the world," writes the 
 historian Lingard, " they felt fewer temptations to 
 sacrifice their conscience to the commands of their 
 sovereign, and seemed more eager to court the 
 crown than to flee from the pains of martyrdom."' 
 
 There were six monasteries of these Franciscan 
 Observants in England. Of these, none bore a higher 
 character for discipline and regularity than that of 
 Greenwich. In 1513 Henry VIII. himself had 
 written more than once to the pope, Leo. X., in 
 their favour. He declares that towards them he has 
 the most deep, devoted affection. So much does he 
 admire their holiness of life that he finds it quite 
 impossible to describe their merits as they deserve. 
 They present an ideal of Christian poverty, sincerity 
 and charity ; their lives are devoted to fasting, 
 watching, prayer; and they are occupied in "hard 
 toil by night and day " to win sinners back to God.f 
 The convent had been placed by Henry VII. at 
 
 them to England. Tanner, however, says, "I find no account of 
 their being here till king Henry VII. built two or three houses for 
 them." Vide " Monasticon," vi., p. 1504. 
 
 * Lingard, " Hist.," vi.. p. 285. 
 
 t Ellis, "Orig. Letters," Third Ser. i., p. 165. Henry VIII. 
 to LeoX., March 12, 1513. From B. Mus. Vatic. Transcripts, Vol. 
 xxxvii., f. 17.
 
 The Friars Observant. 
 
 Greenwich, near to the court, and queen Catherine 
 had chosen one of the brethren, the fearless and 
 saintly friar Forest, as her confessor.* 
 
 From the first, as a body, they had taken the 
 part of the unfortunate and injured queen and main- 
 tained the injustice and illegality of the pretended 
 divorce. In this, indeed, they had been in reality 
 only the exponents of the popular judgment on the 
 question. When, for instance, Dr. George Browne, f 
 the prior of the Augustinian friars in London, in a 
 sermon at Easter, 1533, proclaimed Anne Boleyn 
 queen and called on all to pray for her, his audience 
 rose in a body and left the church. So high did the 
 feeling run, that the lord mayor was commanded, as 
 Chapuys tells his master, to see that no such a 
 demonstration of the popular view was again at- 
 tempted. The city companies were consequently 
 peremptorily ordered to maintain silence altogether 
 on the question and to restrain their apprentices 
 from murmuring against the elevation of the king's 
 mistress to his throne. \ 
 
 The friars Observant of Greenwich were not so 
 easily silenced. " They, indeed," writes Sanders, 
 
 * Queen Catherine, when the court was at Greenwich, is said to 
 have risen always at midnight to be present at the friars' matins. 
 " Collect Anglo-Min.," p. 216. 
 
 f Dr. George Browne, an Augustinian friar, was supposed to 
 have united Henry and Anne in the private marriage, which took 
 place probably Jan. 25, 1533. Cf. Gairdner, Preface, Vol. vi., p. 
 xxi. 
 
 J Calendar, vi., No. 391.
 
 1 58 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 " both in public disputations and in their sermons, 
 most earnestly maintained that the marriage of 
 Catherine was good and lawful." Yet even here, 
 among so many good, there were not wanting some 
 to go with the stream. Here, as in so many re- 
 ligious houses at this period, Crumwell found a spy 
 to report to him the dispositions and intentions of 
 the cloistered religious. In this case a lay brother, 
 Richard Lyst, afterwards rewarded for his services by 
 a place at Cambridge,* was CrumwelPs agent, and 
 he kept him informed as to the feelings and doings 
 of his brethren. Early in February, 1533, he writes 
 to his employer that he considers the discipline of 
 his monastery altogether too severe. The religious 
 are corrected and " punished for nothing " and 
 many of their fathers show themselves much against 
 the king. Of these the chief and leading spirits are 
 Fathers Peto, Elstow, and Forest. Above the rest 
 he thinks Jiriar Forest most to be blamed in the 
 matter, because the king had always shown him 
 special kindness. Only the day before (Monday, 
 February 3rd) Henry had conversed with him in 
 private for more than half an hour, and had " sent 
 him some beef from his own table."f 
 
 A fortnight later, the same discontented lay brother 
 tells Crumwell that Forest had returned from another 
 interview with the king. In it, he says, Henry had 
 taken him to task for the opposition of the Green- 
 wich friars to the policy pursued in regard to the 
 * Calendar, vi., No. 1264. t Ibid., vi., No. 116.
 
 The Friars Observant. 159 
 
 divorce, and which Lyst had reported to his majesty. 
 Forest had told his brethren in chapter how angry 
 the king was with all of them, and in particular with 
 himself. " He said," continues Crumwell's corres- 
 pondent, " that he will try and get the king to make 
 you give up all the letters against him that I or 
 others have written." He concludes by asking 
 Crumwell to destroy all such letters from him, as he 
 intends himself to write a long " pystyll " to the 
 friar containing all his faults. " Since you rebuked 
 him," he adds, " about his indiscreet words as to 
 yourself I told you about, he will not speak to me."* 
 The intended letter to Forest was written,! but to 
 the intense disgust of Lyst the friar took no notice 
 of it.J 
 
 The informing lay brother quite thought that 
 "the suspect death of brother Raynscroftys " would 
 prevent " ours preaching against the king." Early 
 in May, however, friar Peto, a man " of good house 
 and family," and one specially accused by Lyst of 
 taking a leading part against the king's designs, had 
 
 * Calendar, Vol. vii., No. 168. 
 
 \ Jbid., No. 334. April 12. 
 
 J This Richard Lyst says in another letter (R. O. Crumwell 
 Corr., Vol. xxiv.. No. 42) that he was " of old my lord cardinal's 
 servant." He " has dreadful dreams three or four nights each 
 week," and thinks " he could serve God better in another state 
 than " as he is, and " get rid of " his trouble. He adds, " The 
 information I sent you about friar Forest deserves support." A few 
 months after he writes as a student in " first orders " from Clare 
 Hall, Cambridge, saying he intends to be a " secular priest." 
 
 Calendar, vii., No. 168.
 
 160 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 to preach before Henry.* He did not hesitate to- 
 speak his mind boldly. The story of this sermon 
 and its sequel is told by the historian John Stow.f 
 
 " The first that openly resisted or reprehended 
 the king touching his marriage with Anne Boleyn 
 was one friar Peto, a simple man, yet very devout, 
 of the order of Observants : this man, preaching at 
 Greenwich upon the two-and-twentieth chapter of 
 the third Book of Kings, viz., the last part of the 
 story of Ahab, saying, ' even where the dogs licked 
 the blood of Naboth, even there shall the dogs lick 
 thy blood also, O king/ and therewithall spoke of 
 the lying prophets who abused the king, and ' I 
 am,' quoth he, ' that Micheas whom thou wilt hate, 
 because I must tell thee truly that this marriage is 
 unlawful. I know I shall eat the bread of affliction 
 and drink the water of sorrow, yet because our Lord 
 hath put it into my mouth, I must speake it.' And 
 when he h~ad strongly inveighed against the king's 
 second marriage to dissuade him from it, he also 
 said, ' There are many other preachers, yea too 
 many, which preach and persuade thee otherwise, 
 feeding thy folly and frail affections upon hope of 
 their own worldly promotion, and by that means 
 they betray thy soul, thy honour, and posterity to 
 obtain fat benefices, to become rich abbots, and 
 get episcopal jurisdiction and other ecclesiastical 
 
 * N. Harpsfield, "The Pretended Divorce," Camden Society, 
 p. 203. 
 
 t Stow, Annals, ed. 1615, p. 561.
 
 The Friars Observant. 161 
 
 dignities. These, I say, are the four hundred 
 prophets who in the spirit of lying seek to deceive 
 you ; but take good heed lest, being seduced, you 
 find Ahab's punishment, which was to have his 
 blood licked up by the dogs.' "* 
 
 The same historian then relates the sequel of this 
 bold denunciation. " The king," he says, " being thus 
 reproved, endured it patiently and did no violence to 
 Peto, but the next Sunday being the eighth* of May, 
 Dr. Curwinf preached in the same place, who sharply 
 reprehended Peto and his preaching, and called him 
 
 * Nich. Harpsfield, ut sup., gives the same account, and adds : 
 " What moved this father to speak these words God knoweth, but 
 that so it came to pass a very strange event did afterwards show." 
 He then goes on to relate the well-known incident of Henry" 
 coffin bursting whilst deposited for the night in the desecrated 
 walls of Sion monastery and of the black dog which was seen to 
 lick up the blood. ' This chance," he says, " one William Consett 
 reported, saying he was there present, and with much ado drove 
 away the said dog." The writer of a MS. (early seventeenth 
 century writing; B. Mus. Sloane MS., 2495, f. 16) says, he was 
 told this same fact from the plumber " and one William Grevill, 
 who was present." 
 
 t Stow, p. 559, says the sermon was on May 28. Probably 
 both dates are wrong, as neither the 8th nor 28th was a Sunday in 
 any year about this time. May i8th, however, was a Sunday in 
 
 1533- 
 
 J Curwin, or as he is called in the episcopal registers of the 
 
 diocese of Hereford, " Mgr. Hugo Coren, LL.D.," was a canon of 
 Hereford. On the death of bishop Fox he was appointed by 
 Cranrner to administer the diocese sede vacante (vide his register). 
 Bonner, as elect of Hereford, appointed him his commissary. Under 
 Fox, he had held the post of Vicar general. He was made dean of 
 Hereford in 1541, archbishop of Dublin in 1555, and in 1567 
 translated by Elizabeth to the see of Oxford. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 1 62 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 dog, slanderer, base, beggarly friar, closeman, rebel, 
 and traitor, saying that no subject should speak so 
 audaciously to princes. . . . He then, supposing to 
 have utterly suppressed Peto and his partakers, 
 lifted up his voice and said : ' I speak to thee, Peto, 
 who makest thyself Micheas, that thou mayest speak 
 evil of kings, but now thou art not to be found, being 
 fled for fear and shame as being unable to answer 
 my arguments.' And whilst he thus spoke there was 
 one Elstow, a fellow friar to Peto, standing in the 
 rood loft, who, with a bold voice, said to Dr. Curwin : 
 ' Good sir, you know that father Peto, as he was 
 commanded, is now gone to a provincial council held 
 at Canterbury, and not fled for fear of you, for 
 to-morrow he will return again. In the meantime I 
 am here as another Micheas, and will lay down my 
 life to prove all those things true which he hath 
 taught ouj>of the holy scripture. And to this com- 
 bat I challenge you before God and all equal judges. 
 Even unto thee, Curwin, I speak, who art one of the 
 four hundred prophets into whom the spirit of lying 
 is entered, and seekest by adultery to establish suc- 
 cession, betraying the king unto endless perdition, 
 more for thy own vain glory and hope of promotion 
 than for discharge of your clogged conscience and 
 the king's salvation.' ' 
 
 The scene can be better imagined than described. 
 Henry himself had attended again at the church 
 of the Greenwich Observants to witness the dis- 
 comfiture of the bold preacher of the previous
 
 The Friars Observant. 163 
 
 Sunday. In the absence of friar Peto, Dr. Curwin 
 calculated to carry his audience with him by means 
 of his vigorous denunciations. The tables were 
 turned when another of the Greenwich brethren 
 leaned over from the rood, and not alone defended 
 his absent brother, but vehemently accused Curwin 
 himself of acting as he did through hopes of pre- 
 ferment. " This Elstow," continues the chronicler, 
 " waxed hot* and spake very earnestly, so that they 
 could not make him cease his speech until the king 
 himself bade him hold his peace."f 
 
 The following day, as the king had directed, the 
 two friars Peto and Elstow were brought before the 
 council, when Elstow again boldly replied to the 
 threats of Henry Bourchier, earl of Essex. After 
 the lords had "rebuked them, the E. of Essex told 
 
 * After relating Elstow's answer to " this great Golias bragge," 
 Harpsfield (lit sup., p. 204) says : " Many other things he would 
 have then spoken, and much ado there was to stay him. At the 
 hearing of this the king was cast into a great choler and in a great 
 heat commanded that these friars should be conveyed thither where 
 he should never hear more of them." The author says he heard 
 the whole account from Elstow himself. 
 
 | Harpsfield (ut sup.} gives much the same account. He 
 says that Dr. Curwin preached on Palm Sunday, " the next Sun- 
 day," by the king's order. " But lord," he continues, " what a 
 stir that Currante made against that poor friar, being absent, and 
 what nick-names he gave him ! At length, as though he had now 
 full conquered him, he began to triumph and insult upon him, crying 
 out ' Where is miser and micher Micheas ? Where doth he now 
 micher ? He is run away for that he would not hear what should 
 be said unto him. Belike he is somewhat lurking and musing with 
 himself by what means he may honestly recant.' '
 
 164 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 them, that they had deserved to be put into a sack 
 and cast into the Thames. Whereunto Elstow, 
 smiling, said, ' Threaten these things to rich and 
 dainty folk who are clothed in purple, fare delicately, 
 and have their chiefest hope in this world, for we 
 esteem them not, but are joyful that for the dis- 
 charge of our duties we are driven hence. With 
 thanks to God we know the way to heaven, to be as 
 ready by water as by land, and, therefore, we care 
 not which way we 'go.' "* The two friars, Peto and 
 Elstow, apparently escaped with a reprimand and 
 the punishment of exile from England. 
 
 Meanwhile, the immediate effect of father Peto's 
 vigorous denunciation of Henry's marriage with Anne 
 was the solemn declaration of archbishop Cranmer, 
 in presence of Thomas Crumwell and others, that 
 the union i was true and valid. f The king, too, 
 pressed on his measures against the pope. He 
 secured for himself, also, powers to deal vigorously 
 and summarily with all religious, who should dare to 
 set their faces against his vicious inclinations or op- 
 pose his defection from the ancient traditions of the 
 Catholic faith. The Greenwich Observant fathers 
 had been well acquainted with the unfortunate 
 queen Catherine. Their convent joined on to the 
 royal palace, and they had thus been brought into 
 close contact both with the king and queen. From 
 the days of Henry VII. they had acted as chaplains 
 and confidential advisers to the court when at 
 * Stow, ut sufra. f Calendar, vi. Preface, xxi. (May 28th).
 
 77/6' Friars Observant. 165 
 
 Greenwich. The friars, doubtlessly, had experienced 
 many an act of kindness from Catherine and they 
 were certainly among the first and foremost of her 
 defenders, as they were the boldest to condemn the 
 injustice of Henry's repudiation of his wife. 
 
 Anne, on the other hand, at this time all powerful, 
 had no cause to look upon them with favour. She 
 would certainly have urged the king to proceed with- 
 out delay and by vigorous measures to secure their 
 submission to his wishes in her regard. Her position, 
 as she knew well, depended altogether upon the 
 maintenance of the quarrel between England and 
 Rome ; and this, again, upon the possibility of 
 repressing the yearning of the nation at large for 
 reunion with Christendom and justice to Catherine. 
 For this purpose the voices, which were bold enough 
 to blame the king's unlawful union and protest 
 against the rejection of papal authority, must be 
 stifled at all costs. Chapuys calls Anne Boleyn 
 "the cause and principal wet nurse of heresy."* 
 The necessity of her case, and her determination at 
 all hazards to maintain her position, obliged her to 
 urge the king on to further hostile and aggressive 
 measures against the Holy S y ee and her hated rival. 
 Queen Catherine was suspected of having procured 
 from Rome the excommunication which was posted 
 at this time on the doors of the church at Dunkirk.! 
 
 * Chapuys to Chas. V. See Friedmann's " Anne Boleyn," i., 
 
 P- 235- 
 
 t Stow, " Annales," ed. 1604, p. 960.
 
 1 66 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Her servants and faithful attendants were dismissed 
 and a strict watch was set over her dwelling at 
 Bugden. Whilst this was being done two Observant 
 friars, named Payn and Cornelius, were found to 
 have secretly visited the fallen queen. 
 
 This was considered a great matter, especially as 
 the two visitors had been " subtely conveyed 
 thence." CrumweU's spies tracked them to Ware 
 and finally arrested them in London, notwithstanding 
 " many wiles and cautells by them invented to 
 escape." They were brought before the minister. 
 " Upon examination there was nothing that could be 
 gathered of any moment or great importance ; " 
 but Crumwell, " entering on further communication," 
 reported to the king that he " found one of them a 
 very- seditious person, and so committed him to 
 ward." He added : " It is undoubted that they have 
 intended and would confess some great matter, if 
 they might be examined as they ought to be that 
 is, by pains ; " * or, in plain English, by torture 
 on the rack. The Greenwich Observants had, it 
 seems, some connection with these two friars. 
 The warden had specially requested to have the 
 punishment of them if any were required ; and 
 father Peto, who had spoken so boldly about the 
 
 * Calendar, vi., No. 887. The date ascribed by Mr. Froude, ii., p. 
 163, is an instance of his habitual disregard of accuracy even in 
 small matters. He says this took place " about the end^of October, 
 or the beginning of November," whereas the document is plainly 
 dated July 23rd.
 
 The Friars Observant. 167 
 
 king's marriage, and was now beyond the seas, was 
 known to have written to Hugh Payn, one of the 
 two. In Crumwell's mind, at least, they were in 
 some way connected with fathers Rich and Risby, 
 two of their brethren from the houses of Richmond 
 and Canterbury, who were regarded as among the 
 chief counsellors and adherents of the Holy maid of 
 Kent. In his "Remembrances" at this period he 
 notes, " touching friar Risby's examination ; of 
 the letter sent by Peto to Payn the friar."* As far 
 as can be ascertained, nothing was proved against 
 the two Observants. They must, however, have 
 been released for we meet with Hugh Payn later 
 on in this same year, when he again comes within 
 reach of Crumwell's power. 
 
 By the spring of 1534 events had progressed 
 rapidly. Parliament, under the skilful management 
 of Crumwell, had proved itself so pliant to Henry's 
 will that the king could contemplate a final move 
 against the unbending Greenwich friars. Already 
 according to one authority, t friar Forest, who five 
 
 * Ibid., No. 1370. This letter, see ibid., No. 836. 
 
 t Bouchier, " Hist. Eccl. de Mart. Fratrum," 1583. Mr. Gairdner 
 places friar Forest's letters in his Calendar, Vol. vii., Nos. 129 to 134, 
 but notes that there is no sign of Forest's imprisonment at this date, 
 although the " complaints of friar Lyst (Vol. vi., Nos. 168, 334, 512) 
 may have led to his imprisonment." Stovve, in his Chronicle (ed. 
 1 580), says, 1532, " The 28 of May friar Forest was put in prison for 
 contrarying the preacher before the king." In the list of Observants 
 published in Mr. Gairdner's Calendar, Vol. vii., No. 1607, is " John 
 Foreste is there (London) in prison." Perhaps the most conclusive 
 proof that he was probably in prison at this time is that we hear no
 
 1 68 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 years later died a martyr's death, was lodged in 
 prison, although not so closely watched as to be 
 unable to communicate by letter with Catherine and 
 others. To the queen he wrote, begging her prayers, 
 and telling her not to grieve for his fate. At the age 
 of sixty-four he hoped to be constant, and as he be- 
 lieved he had only three days to live he sent her his 
 rosary.* Again, in answer to a note from one of 
 Catherine's ladies, who expressed the distress the 
 queen felt for the treatment her old confessor was 
 experiencing in prison, he begged her to tell Catherine 
 that this want of fortitude was not what he had 
 tried to teach her. As for himself, he said he had 
 only to break his faith to save his life, and he con- 
 cluded by urging her to accept her sufferings for 
 Christ's sake.f Besides friar Forest, there were in 
 prison at this time two other Observants, friar Rich 
 the warden of Richmond, and friar Risby the 
 warden of Canterbury, both charged in connection 
 with the maid of Kent. Their sufferings and death 
 have been spoken of in the last chapter. 
 
 At the beginning of the year 1534 one of the 
 spies, whom Crumwell found to do his work among 
 the religious of the monasteries and convents, wrote 
 to claim his reward. He had evidently been helping 
 the renegade lay-brother, Richard Lyst, in defaming 
 
 more about him. Crumwell's " remembrances " are silent about 
 this formidable opponent. 
 
 * Calendar, vii., No. 130. 
 
 f Ibid., No. 132.
 
 The Friars Observant. 169 
 
 the brethren of his monastery and carrying stories 
 to Crumwell adverse to the Franciscan Observants. 
 His suggestion strikes the reader as being inge- 
 nious as well as audacious. Friar John Laurence, 
 as he is called, asks nothing less than to be made 
 
 ' ^j 
 
 superior, either in the place of father Rich or father 
 Risby, whom, no doubt, the stories he has related to 
 Crumwell have helped to their present resting place. 
 His reason for wishing to secure his promotion at 
 once is not less singular than the request. " If I 
 return as I am," he says, " I shall be so handled 
 amongst them that I shall not be able to serve you 
 or the king."* 
 
 The Greenwich branch of the Franciscan Obser- 
 vants was not the only one, which produced men 
 with the courage of their convictions. On Passion 
 Sunday, March 22nd, 1534, a certain Robert Cooke, 
 of Rye, was ordered to abjure publicly, in the cathe- 
 dral church of Winchester, certain heresies he had 
 maintained about the Blessed Sacrament.. On that 
 occasion friar Pecock, warden of the Observant con- 
 vent of Franciscan friars at Southampton, was the 
 preacher. He seized the opportunity to speak 
 earnestly of this and " other dampned heresies." 
 He eloquently exhorted the people to stand stead- 
 fast even to death in their ancient faith and practice. 
 He then related to his audience the story of St. 
 Maurice, who refused to execute his prince's com- 
 mands when they were contrary to the law of God ; 
 * Ibid., No. 139.
 
 i 70 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 but rather than resist his authority he preferred to 
 suffer martyrdom. The friar went on to exhort the 
 people to live and die animated by the same spirit. 
 "Here are many hearers," he continued, " and they 
 not all of one capacity. Some there be that under- 
 stand me and some peradventure that understand me 
 not, but otherwise do take me and shall report me, 
 that I do speak my mind." He then lamented the 
 diversity of opinions that existed in England, 
 especially as regarded the pope. Some, he said, 
 declared that St. Peter had no more power given 
 him by God than the other apostles, and others that 
 the pope had no more power than a bishop of any 
 other diocese, whilst others again taught that as a 
 bishop was no more than a simple priest, " so, conse- 
 quently, the pope had no more power than a simple 
 curate." To prove this, he continued, people bought 
 all kinds of books that were not to be believed. 
 Then, taking up a volume which was beside him in 
 the pulpit, he read to his audience five or six 
 authorities on the Primacy of St. Peter and trans- 
 lated the passages into English.* 
 
 As friar Pecock had foreseen, such bold and 
 undisguised speaking was not allowed to pass 
 without being reported to Crumwell. This was 
 done almost immediately, and at once John 
 Perchard, the mayor of Southampton, with others 
 were directed to seize the preacher's person and 
 convey him to London. For this purpose they went 
 * Ibid., No. 449.
 
 The Friars Observant. 171 
 
 to the convent of the Franciscan Observants at 
 Southampton on the Wednesday in Easter week ; 
 but found that the friar was still absent on his 
 preaching rounds.* They left orders for his imme- 
 diate return, and a few days later they were able to 
 send him under guard to London that Crumwell 
 might himself examine into the matter. At the 
 same time the mayor and his coadjutor wrote to 
 " beg all favour unto Pecock, for since his being 
 here he has been of very good behaviour and keeps his 
 convent in good order."f These testimonies to the 
 friar's worth apparently obtained his release, as he is 
 found at Southampton again a few months later. 
 
 The better to carry out his wishes in regard to the 
 various orders of friars, Henry conceived the ingenious 
 plan of appointing over them a superior upon whose 
 faithful subservience to himself he could depend. 
 More than two years previously, in the beginning of 
 1532, the king had endeavoured, by writing to the 
 general of the friars Minor, to obtain the appoint- 
 ment of some superiors in England more amenable 
 and less uncompromising than fathers Elstow, Peto 
 and Forest. He had, in fact, named the friar he 
 would desire to see superior of the English Obser- 
 vants. The general, however, being unable to spare 
 that father, another was sent as commissary to inquire 
 into matters.j When friars Elstow and Peto had 
 
 * Ibid., Nos. 448-450. 
 t Ibid., Nos. 472-3. 
 
 % Ibid., v., No. 715. January 13, 1532. Friar Paul Parmensis, 
 general of Minorites to Henry VIII.
 
 172 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 incurred the active hostility of Crumwell and the 
 king every means was taken to influence the elections 
 of the Observants, so as to destroy the authority of 
 these unbending friars. Moreover, as Chapuys writes 
 to Charles V., " they have been told that the king 
 has sent to Rome for a commission to try them, to 
 the provincial of the ' broad-sleeved order ' the 
 Augustinian hermits which would be an insult" to 
 the whole body. Both Catherine and the Observants 
 themselves asked the Imperial ambassador to protest 
 at Rome against any such commission, and Chapuys 
 caused the Nuncio also to write* to the same effect. 
 No appointment was made, but Henry did not forget 
 his purpose, which, as he conceived, would be the 
 best method of controlling the friars. The commis- 
 sary of the general, Johan de la Haye, apparently 
 foresaw what would happen. On the one hand, he 
 wrote to the king saying he regretted not being able 
 to do what he wanted as to the deprivation of certain 
 obnoxious fathers from their offices. f On the other 
 hand, he begged his English brethren to be prudent 
 lest the king should carry out his intended appoint- 
 ment, " for it would be a great reproof to have a 
 stranger at the head." j 
 
 By 1 534 Henry's quarrel with the pope had reached 
 its height, and the severance of the Church in Eng- 
 land from its ancient dependence on Rome was 
 complete. There remained then no further obstacle 
 to the king's dealing according to his royal pleasure 
 * Ibid., No. 989. f Ibid., No. 1358. % Ibid., No. 1371.
 
 The Friars Observant. I 73 
 
 with the friars. They were, with the rest of the Church 
 in England, separated from their natural connection 
 with their supreme authority. To effect the separa- 
 tion Crumwell and his master selected two worthy 
 instruments. One was John Hilsey, a Dominican 
 friar, afterwards made successor to the blessed John 
 Fisher in the see of Rochester, and the other Dr. 
 George Brown, a prior of the Augustinian hermits 
 and subsequently, for his services to the king and his 
 minister, created archbishop of Dublin.* Of their 
 appointment Chapuys wrote, in April, 1534, to his 
 Imperial master : " The king has set in train the 
 sovereignty to which he pretends over the English 
 Church, and has appointed a Jacobin and an Augus- 
 tinian provincials and grand visitors." Both of these 
 instruments of the royal tyranny were subsequently 
 singled out by the "Pilgrims of Grace " as deserving 
 instant deprivation and condign punishment. 
 
 The two "grand visitors" were despatched with 
 a full commission! to the various orders of friars in 
 the spring of 1534. Their instructions were precise 
 and intended to gauge the feeling of the friars very 
 thoroughly. The members of every convent or friary 
 
 * " On Sunday last," says Chapuys (1535), " an Augustinian friar 
 (Dr. George Brown), who has been appointed by the king general 
 of all the mendicant orders in reward for having married the king 
 and the lady Anne, preached. . . . The language is so abominable 
 that it is clear it must have been prompted by the king or Crum- 
 well, who makes the said monk his right hand man in all things 
 unlawful." 
 
 f Calendar, vii., No. 587 (i 8).
 
 1 74 Henry VI I L and the English Monasteries. 
 
 in England were to be assembled in their chapter 
 houses and examined separately concerning their 
 faith and obedience to Henry. The oath of alle- 
 giance to Anne Boleyn was to be administered to 
 them, and they were to be bound to swear solemnly 
 that they would preach and persuade the people, to 
 accept the royal supremacy, to confess that the 
 bishop of Rome had no more power than any other 
 bishop and to call him Pope no longer. Further, 
 the sermons of each preacher were to be carefully 
 examined, and if not orthodox they were to be 
 burned. Every friar was to be strictly enjoined to 
 commend the king as head of the Church, the 
 queen, the archbishop of Canterbury and the clergy 
 to the prayers of the faithful. Lastly, each house 
 was " to be obliged to show its gold, silver and other 
 moveable goods, and deliver an inventory of them," 
 and to take a common oath, sealed with the convent 
 seal, to observe the above orders.* 
 
 From the i7th to the 2oth of April, Hilsey and 
 Brown were occupied at the various friaries of Lon- 
 don and the neighbourhood. They then proceeded 
 to visit others in the southern parts of England. 
 The very fact of these unusual visitations seems to 
 have suggested to the minds of some ingenious, but 
 unscrupulous, ecclesiastics a method of obtaining 
 money from monasteries and convents by pretending 
 a commission to visit and correct them. A priest, 
 for example, named James Billingford, who held a 
 * Ibid., 590.
 
 The Friars Observant. 175 
 
 benefice in Suffolk, called in this way at most of the 
 abbeys and priories of Warwickshire, Oxford, and 
 Northampton. He extorted much money from the 
 helpless inmates by pretending to be queen Anne's 
 chaplain and thus possessed of much influence to in- 
 jure or protect the religious, according to the report he 
 should make concerning them. At the end of April, 
 he visited a priory near Banbury and demanded from 
 the prior ^5 in money and his best gelding, threaten- 
 ing if he did not get what he asked he would have 
 him deposed from his office before the coming Whit- 
 suntide. The prior was poor and could scarcely 
 spare the noble which he offered to him. For so 
 small an offering, he was abused and received a 
 threatening letter. Anthony Coope, a neighbouring 
 gentleman, who relates the story to Crumwell, took 
 the case up and, although the adventurer lay hid for 
 a few days, he was subsequently taken and lodged in 
 Lincoln gaol. The priest's servant was placed in the 
 stocks along with his master. * 
 
 Ten days later, Crumwell's correspondent on this 
 matter writes an account of the priest's examination. 
 He was a worthless ecclesiastic, who, according to 
 his own tale, had not said his mass nor read his 
 breviary for some months. He was fond of " dicing 
 and carding " and had, by his ingenious pretence of 
 being a visitor, extracted as black mail large sums 
 of money and many horses from the religious houses 
 he had thus far attempted. He was, however, a 
 * Ibid., No. 700. May. 2.
 
 1 76 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 clever villain, for he trusted now to purchase his 
 liberty and, perhaps, more than that by accusing 
 the monks he had robbed of being enemies of the 
 king and his present policy. " He says," writes 
 Anthony Coope, " that the king has no such mortal 
 enemies as the abbots and priors ; on which I 
 straightly examined him to know the names of such. 
 He mentioned the name of the abbot of Bittlesden, 
 Bucks, as appears in his bill, which he will show the 
 council when he comes up ; and to confort him 
 therein, I told him that if it were true it will 
 purchase him the king's favour. He says this was 
 always his intent, but I think, if he had not been 
 thereto enforced, he would never have had it known 
 that he had been near any of these abbeys. It 
 appears, also, that he said he had a commission to 
 view the abbeys as he has done."* 
 
 The depositions against James Billingford are of 
 considerable interest. They show the life of terror 
 led by the religious and especially by the nuns at 
 this period and also on what kind of testimony the 
 charges made against the monks of furnishing 
 money to aid rebellion really rested. One witness 
 testifies that the amateur visitor declared at Derley 
 abbey, in the presence of the abbot Thomas, a 
 great matter. It was nothing less than that he 
 knew that " one coat of religion," the Black monks 
 (Benedictines) had gathered ^160,000 to make an 
 insurrection against the king, which money had 
 * Calendar, vii., No. 641. May n.
 
 The Friars Observant. 177 
 
 been shipped to the Pope from Southampton in wool 
 packs. The same day he went to the nunnery at 
 Derby. The prioress was from home, but he insisted 
 on going all over the house. He asked one of the 
 sisters, Joan More, the age of the prioress and the 
 number of the nuns, and " took a view of their grain 
 to the great fear of the sisters." A third witness 
 deposed; that he sometimes went under the name of 
 Kettilbye, and imitated a young man " after the 
 scholars' fashion." The servant of the impostor 
 had also told another witness that his master was a 
 kinsman of queen Anne and was in the service of 
 Thomas Crumwell, so that " I was to take care how I 
 meddled with him."* 
 
 Friar Pecock, the warden of the Franciscan 
 Observants at Southampton, whose sermon in Win- 
 chester cathedral had caused his arrest and examina- 
 tion by Thomas Crumwell, had an experience of the 
 troubles of the visitations the king had set on foot. 
 This case was not unlike that of the convents visited 
 by the priest Billingford, and Pecock was in doubt 
 whether the course he had followed would not draw 
 down upon him once more the anger of Henry 
 and his minister. He consequently wrote at once 
 to Crumwell, to " avoid your and the king's dis- 
 pleasure," and told him what had occurred. 
 
 " On the 1 5th July," he says, " there came to us 
 a father Black friar, and without any authority took 
 the keys from our porter and delivered them to one 
 * Ibid., viii., No. 81. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 i 78 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 of his servants. Then, by ringing the bell, he 
 assembled us in the chapter-house and said he was 
 come as our visitor by the king's authority, and read 
 an instrument under seal, as he said, of my lord of 
 Canterbury, containing a transumpt of the king's 
 letters patent, by which authority was given to Dr. 
 Brown, provincial of the Austin friars, and Dr. Hilsey, 
 provincial of the Black friars, to be visitors. We 
 took him to be Dr. Hilsey ; for when I spoke with him 
 in the town he did not deny it. We were willing to 
 accept him as visitor, but we found by chance by 
 one of his servants that he was not named in the 
 commission, and was not Hilsey. Not knowing 
 what to do, we desired him to show us his authority 
 and he showed us a letter to your mastership so ill- 
 written that I could not read it plainly, under seal, 
 as he said, of Dr. Hilsey ; and knowing that he 
 was a wise father and a good clerk we did not 
 believe it, but begged him to show us the first 
 writing again to see whether Dr. Hilsey had any 
 power to substitute. This he refused, and so we would 
 not let him proceed and he threatened us with the 
 king's displeasure and yours."* 
 
 At this period the " reign of terror," which after- 
 wards extended over the entire kingdom during the 
 sway of Thomas Crumwell, had commenced within 
 the walls of the monasteries. It has been shown 
 above, how an official examiner had declared to a 
 prisoner, charged with violence and fraudulently 
 * Ibid., vii., No. 982. July 16.
 
 The Friars Observant. \ 79 
 
 levying black mail upon abbey and convent, that if 
 he could prove the religious to be the enemies of the 
 king it would "purchase him the king's favour" 
 Lawless men were apparently at this time able to 
 do to the monasteries what violence they pleased. 
 The account of the scenes during an election at 
 Croxton abbey seems almost incredible. Lord 
 Berkeley and his followers on that occasion 
 violently seized a considerable sum of money at 
 the abbey and did much wanton mischief to the 
 monastic property with perfect immunity.* It 
 would appear that on the day before the election 
 Lord Berkeley, Dr. Hewes and forty retainers came 
 to the abbey. Two of the servants took entire 
 possession of the monastery lodgings, seizing the 
 keys and locking the doors. Every retainer of the 
 monastery was expelled by force and in their places 
 others, from among Berkeley's attendants, were ap- 
 pointed. On the morning of the election, when the 
 religious wished to enter their own chapter house, 
 James Berkeley with twelve or thirteen armed men 
 kept them out by their drawn swords, and they 
 were forced to return to the choir and lock them- 
 selves in the church. 
 
 The night before the election, and even on the 
 day itself, Dr. Hewes and others " persuaded as 
 much as they could unto master Thomas Grene, now 
 abbot, affirming always that there was offered for the 
 same the sum of 500 marks, and unless the now 
 * Ibid., Appendix, No. 17.
 
 180 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 abbot would give lord Berkeley the sum of ^500 
 they would make what abbot they chose." The 
 armed men then continued to keep the chapter 
 house shut, until the abbot of Welbeck showed them 
 the king's patent making him the visitor of Croxton. 
 The following day Dr. Hewes again threatened the 
 abbot to deprive him of various benefices unless he 
 consented to give the money demanded, and at last, 
 through fear, he paid them ^"160, and gave them a 
 bill for a like sum payable in a year.* 
 
 He was then further compelled to pay ^20 for the 
 expenses of those who had robbed him, and finally, 
 when the retainers departed, " they took with them 
 ten fine pillaghbers, two pair of sheets, one sword 
 and one buckler, and cut several blankets in two for 
 saddle cloths. They took besides out of the choir 
 a book called the Obit book, containing a terrier of 
 all lands belonging to the monastery of Croxton and 
 the names of all donors, which book the abbot would 
 not have given for ^"loo." 
 
 Dr. Hilsey was occupied in visiting the friaries of 
 the south and west of England till the midsummer of 
 1534. On June 2ist he wrote from Exeter to say 
 that he had found none of those he had so far visited 
 who refused the oath to "be obedient, true, and 
 agreeable to the king's high pleasure and will." He 
 added, " I have found some, however, that have 
 sworn with an evil will and slenderly have taken the 
 
 * This was a large sum for those days, and what the abbot had 
 to pay was worth some ^4,000 of our money.
 
 The Friars Observant. 181 
 
 oath to be obedient." Of these, he promised Crum- 
 well, he would have more to say on his return.* At 
 this time his attention was specially taken up with 
 watching the proceedings of certain Franciscan 
 Observants. At the commencement of July, he was 
 in pursuit of two of these friars who were endeavour- 
 ing to escape to the continent from the persecution 
 which had already begun in England. Hilsey 
 followed them through Bristol, Somerset, Devon 
 and Cornwall, and at last overtook them at Cardiff, 
 where they were already in prison. In sending them 
 up to London to undergo the usual examination from 
 Crumwell and his officials, he writes : " You shall 
 perceive more of their crafty fashion. In all places 
 where they come they persuade the people to hold to 
 the bishop of Rome, calling him a Pope and saying 
 that they will die in his cause and never forsake him 
 while they live. They rail at the books set forth 
 cum privilegipi calling them heresies, and heretics 
 that set them forth." Then he adds that they have 
 made people laugh at queen Anne's new born child, 
 the princess Elizabeth, telling them that it had been 
 baptized! in hot water, which they ironically declared 
 was not hot enough for her.J 
 
 One of these two friars was Hugh Payn, who not 
 long before had been arrested and put in prison for 
 
 * Calendar, vii., No. 869. 
 
 f Elizabeth was baptized at Greenwich in the church of the 
 friars Observant. 
 
 J Calendar, vii., No. 939.
 
 182 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 having visited the dethroned queen Catherine at her 
 house at Bugden. The other was Thomas Hayfield 
 and both belonged to the house of Newark. They had 
 narrowly escaped capture in Somerset, to the sheriff 
 of which county the king had sent a special com- 
 mission for their seizure. At Cardiff, they had 
 almost succeeded in eluding the keen pursuit after 
 them, having arranged with the master of a Breton 
 ship to convey them to Brittany, and were on the 
 point of embarking, disguised in secular dress, when 
 they were taken.* Thomas Lichefield, who had 
 seized them and brought them up to London, in 
 writing to beg that they may be disposed of quickly, 
 as they are lodged too near to the sanctuary of 
 Westminster to be safe, adds, " This bearer will tell 
 you the words one of them spoke of my lady, prin- 
 cess." They were quickly placed in prison, from 
 which subsequently they wrote to Henry VIII. to 
 " beg his compassion, being in great pain and sick- 
 ness, "f 
 
 The State papers of this period contain various 
 complaints forwarded to Crumwell about the teach- 
 ing and preaching of these valiant friars. They 
 remained as firmly attached to the ancient faith as 
 they were to the cause of Catherine. One or two of 
 their number, like Lyst, the lay brother who acted as 
 a spy upon the actions of friar Forest, may have 
 given way under the pressure of the threats and 
 promises addressed to them. By becoming the 
 * Ibid., No. 1020. f Ibid., No. 1652.
 
 The Friars Observant. 183 
 
 accusers of their brethren they may have hoped to 
 purchase the royal favour by their treachery. Such 
 renegades were, however, the exceptions ; as a body 
 the friars remained staunch and fearless in their 
 opposition to the will of the king and his minister. 
 An instance, recorded in a document of this time, 
 reveals to us how the people applauded this attitude, 
 and condemned the weakness of those that yielded. 
 Friar John George of Cambridge was apparently 
 one of the latter sort. His mother, however, was 
 made of sterner stuff, and rated him right roundly for 
 having given in to the influence of the times. She 
 is grieved indeed, she writes to him, to find her son 
 a heretic. It was not for this that he had received 
 his education from the good nuns of Dartford. 
 "And," she continues, "you send me word that you 
 will come over to me this summer, but come not 
 unless you change your condition, or you shall be as 
 welcome ' as water into the sheep.' You shall have 
 God's curse and mine, and never a penny. I had 
 rather give all my goods to the poor than keep you 
 in heresy."* 
 
 Above all the rest, the Observants of Greenwich 
 and Richmond were the objects of the special 
 solicitude of Henry and his agents. Rowland Lee, 
 one of the king's chaplains and of late made bishop 
 of Coventry and Lichfield, was selected, together 
 with Thomas Bedyll, clerk of the council, to make 
 the final attempts to influence them. Friar Rich, 
 * Ibid., No. 939.
 
 184 Henry VI I L and the English Monasteries. 
 
 the warden of the Richmond friars and his com- 
 panion, friar Risby of Canterbury, were executed at 
 Tyburn with the holy maid of Kent, on the 2oth 
 April, 1534, and very shortly afterwards the two 
 commissioners reported to their employer, Crum- 
 well, their first move in the matter. They had 
 induced the prior and convent of the Carthusians 
 of Sheen, they wrote, to take the required oath. 
 The prior and procurator had been doing their 
 best to win over to the same mind their neigh- 
 bours, the Observants of Richmond, earnestly 
 exhorting them to bend their minds to the king's 
 wishes. Both the bishop and his coadjutor had 
 also been busy at the same work, holding various con- 
 ferences with the friars ; but, as they are obliged to 
 confess, without any sign of success. In fact, until 
 now they had been in despair of effecting their pur- 
 pose, but, with the Sheen influence at work, they had 
 some slight shadow of hope that they might finally 
 win the Franciscans to what the king required.* 
 
 The next few weeks were occupied in like fruitless 
 efforts to obtain the consent of the equally staunch 
 Carthusians to the oath. It was not, therefore, till 
 Saturday, June I5th, that Lee and Bedyll followed 
 up their attacks upon the Richmond friars. On 
 that day Dr. George Browne, or, as Lee calls him, 
 " the provincial of the Austin friars," delivered to 
 the bishop and his fellow-commissioner Crumwell's 
 orders to proceed at once to conclusions. Armed 
 * Calendar, vii., No. 622. May 7.
 
 TJie Friars Observant. 185 
 
 with these letters they betook themselves directly to 
 Richmond, which they reached " between ten and 
 eleven o'clock at night." " In the following morn- 
 ing," as they report to Crumwell, "we had first 
 communication with the warden and one of the 
 seniors, named Sebastian, and after that with the 
 whole convent." At first, although they made use 
 of " all the means and policies " they could devise 
 to obtain the oath and the signatures and convent 
 seal to the " articles " sent by Dr. George Browne, 
 the warden and his faithful friars absolutely refused, 
 41 and showed themselves very untoward in that 
 behalf." 
 
 They then fell back on another plan. After some 
 argument, they finally persuaded the convent, as a 
 body, to trust the settlement of the matter to the 
 discretion of four of their senior members', " other- 
 wise called discretes," who were to have full power 
 to act in their behalf. Having secured this much, 
 the commissioners arranged that the four friars, to 
 whom the community had entrusted their honour 
 and conscience, should meet them at the house of 
 the Greenwich Observants and should bring with 
 them the convent seal, on Monday, June i yth. 
 "And so they did." 
 
 The two commissioners, Lee and Bedyll, arrived 
 at Greenwich somewhat elated at the success of 
 their diplomacy at Richmond. They fortified 
 themselves with the hope that here also they might 
 prevail upon the friars to walk into the same trap.
 
 1 86 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 If they were only pliable and would commit the 
 matter to the judgment of some few of the brethren, 
 it would, in their opinion, serve a double purpose. 
 It would be the means of " avoiding superfluous 
 words and idle reasonings," and in case the " dis- 
 cretes " chosen should refuse their consent to the 
 proposed articles, " it were better after our minds," 
 they say, " to strain a few than a multitude." Their 
 plans came to nothing, for their advice was rejected. 
 The Greenwich Observants absolutely refused to 
 leave a matter of this kind to be settled by a few 
 deputies, saying " that as it concerned particularly 
 every one of their souls, they would answer particu- 
 larly every man for himself." 
 
 The commissioners were thus obliged to discuss 
 the whole matter in public. After a long debate, 
 and after each friar had been- privately examined as 
 to his willingness to accept the royal desires, they 
 found that one and all steadily refused to subscribe 
 to the rejection of Papal authority and jurisdiction. 
 The friars declared that the proposed article " was 
 clearly against their profession and the rule of St. 
 Francis."* It was quite in vain that Bedyll and the 
 bishop tried ingeniously to explain away this fatal 
 
 * The words of the rule which the friars pointed out to Lee are : 
 " Ad hsec per obedientiam injungo ministris ut petant a domino 
 Papa unum de Sanctse Romanse Ecclesiae Cardinalibus, qui sit 
 gubernator, protector et corrector istius fraternitatis, ut semper 
 subditi et subjecti pedibus Sanctae Ecclesiae ejusdem stabiles in fide 
 Catholica paupertatem et humilitatem et secundum Evangelium 
 Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, quod firmiter promisimus observemus."
 
 The Friars Observant. 187 
 
 objection. They reasoned that St. Francis had 
 made his rule for Italy and that, of course, the 
 Italian religious would be subject to the papal 
 authority, " as all monks not exempt are under the 
 obedience of the bishop of Canterbury ; " but that 
 such a clause in the rule would not apply to 
 England. Secondly, they gravely told the friars 
 that, in their opinion, the chapter they quoted from 
 the rule was a forgery ; and, lastly, that neither the 
 Pope, nor St. Francis, nor their rules, vows, oaths 
 or professions " could take away one jot of the 
 obedience they owed to the king by God's laws." 
 On this last point the visitors expatiated eloquently, 
 and with, what they no doubt considered, great 
 learning ; but after all, their words were thrown away. 
 As they lament to Crumwell, " all this reason could 
 not sink into their obstinate heads and worn in 
 custom of obedience to the Pope." They made, 
 however, one last attempt to overcome this con- 
 stancy. They represented that the two archbishops 
 and most of the bishops of the country, with prelates 
 and learned priests, had subscribed to the declaration 
 that the pope had no authority according to the scrip- 
 tures (ex sacris literis) in England. They urged that 
 it was obvious presumption for them to persist in a re- 
 fusal, which virtually condemned what so many good 
 and well-instructed ecclesiastics had done. No doubt 
 this argument had been used with fatal effect to 
 secure the adhesion of many, who in their own hearts 
 condemned the doctrine of royal supremacy as con-
 
 1 88 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 trary to Catholic faith ; but with the friars Observant 
 it failed, as it subsequently failed with More and 
 Fisher. For, as the baffled visitors write to their 
 master, " all this notwithstanding, their conclusion 
 was they had professed St. Francis' religion, and in 
 the observance thereof they would live and die." 
 "Sorry we be," they conclude, "we cannot bring 
 them to no better frame and order in this behalf, as 
 our faithful minds was to do for the accomplishment 
 of the king's pleasure."* 
 
 Henry, foiled in his designs, determined to strike 
 quickly and effectually. As yet, however, there was 
 no law by which these bold and unbending friars, 
 who set his wishes at defiance, could be made to 
 feel the weight of his royal displeasure. No theory 
 of verbal treason had so far been enunciated by 
 means of which the brave Franciscans could be 
 brought within the law and its extreme penalties. 
 Hence there was no means by which they could be 
 made to share in the sharp sufferings and martyrdom 
 with which a similar refusal on the part of the Car- 
 thusians was shortly afterwards rewarded. Neither 
 was it illegal for them to refuse, however obstinately, 
 their adherence to articles proposed to them even 
 with the royal authority. Still, the suppression of 
 the entire order of Observants followed quickly upon 
 their positive refusal to be bound by the articles 
 proposed to them by Lee and Bedyll. " Within a 
 few days," writes the great authority on the history 
 
 * Wright, "Supp. of Monast.," pp. 41-44.
 
 The Friars Observant. 189 
 
 of this period, " two carts of friars were seen passing 
 through the city to the Tower."* These were the 
 staunch Franciscans of Observance. By the begin- 
 
 J O 
 
 ning of August, Chapuys wrote to tell his master 
 that " of the seven f houses of Observants, four have 
 been already emptied of friars because they have 
 refused to swear to the statutes made against the 
 
 <!> 
 
 Pope. Those in the other two expect to be ex- 
 pelled."! Three weeks later their expectation had 
 been fulfilled, as the Imperial ambassador again wrote 
 " that all the observants of the kingdom have been 
 driven from their monasteries for refusing the oath 
 against the Holy See, and have been distributed in 
 several monasteries, where they were locked up in 
 chains and worse treated than they could be in 
 prison." 
 
 About two hundred of the Observant friars were 
 thus cast without trial into prison. The convents 
 from which they were expelled were temporarily 
 occupied by friars of the Augustinian order. Fifty 
 of the Observants died from the hardships of their 
 prison life ; several, through the influence of Wrio- 
 
 * Mr. Gairdner, vii., Preface, xxviii. 
 
 t These convents were said to be " Louses of the foundation of 
 Henry VII." ("Prevarication of the Church's Liberties," ch. iv., 
 Eyston MS., quoted in Lewis' " Sanders' Schism," p. in.) Most 
 of them, however, existed as monasteries before, and Henry VII. 
 only made them Observants. See "Dugdale," vi., p. 1504. 
 
 J Calendar, vii., No. 1057. August 7th. 
 
 Editor of " Sanders," 15 87, probably on Bourchier's authority, 
 who gives the same, "Hist de Mart." FF. Ord. Min., 1583.
 
 190 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 thesley, their secret friend and admirer, obtained 
 leave to retire into France and Scotland,* and others 
 possibly passed into Ireland with the permission of 
 Crumwell, who was glad to get rid of them on any 
 terms. To this may refer the note entered in the 
 ministers' " Remembrances " : " Item to remember 
 the friars of Greenwich to have licence to go into 
 Ireland."! 
 
 Father Thomas Bourchier addsj a few details 
 concerning the horrors of the lot of those thus con- 
 demned to prison. One of their number, friar 
 Anthony Brookby, alias Broche, a man well skilled 
 in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, was kept closely con- 
 fined in prison and racked. For twenty-five days at 
 a time, he was not allowed to lie down or to have the 
 small comfort of water to wash himself. He was 
 kept alive by food privately supplied him from out- 
 side his prison by some faithful friend, and is sup- 
 posed to have been strangled with the cord of his 
 religious habit, during the night of July ipth, 1537.$ 
 
 Another member of the order, father Thomas 
 Cortt, who had preached publicly in London against 
 the king's measures, was thrown into Newgate. 
 After three years he died of the filth and discom- 
 forts of his prison on July 27th of the same year 
 in which father Anthony Brookby died. He was 
 
 * Lingard, "Hist.," vi., p. 268. 
 
 t Calendar, vii., No. 49. 
 
 J "Historia de Mart. Frat. Ord. Minor de Observantia," 1583. 
 
 Ibid., p. 15. Cf. Dodd, ed. 1737, i., p. 238.
 
 The Friars Observant. 191 
 
 buried privately in St. Sepulchre's church, and a 
 pious woman named Margaret Herbert placed a 
 stone over his grave.* A few days later, August 
 3rd, 1537, a young religious, Thomas Belchiam, 
 twenty-eight years of age, died of starvation in his 
 prison. Many others perished of want and sickness 
 brought on by the filth and foul air in which they 
 were confined, and by the privations and hardships 
 of prison life. Two-and-thirty of the brethren, 
 chained two-and-two, were sent to various prisons in 
 England and there finished their lives in suffering, 
 but in glorious constancy.! After August, 1537, 
 eight of the number, who still survived, were set free, 
 and left England for Belgium and Scotland, j 
 
 From a letter, written by friar Francis Lybert, one 
 of the Franciscans of Observance to " master James 
 Becky, at the Cross Keys, the next house to St. 
 Magnus Church in going down towards Billingsgate," 
 
 * Ibid., p. 16. 
 
 t The following is a contemporary account : " Ab eadem causa 
 (denial of king's supremacy) Franciscani quorum erat in Anglia 
 ingens numerus, edicto Regis capti uno tempore omnes, et in 
 vincula conjecti ac dui re rum omnium egestate vexati sunt, quorum 
 cum aliquot statim occidisset, reliquis, partim oblivione Regis, 
 partim unius e ministris studio, producta magis vita quam concessa 
 est, nam denique omnes, aut palam supplicio affecti, aut fame 
 necati, aut malo diuturni Carceris confecti periere." B. Mus. 
 Add. MS. 15387. Vatican Transcripts, "A contemporary account 
 of Fisher and More preserved at the Vatican," printed in Pocock's 
 " Records of the Reform.," No. 356. 
 
 \ This inhuman treatment might have seemed improbable did 
 we not know that the Carthusian fathers were treated in the same 
 way shortly after this period.
 
 192 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 a glimpse is afforded of one of the friars who had 
 been distributed, as Chapuys wrote, " in monas- 
 teries," where they " were locked up in chains and 
 worse treated than they could be in prison." He 
 writes that " I and my fellow, father Abraham, are at 
 the Grey friars at Stamford, enclosed according to 
 the king's command, and treated as prisoners."' 
 They wish to have some news about their fathers in 
 London and Greenwich, as they have been told " that 
 they have all sworn and somewhat changed their 
 government, at which," continues the writer, " we 
 marvel. Notwithstanding, if they think that God is 
 pleased with it, their conscience discharged, the 
 world edified, and any profit may come of it, we 
 desire to have, a more perfect knowledge, and then 
 we shall do as God shall inspire us, either suffer pain 
 still and be enclosed, or else go at liberty as they 
 do." The friar then asks for some necessary things, 
 such as " penner and inkhorn," to be obtained from 
 " brother Feeld at the London Grey friars," and then 
 concludes with the necessary caution, " read this 
 letter, rend and burn it, for you know what, hurt hath 
 chanced by letter writing, though many never in- 
 tended hurt thereby." * 
 
 No account of the suppression of the Observant 
 friars would be complete without the history of their 
 most renowned member, blessed John Forest. It 
 has already been remarked, that there is reason to 
 believe that friar Forest was safely lodged in some 
 * Calendar, vii., No. 1307. Oct. 27.
 
 The Friars Observant. icy? 
 
 sort of prison in the spring of the year 1534. From 
 that date till his martyrdom on May 22nd, 1538, 
 little is heard about him. It can hardly be sup- 
 posed that Henry and Crumwell would have allowed 
 so powerful and uncompromising an opponent to be 
 at large without placing a watch upon his move- 
 ments, and at least receiving reports from the spies 
 engaged in such a work. This silence strengthens 
 the authority of father Thomas Bourchier that 
 Forest was in prison during the four years that 
 preceded his martyrdom. He was some sixty-four 
 years of age when he was imprisoned in 1534. 
 Forty-three of these he had spent in religion, and had 
 held the highest offices amongst his brethren. He 
 had been warden of Greenwich and provincial of alt 
 the Observant friars in England, as well as the 
 constant friend and confessor of queen Catherine. 
 
 Just before friar Forest's martyrdom attempts were 
 apparently made to collect evidence against him. At 
 that time his confinement could not have been very 
 strict, as he was able to hear confessions at the Grey 
 Friars in London. It has been said that Forest 
 used the confessional for the purpose of urging his 
 penitents against the king's supremacy. The 
 following memorandum seems to refer to inquiries as 
 to his teaching on this point : " Mem. : That about 
 the 23rd day of February, the 29th year of the reign 
 of my most dread sovereign lord king Henry VIII. 
 (1538). . . the lord Mordaunt shewed Sir William 
 Hewyit, priest and servant to the said lord, that he 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 the said lord was minded to take his departure from 
 London for to be confessed." Upon this communica- 
 tion the chaplain went to the Grey Friars and learnt 
 that friar Forest heard confessions there. "And then," 
 the document goes on, " the said Sir William said 
 my lord my master will be confessed. And then 
 the said porter said again, ' I think if he come about 
 nine o'clock he may speak with him, for he saith Our 
 Lady's mass.' ' Then lord Mordaunt went as he had 
 been directed and made his confession, after which 
 he said to friar Forest, " Ask what you like and I will 
 pay you forty pence to buy it with. Whereupon the 
 said friar desired the said lord to cause it to be 
 delivered to the said porter for his coal." This the 
 chaplain and lord Mordaunt, who signs the deposi- 
 tion, declare was all their acquaintance with the 
 friar. " And," the former adds, " as for the bishop 
 of Rome, or any speaking with the said friar Forest 
 of the said bishop of Rome, or in any matter con- 
 cerning the said bishop or his authority, or any 
 matter touching the king or the bishop of Rome, 
 there never was such matter touched, opened, or 
 mooted by the friar or his said lord or either of 
 them."* 
 
 Bishop Latimer, who was apparently a great enemy 
 of friar Forest, and who subsequently preached at 
 his barbarous death, seems to have thought the 
 treatment he received in prison was too gentle. 
 " Forest, as I hear," he writes to Crumwell, " is not 
 * B. Mus. Cott. MS. Cleop., E. iv., f. 130.
 
 The Friars Observant. 195 
 
 duly accompanied in Newgate for his amendment 
 with the white friars of Doncaster and the monks of 
 the Charterhouse, in a fit chamber more like to 
 indurate than to mollify, whether through the fault 
 of the sheriff or of the gaoler or both, no man could 
 sooner discern than your lordship. Some think he is 
 rather comforted in his way than discouraged ; some 
 think he is allowed both to hear mass and also to 
 receive the Sacrament ; which, if it be so, it is 
 enough to confirm him in his obstinacy."* It has 
 been said, that " when first arrested he was terri- 
 fied ; he acknowledged his offences, submitted, and 
 was pardoned. "f That Mr. Froude has founded 
 this statement on anything but his own imagination 
 does not appear in his pages. Most certainly such 
 weakness is the very reverse of what we should 
 expect from all that reliable history tells us of 
 blessed John Forest. It is certainly undeniable that 
 he absolutely refused to make any abjuration of 
 Papal supremacy when it was demanded of him.j 
 Sanders, who at the time was a boy of about thirteen 
 years old at Winchester school, declares that Forest 
 
 * Parker Soc., " Latimer's Remains," p. 392. 
 
 f Froude, " Hist.,," Vol. iii., p. 292. 
 
 | Stow, " Annales," ed. 1600, p. 569, says Forest " was appre- 
 hended for that in secret confession he had declared to many the 
 king's subjects that the king was not supreme head of the church, 
 whereas before he had taken the oath to the same supremacy. 
 Upon this point he was examined and answered that he took his 
 oath with his outward man ; but his inward man never consented 
 thereunto."
 
 196 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 died " because he denied the ecclesiastical supre- 
 macy of the king."* 
 
 The depositions against him are clear and decisive 
 of his real sentiments as to the matters at issue 
 between the king and Rome. " He said," they 
 declare, " that blessed man St. Thomas of Canter- 
 bury suffered death for the rights of the church, for 
 there was a great man meaning thereby king Harry 
 the Second which, because St. Thomas of Canter- 
 bury would not grant him such things as he asked, 
 contrary to the liberties of the church, first banished 
 him out of this realm ; and at his return he was slain 
 at his own church, for the right of holy church, as 
 many holy fathers have suffered now of late as 
 that holy father the bishop of Rochester and he 
 doubteth not but their souls be now in heaven." 
 
 " He saith and believeth that he ought to have a 
 double obedience : First to the king's highness, by 
 the law of God ; and the second to the bishop of 
 Rome, by his rule and profession." 
 
 " He confesseth that he used and practised to 
 induce men in confession to hold and stick to the 
 old fashion of belief that was used in the realm of 
 long time past."f 
 
 We seem to see, in the second of these deposi- 
 tions, the foundation upon which so many writers 
 have based their charge of duplicity against blessed 
 John Forest. That no such charge can be main- 
 
 * Schism, "Lewis' Trans.," p. 139. 
 
 f Record Office MS., quoted by Froude, iii., p. 292.
 
 The Friars Observant. 
 
 '97 
 
 tained is obvious from the words of the accusation 
 itself. All subsequent authors have derived their 
 facts of the case from the chronicler Hall, who, 
 although a contemporary and writing ten years after 
 the event, cannot be considered as an absolutely 
 trustworthy guide* as against documentary evidence 
 in such a matter. What is certain is, that Forest 
 died for his belief in the necessity of the Papal 
 supremacy and that even in the agony of his fearful 
 death he remained constant and true to his faith. 
 
 Like More, Fisher and the rest, who were martyred 
 in defence of the Papal primacy, Forest fell under 
 the law of treason, but for him alone was reserved 
 the additional distinction of suffering for heresy also. 
 Collier says he " was condemned for heresy and 
 high treason, though by what law they could stretch 
 his crime to heresy is hard to discover, for he was 
 tried only for dissuading his penitents in confession 
 from owning the king's supremacy."! It was, 
 however, a very easy matter in those days to bring 
 a man within the reach of the law on any count, and 
 the way that friar Forest was convicted of heresy 
 was after all surprisingly simple. It may be told in 
 
 * Brewer, in quoting the speech against Wolsey that Hall puts 
 into the mouth of More, adds the following note : " Hall, p. 764. 
 It must be stated in More's exculpation that Hall is the only 
 authority for this speech. No trace of this invective against Wolsey 
 is to be found in the short notice of More's speech as preserved in 
 the parliament roll. Nor is the meagre description of it there given 
 easily reconciled with Hall's account," &c. (Letters, &c., Vol. iv., 
 Introduction, 539.) 
 
 t "Ecc. Hist.," ed. 1714, ii., p. 149.
 
 198 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 the words of Mr. Froude.* " In an official paper of 
 about this date," he writes, " I find ( heresy ' defined 
 to be ' that which is against scripture.' To say, 
 therefore, that Peter and his successors be heads of 
 the universal church, and stand stubbornly in it, is 
 heresy, because it is against scripture (Ecclesi- 
 astes v.), where it is written, ' Insuper imiversce 
 terrce rex imperat sermente ' that is to say, the 
 king commandeth the whole country as his subjects 
 and, therefore, it followeth that the bishop of 
 Rome, which is in Italy, where the emperor is king, 
 is subject to the emperor, and that the emperor may 
 command him ; and if he should be head of the 
 Universal Church, then he should be head over the 
 emperor, and command the emperor, and that is 
 directly against the said text, Ecclesiastes, v. Where- 
 fore to stand in it opiniatively is heresy." In accord 
 with this " monstrous reasoning " it was possible to 
 find friar Forest guilty of being a heretic as well as 
 a traitor, and so adjudge him to the barbarous and 
 painful death usually reserved for such as obstinately 
 had remained wedded to heretical doctrines. The 
 commission which tried the friar was presided over, 
 most probably, by Cranmer. He at least writes to 
 make arrangements with Crumwell for the examina- 
 tion. " The bishop of Worcester " (Hugh Latimer), 
 he says, " and I will be to-morrow with your lordship 
 to know your pleasure concerning friar Forest. For 
 if we should proceed against him according to the 
 order of the law, there must be articles devised 
 * "Hist.," Hi., p. 293.
 
 The Friars Observant. 199 
 
 beforehand which must be ministered unto him ; and 
 therefore it will be very well done that one draw 
 them up against our meeting."* The result of the 
 meeting was that Forest was condemned to die by 
 fire in Smithfield on the 22nd May, 1538. 
 
 Bishop Latimer was appointed to preach at the 
 execution and he announces his acceptance of the 
 office in a very singular letter. " Sir," he writes to 
 Crumwell. " If it be your pleasure, as it is, that I 
 shall play the fool after my customable manner when 
 Forest shall suffer, I would wish that my stage stood 
 near unto Forest, for I would endeavour myself so 
 to content the people that therewith I might also 
 convert Forest, God so helping, or, rather, altogether 
 working. Wherefore, I would that he shall hear 
 what I shall say si forte if he would yet with 
 his heart return to his abjuration, I would wish his 
 pardon. Such is my foolishness." f 
 
 On the day appointed for the execution prepara- 
 tions were made in Smithfield for it. A pair of 
 new gallows were placed over the faggots for a fire, 
 from which friar Forest could be suspended in a 
 " cradle of chains." The billets of wood were to a 
 large extent composed of the chips of a desecrated 
 image, called Darvel Gadarn, which had been held 
 in high honour by the people of North Walesj and 
 
 * Cranmer's Works, Vol. i., p. 239. 
 
 t R. O. Crum. Cor., Vol. xlix., f. 391. 
 
 J Ellis Price to Crumwell, B. Mus. Cott. MS., Cieop. E. iv., f. 
 556. It was held as a tradition, says Hall, that the image should 
 set a Forest on fire. Perhaps this suggested the manner of death 
 awarded to Forest.
 
 2oo Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 which had been removed from its ancient shrine 
 shortly before. A note in the handwriting of John 
 Stow, the historian and antiquary, says : " Memo- 
 randum that on Wednesday, the 22nd of May, in 
 A. 1538, friar Forest, of Greenwich, a doctor of 
 divinity, was burnt in Smithfield for certain points 
 he held of the bishop of Rome, and for that he 
 would not stick and preach the New Testament, for 
 he said that he would preach, but the pope's tradi- 
 tions and laws and decrees, and in them and for 
 them he died. At whose death was Mr. Richard 
 Gressham, mayor of this city with his sheriffs ; also 
 the duke of Norfolk, the duke of Suffolk, the lord 
 Admiral, the lord Privy seal (Crumwell), with divers 
 others. And of the Commons of the city a great 
 number, and the bishop of Worcester did preach 
 before him face to face, the which bishop's name is 
 Latimer."* 
 
 We can easily imagine the sermon that fell from 
 the lips of the preacher. " It was of the usual 
 kind," writes Froude, " the passionate language of 
 passionate conviction," as he " confuted the friar's 
 errors and moved him to repentance. "f But Latimer's 
 eloquence and vigorous denunciation of the Pope 
 and his followers proved of no avail, for " in the 
 end, when the bishop asked him what state he would 
 die in, the friar with a loud voice answered and said 
 that if an angel should come down from Heaven and 
 
 * B. Mus. Harl. MS., 530, f. 120. 
 t Stow, " Annales," p. 569.
 
 TJie Friars Observant. 201 
 
 teach him any other doctrine than he had received 
 and believed from his youth he would not now 
 believe him. And that if his body should be cut 
 joint after joint, or member after member burnt, 
 hanged, or what pain soever might be done to his 
 body, he would never turn from his old profession. 
 Moreover, he told the bishop that seven years before 
 he dared not have made such a sermon for his 
 life."* 
 
 Delay was useless ; no argument was likely to 
 shake the constancy of the friar, and, with Crumwell 
 and the rest looking on, Forest was slung from the 
 gallows with chains " by the middle and armholes, 
 all quick over the flames." f In his mortal agony 
 he clutched at the steps of the ladder to sway him- 
 self out of the blaze ; and the pitiless chronicler who 
 records the scene could only see in this last weak- 
 ness an evidence of guilt. " So impatiently," says 
 Hall, " he took his death as never any man that put 
 his trust in God."} 
 
 * Stow, " Annales," p. 569. 
 
 f Hall, ed. 1548, f. 233. 
 
 J Froude, " Hist.," Vol. iii., p. 296.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CARTHUSIANS. 
 
 BEFORE the final dispersion of the Franciscan Ob- 
 servants, Crumwell had commenced his conflict with 
 the fathers of the Charterhouse. Unlike the friars, 
 the retiring religious of St. Bruno's order had taken 
 no active part in opposing the union of Henry and 
 Anne Boleyn. Neither had they appeared con- 
 spicuously as the champions of queen Catherine 
 and, although it was known that the " Holy maid of 
 Kent " had visited them at their London house, 
 there was nothing in the evidence collected against 
 her to mark them out as her advisers or abettors. 
 Still, their general influence, at this time very con- 
 siderable owing to the exceptional sanctity of their 
 lives, was exercised in opposition to the king's revolt 
 from the holy see. Rumour even spoke of the prior 
 of the London Charterhouse, John Houghton, as 
 privately exhorting his penitents to remain firm in 
 refusing to abjure the Papal supremacy.* 
 
 In the spring of 1534, Henry was fully com- 
 
 * Strype, " Mems.," i., p. 305.
 
 The Carthusians. 203 
 
 mitted to the breach with Rome. It became 
 then of vital importance to suppress all opposition, 
 more especially when both he and his ministers 
 must have known that it was impossible " to rely on 
 the unbiassed judgment of his subjects to support 
 his peculiar views of lawful and unlawful matri- 
 mony."* With this object, much had already been 
 attempted. The execution of Elizabeth Barton and 
 her companions, in the April of this year, was used as 
 the means for extorting the new oath of succession 
 from the people of London. At the same time the 
 troubles of the Carthusian fathers commenced. 
 
 The Charterhouse of the " Salutation of the most 
 blessed Mother of God " in London was a model 
 of religious observance. According to Maurice 
 Chauncy, one of the few religious of the convent 
 who purchased their lives by compliance with the 
 king's wishes, all were leading the most holy lives. 
 In the language of his penitence he alone, " the 
 spotted and diseased sheep " of the flock, deserved 
 "to be cast out of the fold," and to lose the crown 
 of martyrdom.f Twenty of the community were 
 not yet thirty-eight years of age, and they vied one 
 with the other in the fervour of their observance. 
 Even the lay brethren were remarkable for their 
 perfect lives, and were true " conversi " from the 
 world and its ways. Two of their number, brothers 
 Roger and John, had often been seen by Chauncy 
 
 * Gairdner, Calend., vii., Preface, p. 23. 
 
 f " Historia aliquot nostri saeculi martyrum," 1583, p. 41.
 
 204 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. 
 
 raised in ecstasy from the ground whilst praying."* 
 For a period in his early life, blessed Thomas 
 More had been attracted by their holiness and had 
 seriously contemplated begging to be received into 
 the ranks of such undoubted servants of God. On 
 the very eve of their difficulties with Henry and 
 Crumwell, their lives were attracting those who 
 hoped to find among them a haven of rest from the 
 gathering storm. The Imperial ambassador, Chapuys, 
 reports to Charles V. in January, 1534 that: "The 
 vice-chamberlain (Sir John Gage), who is of the 
 council, and one of the wisest and most experienced 
 in war of the whole kingdom, has renounced his 
 office and gone to the Charterhouse, intending with 
 the consent of his wife to become a Carthusian."! 
 
 " Maurice Chauncy," writes Mr. Froude, " com- 
 mences with his own confession. He had fallen 
 when others stood. He was, as he says, an unworthy 
 brother, a Saul among the prophets, a Judas among 
 the apostles, a child of Ephraim turning himself back 
 in the day of battle, for which his cowardice, while 
 his brother monks were saints in heaven, he was 
 doing penance in sorrow, tossing on the waves of 
 the wide world. The early chapters contain a loving, 
 lingering picture of his cloister life, to him the per- 
 fection of earthly happiness. It is placed before us 
 in all its superstition, its devotion, and its simplicity, 
 the counterpart, even in minute details, of accounts 
 of cloisters when monasticism was in the young vigour 
 
 * Ibid., p. 47. \ Calendar, vii., No. 14. Jan. 3, 1534.
 
 The Carthusians. 
 
 205 
 
 of its life, which had been written ten centuries 
 before. St. Bede or St. Cuthbert might have found 
 himself in the house of the London Carthusians, 
 and he would have had few questions to ask, and no 
 duties to learn or to unlearn. The form of the 
 buildings would have seemed more elaborate, the 
 notes of the organ would have added richer solem- 
 nity to the services, but the salient features of the 
 scene would have been all familiar. He would have 
 lived in a cell of the same shape, he would have 
 thought the same thoughts, spoken the same words 
 in the same language. The prayers, the daily life, 
 almost the very faces with which he was surrounded 
 would have seemed all unaltered. A thousand years 
 of the world's history had rolled by, 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. What they had been 
 they were, and if Maurice Chauncy's description had 
 come down to us as the account of the monastery in 
 which Offa of Mercia did penance for his crimes, we 
 could have detected no internal symptoms of a later 
 age."* 
 
 A worthy superior presided over this saintly com- 
 munity. Blessed John Houghton had sprung from a 
 good Essex family, and had gone early in life to the 
 University of Cambridge in preparation for the 
 honourable career in the world to which the inten- 
 * " Hist.," ii., p. 343-
 
 206 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 tions of his parents had destined him. Before how- 
 ever his education there was completed, he conceived 
 the idea of entering the Church. His father showed 
 himself altogether adverse to such a vocation and 
 hence he left his home until his ordination, finding a 
 refuge with a friendly parish priest. For four years 
 he remained one of the secular clergy and at the end 
 of that time, feeling himself called to something 
 higher, he entered the Carthusian order. He was 
 quickly promoted to offices of trust in the community 
 and held the posts of sacrist and procurator before 
 his appointment to the dignity of the priorship.* He 
 had served God for twenty years in religion before 
 the troublous times of Henry's reign came to disturb 
 the peace of his cloistered life and to win for him 
 the crown of martyrdom. 
 
 Maurice Chauncy draws a perfect picture of him 
 as prior. In person " he was short, with a graceful 
 figure and dignified appearance ; his actions modest, 
 his voice gentle, chaste in body, in heart humble, 
 he was admired and sought after by all, and by his 
 community was most beloved and esteemed. One 
 and all revered him, and none were ever known to 
 speak a word against him."f He had, indeed, no 
 taste or desire for dignities or position, and although 
 he maintained the necessary rights of the office in 
 which providence had placed him, he showed him- 
 self at all times an indulgent " brother to each 
 individual religious " of his community. He governed 
 * " Historia," ut sup., p. 24. f Ibid., p. 40.
 
 n he Carthusians. 
 
 207 
 
 rather by example than precept, and his subjects 
 were influenced as much by the fervour of his pre- 
 eminent sanctity as by the burning exhortations he 
 addressed to them in their chapter. He rarely offered 
 Mass, but that he was wrapt in ecstasy and poured 
 forth floods of tears at the recollection of Christ's 
 loving kindness and compassion. His zeal for the 
 service of God was especially manifested in the care 
 and regulation of the divine office, and once at least 
 each month, in his exhortation to the religious, he 
 would cast himself upon his knees before them and 
 with tears bewail his shortcomings, and ask pardon 
 of his brethren.* So great, too, was his spirit of 
 recollection that, as William Exmew, the father vicar 
 of the convent and his confessor, had been heard to 
 declare, in spite of the many and great cares of his 
 office, his thoughts were never permitted to wander 
 off to them in the hours of prayer, f 
 
 Chauncy speaks of portents and wonders which in 
 1 533 were thought to warn the community of impend- 
 ing danger. Without doubt, notwithstanding the 
 seclusion of their lives, rumours of the gathering 
 storm which was to involve them in temporal ruin 
 must have reached them in their cells. The thorny 
 questions which surrounded the great matter of 
 Henry's divorce must have been suggested to their 
 minds, and were doubtless thought over and 
 prayed over in their solitude. The royal agents 
 would thus have found the simple monks not un- 
 * Ibid., pp. 30, 31. t Ibid., p. 40.
 
 208 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 prepared to meet their demands for complete sur- 
 render of conscience by the resolute refusal, which 
 has made their names respected even by those who 
 cannot appreciate their motives. 
 
 Early in April the convent was visited by Lee and 
 Bedyll, under a commission from the king, to obtain 
 the signatures of the religious to the oath of succes- 
 sion. The royal agents first saw the prior, but could 
 make nothing of him. To all their arguments he 
 replied, that " it pertained not to his vocation and 
 calling nor to that of his subjects to meddle in or 
 discuss the king's business, neither could they or 
 ought they to do so, and that it did not concern him 
 whom the king wished to divorce or marry, so long as 
 he was not asked for any opinion."' The visitors 
 were not satisfied with this reply and insisted on 
 meeting the brethren in chapter. To this demand 
 the prior was forced to agree, but the situation only 
 obliged him to speak more plainly in the presence of 
 his brethren. For his part, he said " he could not 
 understand how it was possible that a marriage rati- 
 fied by the Church and so long unquestioned should 
 now be undone," and to this view the whole com- 
 munity adhered. 
 
 Such plain speaking on the part of John Houghton 
 was sufficient for the commissioners. His committal 
 to the Tower, together with the procurator of the con- 
 vent, Humphrey Middlemore, quickly followed. They 
 
 * Chauncy. " Commentariolus de vitse ratione et martyrio Car- 
 tusianorum," ed. Gandavi, 1608, p. 46.
 
 The Carthusians. 
 
 209 
 
 remained there a month, suffering, as the historian 
 of these troubles relates, from the dirt and pesti- 
 lential atmosphere of the dungeon in which they were 
 confined, as well as from absolute want of food. A 
 letter relating to the imprisonment of another priest 
 in the same place about this time, throws some light 
 upon the rigours of an imprisonment. Mr. Legge, 
 the chaplain of the confessor to Sion convent, had 
 been s.ent to the Tower by order of Cnimwell, and by 
 his direction also, his friends were informed in order 
 that they might look to his necessities. The unfor- 
 tunate priest had only a little over three shillings, 
 and Crumwell told the writer to say " if he lacks 
 money he will have neither meat, drink, nor bread." 
 There would have been " no bed but the boards " for 
 him, had not the wife of his gaoler brought him a 
 mattrass and clothes* to lie upon. 
 
 Stokesley, the bishop of London and Lee, arch- 
 bishop of York, visited Houghton and Middlemore 
 in the Tower. They persuaded them that the question 
 of the succession was not a cause in which to sacri- 
 fice their lives for conscience sake. After a month's 
 space, therefore, the prior and his companion promised 
 to comply with the king's desifes and returned home 
 to their brethren. Meeting his subjects in the chapter 
 house, Houghton informed them of his submission, 
 
 " & * 
 
 but added that he was convinced this yielding would 
 not avail to save them for long from the destruction 
 he foresaw. " Our hour, dear brethren," he con- 
 
 * Calendar, vii., No. 756. 
 VOL. I. P
 
 2io Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 tinued, " is not yet come. In the same night in 
 which we were set free I had a dream that I should 
 not escape thus. Within a year I shall be brought 
 again to that place, and then I shall finish my 
 course."* Influenced by this prediction the monks 
 at first resolved not to abide by the prior's promised 
 submission, but again to refuse compliance with the 
 royal demands. For a time they were resolute. 
 When, however, the commissioners returned, in com- 
 pany with the lord mayor and his officers and 
 threatened them with immediate imprisonment, they 
 yielded, taking the oath under the condition " so far 
 as it was lawful." The swearing occupied two days. 
 On the first occasion, May 29th, 1534, the commis- 
 sioners were Lee and Bedyll and fourteen subscribed, 
 amongst whom were Houghton and Middlemore ; 
 and on the second day, June 6th, the remainder of 
 the community conformed, in the presence of Lee 
 and another visitor, Thomas Kytson.f 
 
 " We all swore as we were required," writes 
 Chauncy, " making one condition, that we submitted 
 only so far as it was lawful for us so to do. Thus, 
 like Jonah, we were delivered from the belly of this 
 monster, this immanis ceta, and began again to 
 rejoice, like him, under the shadow of the gourd of 
 our home. But it is better to trust in the Lord than in 
 princes, in whom is no salvation. God had prepared 
 a worm that smote our gourd and made it perish. "{ 
 
 * Chauncy in Froude's " Hist.," ii., 347. 
 
 t Calendar, vii., No. 728. Rymer, xiv., 491. 
 
 \ Chauncy. Froude, ii., p. 347.
 
 The Carthusians. 2 r i 
 
 From the hour of their compliance the community 
 found little peace. Even among the brethren of the 
 Charterhouse there were to be found those who were 
 restless under the restraints of monastic discipline. 
 These religious saw in the difficulties which beset 
 their house a possible means of escape from the 
 bonds which kept them to the cloister. Thus one of 
 their number writes to implore Crumwell's aid. He 
 claims to have been the friend of the king and to 
 have given Bedyll important information about his 
 brethren in the chapter house "on Friday after 
 Corpus Christi." For this the prior, he says, " keeps 
 him like an infidel out of sight and speech of all 
 friends." At the end of the letter its purport appears. 
 He hints that he wishes to be released from his life 
 in the monastery, like another monk " Dan John 
 Norton," who three years before had been shut up 
 in his cell, but who was now " a canon in the west 
 country."* 
 
 About the real spirit of the community as a body, 
 during the months that passed before the martyrdom 
 of the prior and his companions, there can be no 
 doubt. Archdeacon Bedyll at the end of August, 
 1 534, wrote to Crumwell about them and the religious 
 of Sion. " I am right sorry to see the foolishness 
 and obstinacy of diverse religious men so addicted 
 to the bishop of Rome and his usurped power, that 
 they contemn all counsel and likewise jeopardy their 
 bodies and souls and the suppression of their houses 
 * Calendar, vii., No. 1046.
 
 212 Henry VIII. and the Eng/is/i Monasteries. 
 
 as careless men and willing to die. If it were not 
 for the opinion which men had, and some yet have, 
 in their apparent holiness, which is and was, for the 
 most part covert hypocrisy, it made no great matter 
 what became of them so that their souls w r ere saved. 
 And as for my part, I would that all such obstinate 
 persons of them, who be willing to die for the ad- 
 vancement of the bishop of Rome's authority, were 
 dead indeed by God's hand ; that no man should 
 run wrongfully into obloquy for their just punish- 
 ment. For the avoiding whereof, and for the charity 
 that I owe to their bodies and souls, I have taken 
 some pains to reduce them from their errors, and 
 will take more if I be commanded, specially to the 
 intent that my sovereign lord, the king's grace, 
 should not be troubled or disquieted with their 
 extreme madness and folly. I mean this not only 
 by divers of the Charterhouses and chiefly at 
 London, but also by others, as by divers of the 
 friars at Sion who are minded to offer themselves 
 in sacrifice to the great idol of Rome ; and in 
 their so minding they be cursed of God, as all 
 others be, who put their trust and confidence in any 
 man concerning eternal life. And in case they 
 had no such confidence in the bishop of Rome, they 
 would never be so ready to lose their temporal life for 
 him and for his sake. . . ." Then after writing much 
 about Sion monastery, Bedyll concludes by confess- 
 ing that he has " laboured so much already in vain 
 to bring them (the Carthusian monks) from their
 
 The Carthusians. 213 
 
 inveterate error to the very duty of a faithful subject 
 to his natural prince."* 
 
 The efforts made to bring the Charterhouse monks 
 into compliance with the royal will were continued 
 throughout the year. The prior of the Brigittines of 
 Sion, who was sometimes known under the title of 
 "father confessor," was apparently looked upon by 
 Crumwell as zealous in Henry's service. To him, 
 therefore, by direction of the minister, several of the 
 Carthusian religious were sent for advice. Two of 
 these, both priests and professed monks, named 
 William Broke and Bartholomew Burgoyn, surren- 
 dered their consciences after a long argument with 
 the prior at Sion. Writing to him later they speak 
 of the " great pains " he has taken to win over two 
 other religious of their convent, and express their 
 hopes that he will succeed in inducing them to trust 
 their souls to his guidance.! Maurice Chauncy 
 probably owes the loss of his martyr's crown, which 
 he so much bewails, to the perverting influence of 
 this Brigittine friar. In company with another 
 religious of the Charterhouse, John Foxe, he was 
 sent to Sion at the end of August, 1534. The 
 letter which they took with them begged the prior to 
 argue with them, and " show charity to them as you 
 have done to others." They are scrupulous, the 
 writer says, "about the bishop of Rome," but are 
 not " obstinate," and each of them has a " book of 
 authorities" which must be answered. \ 
 * State Papers, i., 423. t Calendar, vii., No. 1093. %Ibid., No. 1 150-
 
 214 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 By the beginning of 1535 any doubts which might 
 be entertained as to the full intentions of Henry were 
 at an end. On January I5th the new title of 
 "Supreme Head" was incorporated in the king's 
 style by decree of council. The rupture with Rome 
 and the causes which led to it were deeply distasteful 
 to the nation at large. " On no other subject,' 1 
 writes Mr. Gairdner, " during the whole reign have 
 we such overt and repeated expressions of dissatis- 
 faction with the king and his proceedings."* Many 
 of the influential persons of the realm were anxiously 
 looking for some external intervention to stop the 
 course upon which Henry had embarked. Chapuys 
 asserts, that lord Darcy's physician had assured him 
 " that the whole realm was so indignant at the 
 oppressions and enormities now practised, that if the 
 emperor would make the smallest effort the king 
 would be ruined. "f The act of supremacy had, 
 indeed, added greatly to the royal power, as well as 
 to the kingly style, and there was no pretence that it 
 was framed with any scrupulous concern for civil 
 liberty. With an authority " to visit, repress, redress, 
 reform, order, correct, restrain, and amend heresies, 
 errors, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities, 
 whatsoever they be," to the same extent as his com- 
 pliant judges might hold lawful to any spiritual 
 authority, what might not an unscrupulous king like 
 Henry attempt when urged on by such a minister as 
 
 * Ibid., viii., Preface on Nos. 589, 736-8, &c. 
 t Ibid., No. i.
 
 The Carthusians. 
 
 215 
 
 Crumwell ! No wonder the people of England 
 looked forward with dread to the possible develop- 
 ment of a power which had added the spiritual to 
 the temporal authority. No wonder if they dis- 
 trusted a monarch who, according to the quaint but 
 significant expression of " an old writer," was consti- 
 tuted "a king with a pope in his belly."* 
 
 To the fathers of the Charterhouse the act of 
 supremacy meant destruction. By the end of 1534 
 it would have been abundantly clear to Crumwell, 
 that whatever the few weaker spirits among the 
 community, who had been seduced by promise or 
 specious argument, might do, the Carthusians as a 
 body would resist even to death any further demand of 
 Henry for rejection of papal authority. Their doom 
 was known to be certain, when it became publicly 
 understood that those suspected of half-heartedness 
 in the king's cause, or of lukewarmness and secret 
 hostility to the matter of Henry's divorce, might be 
 submitted to questioning on this new kingly pre- 
 rogative of spiritual supremacy. The prior, no 
 longer doubting that the end of their suspense was 
 at hand, told his subjects to prepare for the worst. 
 
 " When we were all in great consternation," writes 
 Maurice Chauncy, " he said to us : ' Very sorry 
 am I, and my heart is heavy, especially for you, my 
 younger friends, of whom I see so many round me. 
 Here you are living in your innocence. The yoke 
 will not be laid upon your necks, nor the rod of 
 * Amos, Statutes of Hen. VIII.," p. 283.
 
 216 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 persecution. But if you are taken hence, and mingle 
 among the Gentiles, you may learn the works of 
 them, and, having begun in the spirit, you may be 
 consumed in the flesh. And there may be others 
 amongst us whose hearts are still infirm. If these 
 mix again with the world, I fear how it may be with 
 them ; and what shall I say, and what shall I do, if 
 I cannot save those whom God has trusted to my 
 charge.' 
 
 " Then all who were present," says Chauncy, 
 " burst into tears, and cried with one voice, ' Let us 
 die together in our integrity, and heaven and earth 
 shall witness for us how unjustly we are cut off.' 
 
 "The prior answered sadly 'Would, indeed, 
 that it might be so ; that so dying we might live, as 
 living we die. But they will not do to us so great a 
 kindness, nor to themselves so great an injury. 
 Many of you are of noble blood ; and what I think 
 they will do is this : Me and the elder brethren they 
 will kill ; and they will dismiss you that are young 
 into a world which is not for you. If, therefore, it 
 depend on me alone if my oath will suffice for the 
 house I will throw myself for your sakes 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. If, however, they have determined 
 otherwise if they choose to have the consent of us 
 all the will of God be done. If one death will not 
 avail, we will all die.' 
 
 " So then, bidding us prepare for the worst, that
 
 The Carthusians. 2 1 7 
 
 the Lord when He knocked might find us ready, he 
 desired us to choose each our confessor, and to con- 
 fess our sins one to another, giving us power to 
 grant each other absolution. 
 
 ' The day after he preached a sermon in the 
 chapel on 59th Psalm ' O God, Thou hast cast us 
 off, Thou hast destroyed us,' concluding with the 
 words, ' It is better that we should suffer here a short 
 penance for our faults than be reserved for the 
 eternal pains of hell hereafter ; ' and, so ending, he 
 turned to us and bade us all do as we saw him do. 
 Then, rising from his place, he went direct to the 
 eldest of the brethren, who was sitting nearest to 
 himself, and, kneeling before him, begged his for- 
 giveness for any offence which in heart, word, or 
 deed he might have committed against him. Thence 
 he. proceeded to the next, and said the same ; and 
 so to the next, through us all, we following him and 
 saying as he did, each from each imploring pardon."' 
 
 "/Thus," writes Froude, "with unobtrusive noble- 
 ness did these poor men prepare themselves for their 
 ^nd ; not less beautiful in their resolution, not less 
 deserving the everlasting remembrance of mankind 
 than those three hundred who, in the summer morn- 
 ing, sat combing their golden hair in the passes of 
 Thermopylae. We will not regret their cause ; there 
 is no cause for which any man can more nobly suffer 
 than to witness that it is better for him to die than 
 to speak words which he does not mean. Nor, in 
 * Chauncy, in Froude, ii., Chapt. 9.
 
 218 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 this their hour of trial, were they left without higher 
 comfort." * 
 
 " The third day after," the story goes on, " was 
 the Mass of the Holy Ghost, and God made known 
 His presence among us. For when the Host was 
 lifted up, there came, as it were, a whisper of air, 
 which breathed upon our faces as we knelt. Some 
 perceived it with the bodily senses ; all felt it as it 
 thrilled into their hearts. And then followed a sweet, 
 soft sound of music, at which our venerable father 
 was so moved, God being thus abundantly manifested 
 among us, that he sank down in tears, and for a long 
 time could not continue the service we all remain- 
 ing stupified, hearing the melody, and feeling the 
 marvellous effects of it upon our spirits, but knowing 
 neither whence it came nor whither it went. Only 
 our hearts rejoiced as we perceived that God was 
 with us indeed. ''f 
 
 At this time Robert Laurence, the prior of the 
 Charterhouse of Beauvale, in Nottinghamshire and 
 Augustine Webster, prior of Axholme in Lincoln- 
 shire, came to visit and consult with their brethren 
 of the London house. The first of these had been a 
 member of this monastery. Five years before, he 
 had been called to succeed John Houghton in the 
 priorship of Beauvale, when the latter was summoned 
 to take that of London. The second, Augustine 
 
 * " Hist.," ii., p. 350. 
 
 "\ Chauncy, uf sup. The translation given throughout is that of 
 Mr. Froude in his History, Vol. ii., Cap. 9.
 
 The Carthusians. 219 
 
 Webster had gone to Axholme from Shene Charter- 
 house in Surrey. The three priors, after consultation, 
 determined to anticipate the coming of the king's 
 commissioners. By a personal interview with Crum- 
 well himself, they hoped to obtain some mitigation 
 of the expected royal demands. Perhaps, in accord- 
 ance with Houghton's determination, they desired to 
 offer themselves in behalf of their brethren. Crum- 
 well, on learning the purpose of their visit, refused 
 to listen to them and sent them forthwith from his 
 house to the Tower as rebels and would-be traitors.* 
 A week later, on April 2oth, 1535, the minister held 
 an examination of Webster and Laurence at his house 
 in the " Rolls." There were present a number of 
 the council as witnesses. The notary, John Ap-Rice, 
 records, that when asked whether they would take 
 the oath of supremacy and reject the authority of 
 any other but the king, over the Ecclesia Anglicana, 
 they both stoutly re fused, f 
 
 In prison the three fathers had been joined by 
 Father Richard Reynolds, a Brigittine monk of 
 Sion, who had been committed to ward for the same 
 cause. The depositions record the opinions of each 
 of the accused in much the same language. Hough- 
 ton's view about the supremacy was clear and 
 decided. Laurence and Webster both declared, that 
 they could " not take our sovereign lord to be 
 supreme head of the Church, but him that is by God 
 
 * Chauncy, " Commentariolus," &c., p. 76. 
 f Calendar, viii., No. 565 (i).
 
 22O Henry Fill, and the English Monasteries. 
 
 the head of the Church, that is the bishop of Rome, 
 as Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine teach." Richard 
 Reynolds declared, that though "he would spend 
 his blood for the king, still that the pope is head of 
 the Church, that hath been these three hundred 
 years, and not the king.'' And he also said " that 
 he doth, as a thousand thousand that are dead " had 
 done before in this matter.* As nothing was likely 
 to change the constancy of these fathers, a special 
 commission was appointed to try them for treason 
 under the act of succession. On April 24th the 
 grand jury panel was returned, and the trial appointed 
 for Wednesday, the 28th of the same month. Two 
 days before, they underwent an examination in the 
 Tower by Crumwell and a committee of the privy 
 council. Their refusal to accept the oath of supre- 
 macy on this occasion formed the substance of the 
 charge against them. Before the jury, on the 28th, 
 they were indicted, in common with father Reynolds, 
 on the charge that they " did, on 26 April, 27 Henry 
 VIII., at the Tower of London, in the county of 
 Middlesex, openly declare and say, ' the king, our 
 sovereign lord, is not supreme head in earth of the 
 Church of England.' ' They all four pleaded not 
 guilty to the novel charge of verbal treason. The ver- 
 dict of the jury was deferred till the following day.f 
 " The jury," as an old account of the trial 
 says, " could not agree to condemn these four 
 
 * Ibid., No. 566, also No. 565 (2). 
 
 t Deputy Keeper, Kept. Hi., App. ii., 238.
 
 The Carthusians. 
 
 221 
 
 religious persons, because their consciences proved 
 them they did not it maliciously. The judges here- 
 upon resolved them, that whosoever denied the supre- 
 macy denied it maliciously, and the expressing of 
 the word maliciously in the act was a void limit and 
 restraint of the construction of the words and inten- 
 tion of the offence. The jury, for all this, could not 
 agree to condemn them, whereupon Crumwell, in a 
 rage, went unto the jury and threatened them if they 
 condemned them not. And so being overcome by his 
 threats they found them guilty, and had great thanks, 
 but they were afterwards ashamed to show their faces, 
 and some of them took great (harm) for it."* 
 
 The verdict of " guilty " was followed by a sentence 
 of death on all the four, to be carried out according to 
 
 e> 
 
 the form usual in cases of high treason. They were 
 then conducted back to the Tower to prepare for 
 their end. Meanwhile, when Houghton lay in prison, 
 Crumwell's agents were busy amongst his community 
 endeavouring to win them over to compliance with 
 the king's orders. One of these commissioners, 
 John Whalley, who appears to have been specially 
 appointed to guard the Charterhouse at this time, 
 writes to Crumwell his views as to the methods 
 
 * B. Mus. Arund. MS., 152, f. 308. A similar account is 
 given by Chauncy. See also " Strype Mems.," i., 305. Mr. Fronde 
 (ii., 357 note), says that it is impossible Crumwell could have 
 threatened the jury, because the verdict was given the same day as 
 the petty jury were empanelled. The jury were returned on the 
 28th, whilst their verdict was given the following day. It does not 
 seem clear whether the pleadings and verdict were on the same day.
 
 222 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 most likely to succeed. " It is of no use," he says, 
 " for one Mr. Rastall to come there. He pleads, 
 indeed, that you (Crumwell) wished him daily to 
 resort hither," but the monks " laugh and jest at all 
 things he speaketh. No question of it," he con- 
 tinues, " they be exceedingly superstitious, ceremo- 
 nious, and pharisaical, and wonderfully addict to 
 their old mumfsimus ; nevertheless, better and more 
 charitable it were to convert them, than to put them 
 to the extremity of the law. I perceive right well by 
 many of them, but not all, that they care not to be 
 put from their religion, but they fear that in case 
 they should now swerve and go from their religion, 
 and hereafter the Pope and his adherents should 
 prevail, that then they should be grievously punished 
 (yea, unto death) for breaking of the oath that they 
 have made to the Pope, and no doubt of it they have 
 and use very sore punishments (as it is informed 
 me). Wherefore, as beforesaid, I would (saving 
 your mastership's better advice) that some honest, 
 learned (and men assured to the king's highness 
 and you) were sent hither. And thus I would have 
 them occupied for a season. And shortly after, I 
 would have the vicar of Croydon, Dr. Buckmaster, 
 Symonds and such other of the popish sort, in open 
 audience (and not to be suffered to speak with any 
 of them alone) not only to preach against their 
 superstitions and pharisaical ceremonies, yea, but 
 also the pope's usurped power. And after all this, 
 to cause the bishops of York, Winchester, Durham,
 
 The Carthusians. 223 
 
 Lincoln, Bath and London, yea and divers other 
 bishops that be near hand, in like manner to preach, 
 for they have great consideration and trust in them, 
 insomuch that some of them heretofore have said to 
 me that these foresaid bishops and divers others will 
 not say nor yet think but for fear, that the king's 
 grace should (or in any wise may) be supreme head 
 of the Church of England." If all this does not 
 suffice to change them, then the writer would advise, 
 that they be called before the nobility and others 
 and sentenced as they deserve.* 
 
 The three Carthusian priors, Houghton, Webster 
 and Lawrence, together with the Brigittine, father 
 Reynolds and his neighbour, John Hale, vicar of 
 Isleworth were executed at Tyburn on May 4th, 
 The details of the execution were of a nature more 
 horrible than usual, even in the terrible and barbarous 
 punishment of death for treason. The fact that the 
 religious were drawn to the place of execution in 
 their habits made a great impression upon the people, 
 and the whole was no doubt arranged in order to 
 afford a terrible example to religious and ecclesiastics 
 of Henry's power. To each, as he mounted the 
 scaffold, a pardon was offered if he would obey the 
 king and parliament. All in turn rejected the offer 
 of life at the price of a guilty conscience. 
 
 " It is altogether a new thing," writes Chapuys to 
 the emperor the following day (May 5th), "that the 
 dukes of Richmond and Norfolk, the earl of Wilt- 
 * Calendar, viii., No. 600.
 
 224 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 shire, his son, and other lords and courtiers were 
 present at the said execution, quite near the sufferers. 
 People say that the king himself would have liked to 
 see the butchery, which is very probable, seeing that 
 nearly all the court, even those of the privy chamber, 
 were there his principal chamberlain, Norres, bring- 
 ing with him 40 horses ; and it is thought that he 
 (the king) was of the number of five who came 
 thither accoutred and mounted like borderers, who 
 were armed secretly, with vizors before their faces, 
 of which that of the duke of Norfolk's brother got 
 detached, which has caused a great stir, together 
 with the fact that while the five thus habited were 
 speaking all those of the court dislodged."* 
 
 Houghton was the first to die. As he mounted 
 beneath the gibbet, in compliance with the usual 
 custom, he spoke briefly to the people. " 1 call 
 Almighty God to witness," he said, "and all good 
 people, and I beseech you all here present to bear 
 witness for me in the day of judgment, that being 
 here to die, I declare that it is from no obstinate 
 rebellious spirit that I do not obey the king, but 
 because I fear to offend the majesty of God. Our 
 holy mother the Church has decreed otherwise than 
 the king and the parliament have decreed, and there- 
 fore, rather than disobey the Church I am ready to 
 
 * Ibid., No. 666. On 23rd May Chapuys wrote to Granvelle to 
 say : " The king was not present at the execution of the Car- 
 thusians". He (the king) was very angry with Norfolk and Wilt- 
 shire for not answering one of them (Prior Houghton) when he 
 preached a remarkably fine sermon." Spanish St. Papers, v., 166^
 
 The Carthusians. 225 
 
 suffer. Pray for me and have mercy on my brethren, 
 of whom I have been the unworthy prior." Then, 
 kneeling down, he recited a few verses of the 3ist 
 Psalm and calmly resigned himself to the hands 
 of the executioner. The rope used was stout 
 and heavy, in order that the martyrs might not be 
 strangled before the rest of the barbarous butchery 
 could be performed. It is almost impossible to 
 credit the frenzy of diabolical cruelty which is said 
 to have been perpetrated on this occasion in the 
 presence of the court and, as the people believed, 
 of the king himself. Whilst still living they were 
 ripped up in each other's presence, their bodies dis- 
 honoured, their limbs torn off, and their hearts ' cut 
 out and rubbed into their mouths and faces.' "* 
 
 ' The faces of these men," writes Mr. Froude, 
 " did not grow pale ; their voices did not shake ; 
 they declared themselves liege subjects of the king, 
 and obedient children of the Church ; ' giving God 
 thanks that they were held worthy to suffer for the 
 truth.' All died without a murmur. The stern work 
 was ended with quartering the bodies ; and the arm 
 of Houghton was hung up as a bloody sign over the 
 archway of the Charterhouse to awe the remaining 
 brothers into submission. "f 
 
 In this there was found more difficulty than had 
 been anticipated. Two days after the execution, the 
 faithful Bedyll wrote to Crumwell about three of the 
 
 * Ibid., No. 726, Bishop of Faenza to M. Ambrogio. 
 f <! History," ii., p. 359. 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 fathers, of whom he could make nothing. On the 
 very day of the martyrdom of their prior he had 
 apparently gone to the Charterhouse, " and," he 
 says, " had with me divers books and annotations 
 both of mine own and others against the primacy of 
 the bishop of Rome and also of St. Peter, declaring 
 evidently the equality of the apostles by the law of 
 God. And after long communication of more than an 
 hour and a half with the vicar and procurator of the 
 house, I left those books and annotations with them, 
 that they should see the Holy Scriptures and doctors 
 thereupon concerning the said matters, and there- 
 upon conform themselves accordingly. And yester- 
 day they sent me the said books and annotations 
 again home to my house by a servant of theirs with- 
 out any word or writing. Wherefore, I sent to the 
 procurator to come and speak with me, seeing I kept 
 my bed by reason of sickness and could not come to 
 him ; and at his coming I demanded of him whether 
 he and the vicar and other of the seniors had seen 
 or heard the said annotations, or perused the titles 
 of the books making most for the said matters. And 
 he answered that the vicar and he and Newdigate 
 had spent the time upon them till nine or ten of the 
 clock at night, and that they saw nothing in them 
 whereby they were moved to alter their opinion. I 
 then declared to him the danger of his opinion, which 
 was like to be the destruction of them and their house 
 for ever ; and as far as I could perceive by my com- 
 munication with the vicar and procurator on Tuesday,
 
 The Carthusians. 
 
 227 
 
 and with the procurator yesterday, they be obsti- 
 nately determined to suffer all extremities rather than 
 to alter their opinion, regarding no more the death 
 of their father in word or countenance than (if) he 
 were living and conversing among them. I also 
 demanded of the procurator whether the rest of his 
 brethren were of like opinion, and he answered he 
 was not sure, but he thought they were all of one 
 mind."* In three weeks the fathers here complained 
 of, Humphrey Middlemore, William Exmew and 
 Sebastian Newdigate were lodged in prison. On 
 June 8th, 1535, the bishop of Faenza writes "that 
 the Carthusians, whom the king himself tried to per- 
 suade to recognize him as the head of the Church, 
 are in prison with chains round their necks, and will 
 certainly be put to death, but perhaps not so pub- 
 licly for fear of the displeasure of the people, which 
 was shown at the death of the others." f And 
 Chapuys shortly before mentions that there were 
 " three more Carthusians " in prison, whilst the rest 
 were strictly guarded in their convents by the king's 
 servants, " in whose custody are all the goods of the 
 monasteries of the order." " It is thought," he 
 adds, " that the king will suppress them, as they are 
 rich, and there is no hope of making the religious 
 change their opinion." J 
 
 The fact of their being chained in prison cannot 
 
 * Wright, " Suppress, of Monast.," Camd. Soc., p. 40. 
 f Calendar, Vol. viii., No. 846. 
 \ Ibid., No. 751.
 
 228 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. 
 
 now be questioned. A memorandum in the writing 
 of John Stow, the historian, leaves no doubt as 
 to the cruelty practised upon these religious whilst 
 in the Tower and Newgate. " Three of them 
 (the Carthusian fathers), that is to say, Hum- 
 phrey (Middlemore), William (Exmew), and Sebas- 
 tian (Newdigate), first stood in prison upright, 
 chained from the neck to the arms, and their legs 
 fettered with locks and chains, by the space of 
 thirteen days."' Two years later a similar cruelty 
 was practised upon a number of their brethren, and 
 under this prolonged punishment many died. 
 
 At the trial of these three fathers of the Charter- 
 house, before the same special commission of Oyer 
 and Ter miner appointed to try bishop Fisher, they 
 were charged with the same offence as that for which 
 their prior had already suffered death. It was 
 declared that on May 25, at Stepney, each of them 
 did say in conversation together, " I cannot nor will 
 consent to be obedient to the king's highness as a 
 true, lawful and obedient subject to take and repute 
 him to be supreme head in earth of the Church of 
 England under Christ. "t They pleaded " not guilty," 
 but were condemned on June 11, and executed 
 at Tyburn on the i9th of the same month. 
 
 * Ibid., No. 895. Sanders gives the same account of the in- 
 human treatment of these three fathers. "They had been," he writes, 
 " for fourteen days before they were put to death, forced to stand 
 upright without the possibility of stirring for any purpose whatever, 
 held fast by iron collars on their necks, arms and thighs." " Lewis' 
 Trans.," p. 119. 
 
 t Dep. Keeper Kept., iii., App., ii., 239.
 
 The Carthusians. 229 
 
 For two years no more of the Carthusians were put 
 in prison. They were left, in the hope that argu- 
 ments and restrictions as to liberty and diet would 
 break the spirit of constancy which they displayed. 
 Archdeacon Bedyll is alternately hopeful and des- 
 ponding. Six weeks after the execution of Middle- 
 more and his two companions he tells Crumwell that 
 he has now some " better hope of the obstinates of 
 the Charterhouse, who, lacking wit and reason, 
 hitherto have been more like madmen than other." 
 He adds a hint about a liberal grant of money, 
 which he will " cause to be conveyed according to 
 his master's pleasure." 
 
 The community were kept with the greatest strict- 
 ness. A body of laymen were appointed as the 
 governors of their house, which to all intents was 
 thus turned into a prison. From the letters of Jasper 
 Fyllol, one of these gaolers, to Crumwell we are 
 afforded one or two glimpses of the state of subjec- 
 tion under which the monks lived during this period. 
 They were kept apparently without sufficient and 
 necessary clothing, for, at the approach of winter in 
 1535, Fyllol complains that "two or three cwt. of 
 wax" had been taken out of the store-house. This, 
 he thinks, the religious are hoping to sell in order to 
 purchase warm garments.* 
 
 Another of the gaolers had written in the spring 
 to say he would take care no one should be admitted 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 284.
 
 230 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 without Cromwell's " token." He concludes his 
 report by saying that he forwards his master some 
 apples from the community store-house, adding (f if 
 they like you, they shall be kept for you as long as 
 they last, and provide for the convent almonds and 
 figs accordingly."* 
 
 In another letter Fyllol speaks of the difficulty he 
 finds in supplying the house according to the needs 
 of the religious, and the charity they urged him to 
 keep for " strangers in the buttery and at the buttery 
 door." He informs Crumwell also, that " in the 
 beginning of August last past my lord of Canter- 
 bury sent for two monks here, Rochester and 
 Rawlins," but had sent Rochester back again, while 
 the latter had now become a secular priest " and 
 eaten flesh. "f Chauncy speaks of Rawlins, as 
 always tepid in life, having no taste for the divine 
 office and as one who had long dreamt of casting 
 off the yoke of the religious life, so that Cranmer 
 would have found little difficulty in persuading him 
 to take the final step. In fact, Nicholas Rawlins 
 had himself written to Crumwell to declare his 
 willingness to accept the king as supreme head, 
 " and not act like the prior and other fathers of our 
 house." He further added : " I hope the supreme 
 head will dispense me from religion. I was professed 
 half a year and three weeks before my year of pro- 
 bation, and moreover I was sick in that half year 
 nine weeks," and have not been well since. " I do 
 * Ibid., viii., No. 601 . t Wright, p. 67.
 
 The Carthusians. 231 
 
 insure you," he concludes, " the religion is so hard, 
 what with fasting and with the great watch, that 
 there is not six whole monks within this cloister but 
 that they have one infirmity or other, which will be 
 their death sooner than God would that it should 
 be."* 
 
 Meantime a new prior had been placed over the 
 convent in the room of the martyred Houghton. 
 His name was William Trafford, and he had been, a 
 monk of Beauvale. In the beginning of the troubles 
 he had been bold enough in his declarations of 
 constancy and had even been placed under the 
 custody of the sheriff. This was some months 
 before, when Sir John Markham had gone with others 
 to the monastery of Beauvale to " take the value." 
 Sir John, as he tells Crumwell in a letter, had called 
 the "proctor and others of the convent" before 
 him, as the prior was at the time safely lodged in the 
 Tower waiting for his trial. " In a friendly conversa- 
 tion (he had) showed them that the king was of right 
 spiritual head." Upon this the procurator, William 
 Trafford, said, " I believe firmly that the pope of 
 Rome is supreme head of the Church Catholic." 
 When the commissioners asked whether he would 
 abide by his words, he replied, " usque ad mortem." 
 Moreover, he wrote his words down and Sir John 
 Markham carried the paper away and placed the 
 monk in safe custody. f What happened to change 
 
 * R. O. Crum. Corn, Vol. xxxv., No. 9. 
 t Calendar, viii., No. 560.
 
 232 Henry VII L and the English Monasteries. 
 
 the heart of this religious does not appear, but the 
 fact of his appointment and that Bedyll praises him 
 would be sufficient to prove the surrender of his 
 conscience to the king, to whom he subsequently 
 resigned his monastery. The religious never knew 
 him as a father and adviser. Of the period of his 
 administration Chauncy says : " Being deprived of 
 a prior exterior to ourselves, every man's conscience 
 was his prior." 
 
 On October 2nd, 1535, Jasper Fyllol wrote to Crum- 
 wella paper of suggestions for the better government 
 of the house. He considered that the number of 
 cloister monks "should be reduced by those who will 
 not acknowledge the king." They should also be 
 made to abandon their solitary life and " sit daily in 
 their 'fraytour' four of them to a mess of meat." This 
 would be a saving, as what served only twelve could 
 be thus made to do for twenty. He then goes onto 
 say, that he has " found in the prior's and proctor's 
 cells three or four foreign printed books," and thinks 
 there must be many more, as " they have great 
 pleasure in reading such, and little or none in the 
 New Testament or other books." He continues : 
 " Mr. Bedyll and Dr. Crome exhorted Rochester and 
 Fox for more than an hour, but prevailed not. 
 William Marshall lately gave twenty-four English 
 books, called the ' defence of peace,' to be distri- 
 buted among the monks, of whom many took them 
 saying they would read them if the president licensed 
 them." But " the third day they sent them back,
 
 The Carthusians. 233 
 
 saying that the president had so commanded. Dom 
 John Rochester took one and kept it four or five 
 days, and then burnt it, which is good matter to lay 
 to them at the time when your pleasure shall be to 
 visit them.''* 
 
 Cromwell's pleasure was to let them remain some 
 months more enduring a life, which must have been 
 hardly bearable. He hoped, no doubt, that sooner 
 or later they would be broken by the hardships and 
 resign themselves to the king's good pleasure. 
 " But," says Mr. Froude, " the spirit of the old 
 martyrs was in these friars." They came out of the 
 struggle for the most part victorious. Henry and 
 his minister were compelled to proceed to extremities. 
 For some time, however, before their final release 
 from persecution by a- death more merciful than 
 Cromwell's treatment, they had been placed under 
 the care of additional gaolers, and the instructions 
 given to these officers reveal the spirit which dictated 
 them. " First," the document runs, " that there be 
 iive or six governors of temporal men, learned, wise, 
 and trusty ; whereof three or four of them shall be 
 continually there together every meal and lodge 
 there every night." 
 
 " Item : that the said governors shall call all the 
 monks before them, and all the other servants and 
 officers of the house ; and to show them that the 
 king's grace hath pardoned them of all heresies and 
 treasons by any of them committed before that day, 
 * Ibid., ix., No. 523.
 
 234 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 giving them warning that if they eftsoon offend, to die 
 without mercy : and that there be a pardon pur- 
 chased for them all under the king's great seal." 
 
 " Item : that the same governors take the keys 
 from the proctors and other officers ; and to govern 
 the house, and receive all rents, and make all pay- 
 ments, and to be countable to the king's grace 
 thereof." 
 
 " Item : that the said governors call all the monks 
 to them severally, one after another, at dinner times ; 
 and to examine them of all their opinions, and to 
 exhort them to the truth. Showing them, that if any 
 of them will, he shall have a dispensation to leave 
 the order and to live otherwise ; and to have a con- 
 venient stipend for a year or two, till he have provided 
 himself of a living; so that he conform himself to 
 the king's laws. And to endeavour himself to learn 
 and to preach the word, which every priest is bound 
 to do. And yet by their religion, as it is said, they 
 have professed falsely the contrary, that none of 
 them shall ever preach the word of God." 
 
 " Item : to put all the monks to the cloister for a 
 season, and that no man speak to them but by the 
 licence of one of the said governors." 
 
 " Item : to take from them all manner of books, 
 wherein any errors be contained, and to let them all 
 have the Old Testament and the New Testament." 
 
 "Item : to cause them to show all their ceremonies, 
 and to teach them and to exhort them to leave and 
 forsake all such ceremonies that be naught."
 
 77? Carthusians. 235 
 
 " Item : if they find any of them so obstinate, that 
 in no wise will be reformed, then to commit him to 
 prison, till the council may take some other direction 
 for them. And they that will be reformed, to sever 
 them from the company of the obstinates, and to be 
 gently handled, and to cause them to utter the 
 secrets and mischiefs used among them." 
 
 " Item : there should be three or four times every 
 
 j 
 
 week during this visitation, a sermon made by some 
 discreet, well learned man, and all the monks, 
 officers, and servants, to be caused to be present ; 
 none exception, save only sickness ; and the said 
 preachers to have their chambers there, and meat 
 and drink, that they might quietly study therefore 
 during that time." 
 
 " Item : the lay brethren be more obstinate, and 
 more forward, and more unreasonable than the monks. 
 Therefore, they should be likewise examined, and 
 the obstinates punished or expulsed, and others kept 
 for a season, for knowledge of divers points of them 
 to be had."* 
 
 During this period of probation for the martyr's 
 crown, Chauncy relates that every pressure that 
 could be imagined was brought to bear upon them 
 in the hopes their resolution might be shaken. Privy 
 councillors would come and harangue them in their 
 chapterhouse on their blindness and perversity. 
 Sometimes these visits would be extended so long 
 that they were prevented chaunting their vespers or 
 * Strype, " Eccl. Mem.," i., p. 307. Ed. 1822.
 
 236 Henri/ VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 their matins. One Sunday four of them, who were 
 thought to be the most obstinate, and the leaders of 
 the rest, were taken by force to St. Paul's to listen to 
 a sermon against the pope. Indeed, had Hilsey (the 
 unworthy successor of the martyred Fisher in the see 
 of Rochester) obtained his desires, all the religious 
 of the Charterhouse would have been marshalled at 
 the cross weekly to listen to the sermons. * 
 
 At length, on May 4th, 1536, the anniversary of 
 Houghton's death, four, who had been regarded as 
 the leaders in the opposition to the king's designs, 
 were sent to the North of England and placed in 
 houses, the temper of which was known to be true to 
 Henry. Of the rest, eight were transferred to the 
 Brigittine convent of Sion to which a new prior of 
 zealous loyalty had been appointed, upon whose 
 efforts to shake their constancy Crumwell counted. 
 A year passed by before it was deemed prudent to 
 again demand the oath. Hardship, argument and 
 pressure of every kind kept up for two years had 
 sifted the chaff from the grain. The trial prepared 
 the strong for victory and left the weak at last in 
 the power of an enemy who had pursued them 
 so relentlessly. On May i8th, 1537, the royal com- 
 missioners attended in the chapterhouse and re- 
 ceived the required oath from the prior and twenty 
 of the brethren. Ten still resolutely refused and 
 William Say, the public notary, having summoned 
 them, ( testified to their continued obstinacy.f 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 989. t Rymer, xiv., p. 588.
 
 The Carthusians. 237 
 
 Their fate was quickly decided. On the 29th 
 of May, eleven days after their refusal, they were 
 removed to Newgate. Their number consisted of 
 three priests, D. Richard Bere, D. Thomas Johnson, 
 and D. John Green, one deacon, John Davy, and 
 five lay brothers, William Greenwood, Thomas 
 Scryven, Robert Salt, Walter Peerson, Thomas 
 Reding and William Home. Their treatment in 
 prison was similar to that of the three fathers of 
 their house two years previously. A pious lady 
 named Clement, afterwards mother Margaret 
 Clement, has left it on record that she bribed the 
 gaolers to allow her to visit these heroic monks in 
 their prison. Disguised as a milk-maid she went to 
 them and " fed them, putting meat in their mouths, 
 they being tied and not able to stir nor help them- 
 selves." She was thus for some days able to pre- 
 serve their lives, and perform other Christian acts of 
 charity for them. After this time the king, finding 
 they were not yet starved to death, commanded a 
 stricter watch to be kept over them. Even then, she 
 managed to gain access to the roof of their cell, 
 " and uncovering the ceiling or tiles over their heads, 
 by a string let them down meat in a basket, approach- 
 ing the same as well as she could unto their mouths 
 as they did stand chained against the posts. '" 
 
 After they had been in prison only sixteen days 
 Bedyl wrote to his master concerning them : " My 
 
 * Fr. Morris' " Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers," ist series, 
 pp. 27-28.
 
 238 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 very good lord, after my most hearty commenda- 
 tions, it shall please your lordship to understand that 
 the monks of the Charterhouse here at London, 
 which were committed to Newgate for their traitor- 
 ous behaviour long time continued against the king's 
 grace, be almost dispatched by the hand of God, as 
 it may appear to you by this bill enclosed, whereof, 
 considering their behaviour and the whole matter, I 
 am not sorry, but would that all such as love not the 
 king's highness and his worldly honour were in 
 like case. My lord (as ye may), I desire you, 
 in the way of charity and none otherwise, to be 
 good lord to the prior of the said Charterhouse, 
 who is as honest a man as ever was in that habit (or 
 else 1 am much deceived), and is one who never 
 offended the king's grace by disobedience to his laws, 
 but hath laboured very sore continually for the refor- 
 mation of his brethren. And now, at last, at my 
 exhortation and instigation, constantly moved, and 
 finally persuaded his brethren to surrender their 
 house, lands, and goods into the king's hands, and to 
 trust to his mercy and grace. I beseech you, my 
 lord, that the said prior may be so treated, by your 
 help, that he be not sorry and repent that he hath 
 feared and followed your sore words and my gentle 
 exhortation made unto him to surrender his said 
 house, and think that he might have kept the same, 
 if your lordship and I had not led him to the said 
 surrender."* 
 
 * Wright, p. 162 ; From London, 14 June, 1537.
 
 The Carthusians. 239 
 
 The list of Carthusians, which archdeacon Bedyll 
 says he forwards to Crumwell, is not printed by 
 Wright, although it is in the same collection in the 
 British Museum from which he published the letter 
 itself. It is of great interest as showing that five of 
 the ten had already died from their prison hardships. 
 It runs thus : 
 
 !537- J une H- 
 There are departed, 
 
 Brother William Greenwood. 
 Dan. John Davy. 
 Brother Robert Salt. 
 Brother Walter Peerson. 
 Dan. Thomas Green. 
 There are even at the point of death, 
 Brother Thomas Scryven. 
 Brother Thomas Reding. 
 
 There are sick, 
 Dan. Thomas Johnson. 
 Brother William Home. 
 One is healed, 
 Dan. (Richard) Bird (Bere).* 
 
 In a very short time the list of the "departed" 
 included all but one. " Furthermore, the other 
 nine," writes the historian Stow, " died in prison 
 with stink and miserably smothered."! The one, 
 who survived the horrors of that Newgate dungeon 
 
 * B. Mus. Cott. MS., Cleop., E. iv., f. 256 b. 
 t B. Mus. Had. MS., 530, f. 54.
 
 240 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 with its slow tortures of starvation and suffocation, 
 was not the monk reported by Bedyll as " healed," 
 but Brother William Home. He lingered in prison 
 till 1540, when on Wednesday, August 4th, he was 
 hung at Tyburn. 
 
 Of the four monks, who had been sent to the north 
 of England in 1536, after all the efforts of Crumwell 
 and his agents had failed to shake their constancy, 
 two received the martyr's palm. They had been 
 placed in the Charterhouse at Hull and complaints 
 having reached Crumwell that they showed no- 
 inclination to conform, in 1537 power was granted 
 to the royal officers of the district to enforce the 
 decrees of parliament. The two fathers were con- 
 sequently seized and brought to York, where they 
 were condemned to death by the Duke of Norfolk. 
 The sentence was carried out in the same city, and 
 their bodies left to hang in chains. " Item. Two of 
 these eighteen," writes Stow, " did remain hanging, 
 the which were John Rochester and James Wal- 
 wercke."* 
 
 When archdeacon Bedyll wrote his letter on June 
 1 4th, 1537, the monastery of the London Charter- 
 house had ceased to exist. By means of the threats, 
 or, as he calls them, the " sore " words of Crumwell 
 and his own persuasions and promises, the remnant 
 of the community had been induced to surrender 
 their house and property to the king. This was done 
 on June 10, and according to the terms, doubtless,. 
 * Stow, tit sup.
 
 The Carthusians. 241 
 
 dictated by Cromwell's agent. " Forasmuch," the 
 document runs, " as the most and greater part of us 
 and other not a few of our convent both living and 
 dead, have grievously offended the most illustrious 
 royal majesty of England, and have so provoked the 
 indignation of his majesty against us and our priory 
 that for our deserts, by the laws of England, not only 
 could the moveable and immoveable good, the rights, 
 and possessions of our priory be confiscated, but 
 also the bodies of those who are living might justly 
 and lawfully be adjudged to a most severe death 
 considering that it is more prudent and better for us 
 spontaneously and freely to give over -all that is ours 
 to the hands and will of the royal clemency than to 
 experience the severity of the laws against us and 
 ours, and that the most just anger of his majesty 
 against us and the rigour of the laws may be more 
 mild and tolerable, we give grant and deliver to our 
 illustrious prince and lord Henry VIII." * all our pro- 
 perty and wealth. 
 
 For this compliance, with what was thus repre- 
 sented to them as the king's desires, the religious 
 were rewarded, but hardly as liberally as Bedyll appears 
 to have led them to suppose^ A paper among the 
 Augmentation office records, headed "Monks to have 
 
 e> ' 
 
 pensions," and signed T. Crumwell, shows that 20 
 a year was promised to Trafford, and to fourteen of 
 
 * Morris, "Troubles," ist series, p. 24, from the Latin in Bear- 
 croft's " History of Button." Lond., 1737, p. 255. The original 
 is in Rot. Glaus. 29 H. VIII., pars. i. 16. 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 his religious ^5 each. The last name on the list is 
 that of Maurice Chauncy, to whom we are indebted 
 for so much of our knowledge about the troubles of 
 the Carthusian fathers at this period and who so 
 narrowly missed the crown of martyrdom gained by 
 his braver brethren.* 
 
 Of the forty-eight members living in the monastery 
 in 1535, thirty were choir monks and the rest lay 
 brethren. Twenty signed away their monastery in 
 1537, but continued to remain there till November 
 the 1 5th, 1539, when twelve choir religious, six lay 
 brethren and three inmates of the cloister were 
 forcibly expelled. In December of the same year 
 pensions were granted by letters patent to seventeen 
 of these religious,! according to the rate promised 
 by Crumwell, and two years subsequently a similar 
 grant was enrolled for the eighteenth.! It is exceed- 
 ing doubtful whether even these small pensions were 
 long paid. In 1542 the names of only three are 
 entered in the Augmentation office books as having 
 received the promised pension, and in the first year 
 of Philip and Mary only one continued to draw his 
 On June I2th, 1542, the king granted the use 
 
 * R. O. Augmentation Office, Miscell. Books, No. 245, f. 83. 
 
 f Ibid., No. 233, f. 64, et seq. The names were : William Traf- 
 ford, prior, 20 ; Edward Skerne, vicar, .^"5 ; Thos. Barmingham, 
 John Enys, Richard Tragose, Thos. Baker, Ed. Digby, John 
 Bardeyn, John Fox, William Broke, Barthol. Burgon, John 
 Bulleyn, Oliver Batemanson, John Nicholson, Maurice Chauncy, 
 William Wayte. 
 
 J Ibid., No. 235, f. 76. Thomas Salter, Ap. 1541.
 
 The Carthusians. 243 
 
 of the buildings of the old Charterhouse to John 
 Bridges and Thomas Hall as a place to keep the 
 royal tents and engines of war. Chauncy records 
 with horror the scenes which desecrated the sacred 
 buildings, as sacrilegious men tossed their dice upon 
 the very altar of the church. In 1544 the site and 
 buildings were bestowed upon the earl of Northum- 
 berland.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE VISITATION OF MONASTERIES IN 1535-6. 
 
 ON the 22nd of June, 1535, the feast of England's 
 promartyr, St. Alban, the saintly and venerable 
 bishop Fisher died for his faith. Four days before, 
 the Carthusian fathers had preceded him to their 
 common reward. A fortnight later, on Tuesday the 
 octave day of St. Peter, and (as he himself re- 
 marked) the eve of the translation of St. Thomas of 
 Canterbury, the learned Sir Thomas More laid down 
 his life for the same cause. Thus by the close of 
 the first week in July the axe at Tower Hill and the 
 gallows at Tyburn had rid Henry VIII. of the fore- 
 most opponents of his concubinage with Anne 
 Boleyn, and of his assumed ecclesiastical supremacy. 
 There was, however, hardly any period of his reign 
 when the king and his counsellors were more harassed 
 than during the latter half of this year. The foreign 
 relations of the country were becoming strained. 
 The people at home were restless and disheartened. 
 The longest memory could not recall a summer more 
 unfavourable to agriculture. The corn harvest was 
 well nigh a complete failure, the yield being scarcely
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 245 
 
 more than the third part of an average crop.* It 
 had rained, so said the people, ever since the execu- 
 tion of the Carthusians,! and they looked upon this 
 as a mark of divine anger at the misdeeds of Henry. \ 
 So pitiable was the state of the country that the 
 farmers of royal lands were quite unable to pay their 
 rents, and Thomas Crumwell was unwilling to 
 exasperate the people by levying the taxes, which 
 had been granted by the authority of Parliament. 
 Sickness was everywhere prevalent, and for this 
 cause parliament, convened for November, was 
 prorogued till the following February. Meanwhile 
 the royal purse was empty and the salaries of the 
 officials remained unpaid, while the household of 
 the unfortunate queen Catherine was left entirely 
 without resources. John Gostwyk, Crumwell's secre- 
 tary, wrote from London " though much in fear of 
 the plague," I making earnest and constant demands 
 for money. On Thursday, 2nd September, for 
 instance, he says that " Sir E. Bedingfeld has been 
 again about money for the princess dowager's 
 house. He wants to buy ling and cod and other 
 necessaries at Sturbridge fair. I have employed 
 almost all the money I have." Again, on the 27th, 
 he writes : " Sir E. Bedingfeld came for some 
 
 * Bib. Nat. MSS. Dupuy, Vol. 547. Quoted by P. Friedmann. 
 "Anne Boleyn," Vol. ii., p. 120. 
 f Ibid., June 18, 1535. 
 J Calendar, ix., No. 594. 
 Friedmann, ut sup. 
 || Calendar, ix., No. 2.
 
 246 Henry VIII. and the Rnglish Monasteries. 
 
 money, as he is clean without, and the debts of the 
 house amount to 1,000 marks; ^200 is due to a 
 London fishmonger, and ^180 to a grocer, who are 
 calling every day upon me for the same."* 
 
 The case of the court was thus almost desperate 
 when the king repaired to Winchester to spend 
 the autumn. Whilst there, he made a first essay 
 in replenishing his empty coffers from ecclesiastical 
 treasuries. At the end of September Chapuys 
 wrote to the emperor that, " the king having 
 arrived in Winchester, where he is at present, 
 caused an inventory to be made of the treasures 
 of the church, from which he took certain fine 
 rich unicorn's horns (licornes) and a large silver 
 cross adorned with jewels. "f These modest begin- 
 nings were, however, coloured by some show at least 
 of restitution, for the king bestowed upon the com- 
 munity certain mills, which he took from the bishop 
 for the purpose. 
 
 The execution of bishop Fisher removed one 
 obstacle in the path of spoliation on which Henry 
 had now entered. The bishop had steadily set his 
 face against any proposal of this kind. A valuable 
 contemporary life of the venerable martyr, which has 
 somehow generally escaped notice, \ says that "whilst 
 he (Fisher) was alive he maintained the privileges of 
 the monasteries." The sub-contemporary life of 
 Dr. Richard Hall, which is preserved in substance 
 
 * Ibid., No 451. t Ibid., No. 434. 
 
 % B. Mus. Arundel MS., 152, fol. 159.
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 247 
 
 in that printed by Thomas Bailey in 1655, relates 
 that it was proposed to grant the king all monasteries 
 under the value of ^"200 a year, because he had 
 been put to great charges in the matter of the 
 divorce. The bishop " could never be brought to 
 that, but openly resisted it with all the force he 
 could, and on a time said among them : My lords, 
 pray you take good heed what you do in hasty 
 granting to the king's demands in this great matter. 
 It is here required that we should grant him the 
 small abbeys for ease of his charges. Whereunto if 
 we condescend it is like the great will be demanded 
 ere it be long after. . For the time all was averted, 
 and no more said as long as this good father 
 lived, but shortly after his death the matter was 
 revived, and granted according to the king's good 
 will and pleasure."* 
 
 In determining to strike a blow at the monastic 
 bodies Crumwell had a double object to overthrow 
 the papal system in its strongholds,! and to finger 
 some of the riches with which the piety of ten cen- 
 turies had endowed them. By the middle of the 
 year 1534 commissioners were busily journeying 
 through England to tender the oath of supremacy 
 to the religious. As no special form had been pre- 
 scribed by parliament, Crumwell took advantage of 
 
 * Fol. 396. See also " Cobbett's Parl. Hist.," Vol. i., p. 502. 
 
 f Lord Herbert, "Hen. VIII.," p. 395, says: "They (the 
 monasteries) were looked upon as a body of reserve for the pope, 
 and always ready to appear in his quarrels."
 
 248 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 the omission. He made his agents tender to the 
 monks a much more stringent and explicit renuncia- 
 tion of the papal supremacy and jurisdiction than 
 that rejected by More and Fisher, and already sub- 
 scribed to by many of the secular clergy. The 
 commissioners appear to have met with only partial 
 success. The intolerable nature of the oath demanded 
 seems to suggest that the intention of its framer was 
 to drive the religious to refuse, and thus to create a 
 pretext for falling upon and destroying their houses.* 
 If the new system of religion was to prevail, it was 
 impossible to allow large bodies of men and women 
 to remain opposed at heart, if not openly, to the policy 
 of Henry's undisguised defiance of papal authority. 
 The royal supremacy was the touchstone of loyalty 
 and religion in the minds of king and minister. A 
 " strong coercion " had already done much to beat 
 down opposition and remorseless executions had made 
 further individual resistance, to the despotic will of 
 
 * Canon Dixon, " Hist, of Church of England," Vol. i., p. 213, 
 says that " the oath was taken in almost every chapter house where 
 it was tendered." This is generally stated as a fact, but as far as 
 is known there is no proof of it. The list of " acknowledgments 
 of royal supremacy," printed in the yth report of the Deputy 
 keeper, App. II., contains all the known documents as to the 
 religious bodies. They number only 105, a very small fraction of 
 the whole. Of these Mr. F. Devon, the assistant keeper of public 
 records, in making the list remarks : " I believe it contains all the 
 original acknowledgments of supremacy deposited in the branch 
 public record office at the chapter house. The signatures are in 
 my opinion not all autographs, but frequently in the same hand- 
 writing, and my impression is that the writer of the deed often 
 added many of the names."
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 249 
 
 the king and machiavellian policy of Thomas Crum- 
 well all but impossible. Union, moreover, might be 
 expected to give strength and tenacity of purpose 
 to the monks and friars. Their direct dependence, 
 besides, on the Holy See caused them to be 
 regarded in a special way as the " spies of the 
 pope."* The popular veneration in which they were 
 heldf must in these circumstances have made them 
 particularly obnoxious and, as far as Crumwell and 
 his policy was concerned, dangerous. It was the 
 opinion of more than one foreigner in England at 
 the time that any movement of the emperor or pope 
 against Henry would have made the nation rise 
 against their rulers, j John Ap Rice and Thomas 
 Legh, afterwards two of the royal visitors of the 
 monasteries, who had been throughout England on 
 the king's business, and so had means of forming a 
 judgment, declared that even the bishops "would 
 refer their jurisdiction to someone else than the king 
 if they dared' ' Hence the immediate necessity of 
 subduing the monastic bodies, which Crumwell re- 
 
 o ' 
 
 garded as so many strongholds of papal power 
 scattered throughout the country. " As many of 
 the great men of the state and Church thought," 
 writes von Ranke, " so thought also the pious 
 
 * Rec. Off. Crum. Cor., Vol. xv., No. 7. 
 
 t See Harpsfield, ' Treatise on the Divorce," Camd. Societ. 
 Ed., p. 296-301. The records of the Pilgrimage of Grace afford 
 ample evidence of this popular esteem. 
 
 I Calendar, Vol. ix., Nos. 435, &c. 
 
 Ibid., No. 424.
 
 250 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 members of the monasteries and cloistered convents. 
 They opposed the supremacy not, as they said, from 
 inclination to disobedience, but because Holy Mother 
 Church ordered otherwise than king and parliament 
 ordained. The apology merely served to condemn 
 them. In the rules they followed, in the orders to 
 which they belonged, the intercommunion of Latin 
 Christianity had its most living expression, but it 
 was exactly this that the king and parliament wished 
 to sever. Wolsey had, as we know 7 , and with the 
 help of Crumwell, taken in hand to suppress many of 
 them, but in the new order of things there was 
 absolutely no place for the monastic system. It 
 was necessarily sacrificed to the unity of the 
 country, and at the same time to the greed of 
 great men."* 
 
 This " greed of great men," and in the first place 
 of the king and Crumwell, was the second motive 
 which prompted the suppression of the religious 
 houses. It is difficult for us to estimate at its true 
 value the prize which Henry hoped to obtain in the 
 estates of the religious bodies. Nearly all the 
 wealth of the country at this time consisted of real 
 property ; the amount of personal property being 
 comparatively insignificant. Of the whole area of 
 England, the part owned by the monasteries was 
 very large, although their wealth has been greatly 
 exaggerated.! Still, the prize was more than regal, 
 
 * " Hist, of England," Vol. i., p. 158 (ed. 1875). 
 t The revenue of the king at this time has been estimated at 
 about ^140,000 a year. Hume calculates the whole rental of the
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 251 
 
 and by this time not only had Henry's appetite been 
 sharpened by his appropriation as supreme eccle- 
 siastical authority of first fruits and other Church 
 revenues, but the man who had been bold enough 
 to oppose his schemes had already paid the 
 penalty in his execution. But even now the breach 
 with Rome was by no means regarded as definitive. 
 There was still some slight hope that peace might 
 be made. Chapuys, the imperial ambassador, told 
 Crumwell that, at all events the statutes already 
 passed, " by which the king received inestimable 
 profit from churchmen* might be confirmed to some 
 extent." The suggestion, however, was calculated 
 to arouse Crumwell's fears for himself, as it opened 
 up a possibility of the ruin of Anne Boleyn and her 
 party, which would involve his own fall. To get rid of 
 the religious houses would make it almost impossible 
 to turn back along the path that had been entered 
 on. It would, moreover, strike at the very heart of 
 the pope's power in England and most effectually 
 dash the hopes entertained of its renewal. As early 
 as May, 1535, Chapuys wrote to Charles V. : " The 
 people are being constantly pillaged and eaten up. 
 
 nation at ,"3,000,000, of which from ^140,000 to ^"170,000 be- 
 longed to the religious bodies (Cf. Lingard, Note E., Vol. vi.). 
 Besides this, Henry obtained vast sums of money from the Church 
 plate and jewels of the monasteries, so that taking all into account, 
 and putting the value of the money then at a twelfth of the present 
 value, the property confiscated must have been worth some 
 ^"50,000,000 of our money (Cf. Blunt, " Reformation," p. 371). 
 
 * The act of parliament giving to the king " first fruits " and 
 " tenths."
 
 Hettry Till, and the English Monasteries. 
 
 It is thought the king will suppress them (the Car- 
 thusians) as they are rich, and there is no hope of 
 malcimr them change their orjtnioos. 81 * 
 
 & ~~ r 
 
 Two years before, a paifiament had transferred the 
 right of visitation from the pope to the kmg.f 
 Henry was empowered to issue commissions for 
 raiting ** monasteries, priories, houses and places 
 lefigious exempt."'' In the methods of visitation 
 Grumwefl, as commissioner for Wolsey, had been 
 weffl instructed. He had gone round the country 
 for that purpose and gained himself a reputation 
 " lor accevahiBty to bribes and presents in the dis- 
 posal of monastic leases.**} Lord Herbert states 
 that the scheme for the dissolution of monasteries 
 was dtsrnssr-d at a meeting of the council where it 
 met with considerable opposition- From this dis- 
 approval of die measure the king saw it would be 
 nerrs'saiy to carry out his designs by degrees, f 
 
 The royal commissioners fast visited the Charter- 
 house monks and the Observants of Richmond and 
 Greenwich, ^loitfyaf^ they got to work, they found 
 their paths cmeused by the bishops. The king's 
 
 t aoufli dbasBE off aa sees, *515 "G&mxniag Fetters pence and 
 
 J Ikcmars * Hm. VIH," VL E, p- a8. 
 
 f ^Ufcrf Efcm.VIIL,*pL424- As flc i IIMI 1 boots off 
 
 I.: . . -. -. - - ; . : "^"7 :__ , - -, - L--- t -i -^. -.-..-- 
 . . " ; : ' T . " ; ~' ' c : ' ": i' ".'"-. : >r " ':.-:".: 
 
 .. : :. i '.'-.: _.:.; '.'j: v. ; i_: ::.- :.::. :- ; " :.".: ::L. ;>f :*:
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 253 
 
 letter of September iSth to Crammer suspended ail 
 episcopal authority during the progress of the com- 
 mission. The bishops did not relish this interference,, 
 and it was not tin a fortnight later (October a) that 
 the archbishop of Canterbury issued the king's 
 inhibition to his suffragans,* Almost at the same 
 time, two of the commissioners, Legh and Ap Rice, 
 " supposing the bishops would be in hand with yon 
 again touching the inhibitions/''^ famished Cnimwefl 
 with their reasons for thus getting: the bishops sus- 
 pended from using their jurisdiction. 
 
 At this time the universities of Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge were looked upon almost in the fight of 
 monastic houses. Early in September Dr. Layfeon 
 is found at Oxford and Dr. Legh, a fitting coadjutor,, 
 similar! v engaged at the sister university. Lech had 
 
 J ^ ^> ^ 
 
 written on Sept. 30! to Cromwell urging the visita.- 
 tion of these colleges,, bat tefling him "well to 
 consider whom he sent to the universities of Oxford 
 and Cambridge, where all would either be found 
 virtue and goodness, or else the fountain of afl vice 
 and mischief.""; Layton's account of Oxford and 
 his doings there gives an insight into the rough-and- 
 ready work performed during that visit. 
 
 "We have set Duns in Bocardo/'f he writes, 
 
 * GdoMhr, is., X<a. 517. 
 t Aft, X<a. 434. 
 
 * Wrgbt, "SojpfssssMm of MnntaL,'* Quad, Sac* p. 61. 
 "Bocudo"' was the eld XdarthgBtteofOsfentd. fenra 
 
 as a pmm and hence nine BUM becane a gcaaai tern inr 
 
 2nd SEEKS, TnnL, I OcJL, \
 
 254 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 "and have utterly banished him Oxford for ever, 
 with all his blind glosses. (He) is now made a 
 common servant to every man, fast nailed up upon 
 posts at all common houses of easement : id quod 
 oculis meis vidi ; and the second time we came to 
 New College, after we had declared your injunctions, 
 we found all the great quadrant court full of the 
 leaves of Duns, the wind blowing them into every 
 corner. And there we found one Mr. Greenfield, a 
 gentleman of Buckinghamshire, gathering up part of 
 the said books' leaves (as he said) therewith to make 
 him sevvels or blansheres to keep the deer within 
 the wood, thereby to have the better cry with his 
 hounds. " Besides thus abolishing the study of 
 scholastic philosophy, as typified by the works of 
 Duns Scotus, the study of canon law was prohibited 
 and further and more stringent rules were imposed on 
 the monastic students. 
 
 The commissioners, the chief of whom, with 
 Legh and Layton, were Ap Rice, Dr. London and 
 Bedyll, entered on their task armed with the most 
 complete authority. They really, however, continued 
 to be in the most servile dependence on the chief 
 inquisitor, Crumwell. " Having experience not long 
 ago in myself," as Ap Rice puts it in a letter to his 
 master, " how grievous, yea and deadly, it is for 
 any man to have the displeasure of such a man as 
 you are. . I would not wish my most enemy so great 
 a displeasure." || 
 
 * Ibid., p. 71. t Calendar, ix., No. 630.
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 255 
 
 Layton also, in an abject letter to Crumwell 
 begged that he might be sent to visit the north part 
 of England. He promised that no one else, " of what 
 degree soever he be, shall do the kyng's highness so 
 good service in this matter for those parts, doing all 
 things so diligently for your purpose and discharge. 
 Ourdesire is, therefore," he said, (< now to declare unto 
 you our true hearts and faithful minds, our fast and 
 unfeigned service that we bear towards you and owe 
 unto you, as ye have of right bound us."* It was 
 not till later in the year, however, that Layton had 
 his wish granted. Meantime he and the others were 
 busy enough. They were furnished with a set of 
 eighty-six articles of inquiry f and with twenty-five 
 injunctions, to which they had power to add much at 
 their discretion. The articles of inquiry were search- 
 ing, the injunctions minute and exacting. Framed 
 in the spirit of three centuries earlier, unworkable in 
 practice and enforced by such agents, it is easy to 
 understand, even were there no written evidence of 
 the fact, that they were galling and unbearable to 
 the helpless inmates of the monasteries. We may 
 give a passing notice to one or two of these regula- 
 tions, as they show the spirit which actuated those 
 who framed them. All religious under twenty-four 
 years of age, or who had been professed under 
 
 * Wright, p. 156. The editor puts this letter in 1537, but both 
 internal evidence and the date " Friday, June 4th," show that it 
 was written at this period. 
 
 f Printed together with the injunctions in Wilkins' " Concilia," 
 iii., 786.
 
 256 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 twenty, were to be dismissed from the religious life. 
 Those who were left became practically prisoners in 
 their monasteries. No one was allowed to leave the 
 precincts (which even in the larger monasteries were 
 very confined as to limit) or to visit there. In many 
 instances porters, who were in reality gaolers, were 
 appointed to see that this impossible regulation was 
 kept. What was simply destructive of all discipline 
 and order in the monasteries was an injunction that 
 every religious, who wished to complain of anything 
 done by his superior or any of his brethren, was to 
 have a right at any time to appeal to Crumwell. To 
 facilitate this the superior was ordered to find any 
 subject the money and means for prosecuting such 
 an appeal in person, if he so desired. 
 
 Injunctions such as these could only have been in- 
 tended to invite disobedience and thus to give the 
 king numberless opportunities of interference with 
 the internal economy of the monasteries. His object, 
 apparently, was to harass the monks into giving up a 
 bootless struggle and into abandoning their houses. 
 The visitor Ap Rice, not so deeply in Crumwell's 
 counsels as some of his colleagues, wrote that his 
 companion Legh was pushing matters too fast. He 
 remarked that it was impossible for the religious to 
 be kept as prisoners, and that even the Carthusians 
 had found it absolutely necessary to allow their 
 priors to go abroad on business of their monastery.* 
 Legh, however, discloses the truth as to the 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 139
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 257 
 
 secret policy pursued by Crumwell. In a letter 
 from the abbey of Denny a month or so later he 
 writes: "By this ye may see that they shall not 
 need to be put forth, but that they will make instance 
 themselves, so that their doing shall be imputed to 
 themselves and to no other." To this letter Ap Rice 
 adds a postscript, showing that he too now under- 
 stood the object of the royal injunctions. " Although 
 I reckon it well done that all were out," he says, 
 " yet I think it were best that at their own instant 
 suit they might be dismissed to avoid calumniation 
 and envy. And so compelling them to observe these 
 injunctions ye shall have them all to do shortly. 
 And the people shall know it the better that it 
 cometh upon their suit, if they be not discharged 
 straight while we be here, for then the people would 
 say that we went for nothing else, even though the 
 truth were contrary."' 
 
 Mere petty vexations, however, were not the chief 
 means for carrying out the great work of destruction. 
 Layton, CrumwelPs right-hand man in this matter, 
 saw in the supremacy question a screw to torture 
 consciences. By inducing a cowardice resulting 
 from actions against conscience, he prepared his 
 victims for the final surrender of their personal rights. 
 " I should advise you," he says, in a letter containing 
 his first suggestion as to the visitation of the pro- 
 vince of York, " to set forth the king's authority as 
 supreme head by all possible means. There can be 
 * Ibid., No. 708. 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 no better way to beat the king's authority into the 
 heads of the rude people of the north than to show 
 them that the king intends reformation and correc- 
 tion of religious. They are more superstitious than 
 virtuous, long accustomed to frantic fantasies and 
 ceremonies, which they regard more than either God 
 or their prince. 
 
 " The Book of Articles is clear written, in the 
 custody of Bartlett your clerk, and a commission is 
 ready for the same. You will never know," he adds 
 significantly, "what I can do till you try me."' 
 
 No sooner were the commissioners at their work 
 than difficulties rose up amongst them. The letters 
 in which they refer their quarrels to Crumwell are 
 instructive, in regard as well to the character, as to 
 the methods, of these chosen instruments of reform. 
 Legh complains to Crumwell of Layton, and he in 
 his turn is complained of by his companion Ap Rice. 
 Layton is inclined to be too easy in keeping the un- 
 fortunate religious strict prisoners. " He has left it 
 more at the discretion of the head," writes Legh ; 
 " I have not, in order that they might the more know 
 the king's supreme ecclesiastical power."f More- 
 over, he has not always dismissed those under 
 twenty-four years of age. In reply, Layton writes : 
 "And as touching the injunctions which your 
 mastership do take to be very slender, it may please 
 you to understand that they be not given for in- 
 junctions, but only for summary monitions and rules 
 * Ibid., viii., p. 375. f Ibid., ix., No. 621.
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 259 
 
 to be observed until the injunctions shall hereafter 
 come to every place under the king's seal . . And 
 by your better advice I think it in no wise expedient 
 to give injunctions forthwith but viva voce, or else by 
 some note in writing, somewhat to do for a rule and 
 order until the injunctions shall come. Over this, 
 when your mastership writeth that the king's grace's 
 pleasure is that the injunctions should be absolute, 
 it shall be. I dare say well," adds the wily agent, 
 " that when ye have known my conceit in the rules 
 and injunctions, and what I have there done in every 
 condition, the king shall have no less expectation of 
 your affairs than his grace had heretofore. Praying 
 God that rather I may be buried quick than to be 
 the occasion w T hy the king's highness should diminish 
 any part of the ' affiance/ confidence, or the expec- 
 tation of your assured and proved mind towards his 
 grace."' This would seem to mean that Layton 
 had schemes of his own for harrying the religious, 
 which he did not think fit to communicate, by letter 
 at least, even to Crumwell. The nature of his " con- 
 ceit " may be gathered sufficiently from his later 
 letters. 
 
 John Ap Rice was not better pleased with his 
 companion, Dr. Legh, than the latter had been with 
 Layton. He writes to Crumwell : " I see you are 
 not pleased because I have not told you of Dr. 
 Legh's demeanour. I often thought I ought to have 
 revealed certain abuses and excesses, but first, I saw 
 * R. O. Crum. Cor., Vol. xx., No. 17.
 
 260 Henry VII L and the English Monasteries. 
 
 how little the complaint of others, like the abbot of 
 Bruton,* where he used himself, methought, very 
 insolently, did succeed. And thinking that his de- 
 meanour at Bradstock, Stanley and Edington, where 
 he made no less ruffling with the heads than he did 
 at Bruton, should of all likelihood come likewise to 
 your knowledge, and saw nothing said unto him 
 therefore : and also supposing that you, considering 
 how he was one of them that depraved me hereto- 
 fore with your. mastership, for no just cause, but for 
 displeasure which he have towards me for certain 
 causes which 1 will declare unto you more at 
 leisure . . I called some of my servants at London 
 to come with me and see all his proceedings, gestures, 
 and manner of going thence at Westminster and St. 
 Paul's. I did not want to go with him lest he, with 
 his bold excuse, wherein he is, I advise you, ever 
 ready, would have overcome me, being but of small 
 audacity, especially in accusations. . I am not elo- 
 quent in accusations as some men be. 
 
 " First, in his going he is too insolent and ' pom- 
 
 * This abbot had been visited by Layton about the middle 
 of August, who complained that there " and Glastonbury . . the 
 brethren be so straight kept that they cannot offend " (Wright, p. 
 59), when on the 23rd of the same month Legh arrived, and 
 claimed the power to visit again. No wonder " the abbot, little re- 
 garding the authority committed to him, with sharp and quick 
 answers," said : if he " would visit them anew it should be the very 
 undoing of all abbots and monasteries, and otherwise showed him- 
 self very haughty and obstinate " (Calendar, ix., No. 159). What 
 Legh said and how he treated the abbot may be gathered from Ap 
 Rice's letter.
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 261 
 
 patique,' which, because he went so in London in 
 the face of all the world, I thought you would have 
 known. . Then he handleth the fathers where he 
 cometh very roughly, and many times for small 
 causes, as the abbots of Bruton and Stanley and the 
 master of Edington for not meeting of him at the 
 door, when they had no warning of his coming. Also, 
 I require more modesty and affability, which would 
 purchase him more reverence than his own setting 
 forth and ' satrapike ' countenance. 
 
 " The man is young and of intolerable elation of 
 mind. As concerning his taking, I think it exces- 
 sive in many things. First, for the election of the 
 prior of Coventry he took 1$;* for the election 
 lately at Bevall, the Charterhouse, 20, besides his 
 costs, 6, and his reward unknown to me. . And 
 surely he asketh no less for every election than ^"20 
 as of duty, which in my opinion is too much, and 
 above any duty that was ever taken heretofore. 
 
 "Also in his visitations he refuseth many times 
 his reward, though it be competent, for that they 
 offer him so little and maketh them to send after 
 him such rewards as may please him, for surely 
 religious men were never afraid so much of Dr. 
 Allen as they be of him, he useth such rough fashion 
 with them." 
 
 After saying that Legh always went about attended 
 
 * This would be equal to some ^"180 of our money. Other 
 sums mentioned in the letter are : "Vale Royal ^"15, and costs ^"6 ; 
 Tarrent ^"20, and costs *"
 
 262 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 by twelve men in livery besides his brother, Ap Rice 
 adds a word about himself, which shows us that he 
 had evidently been complained of. " And as for 
 mine own dealing and behaviour I trust ye shall have 
 no wise cause of complaint against me ; one thing 
 humbly desiring your mastership that ye give no 
 light credence till the matter be proved and my de- 
 fence. As to the defence in the other matter I 
 was so abashed that I had not those things in my 
 remembrance that was for a defence." 
 
 The following day Ap Rice seems to have 
 become alarmed at the possible consequences of 
 his confidences to Crumwell, and wrote again 
 " I have certified to you certain things touching 
 Mr. Doctor Legh. Although they be all true, I 
 in haste did not make use of moderation. First, 
 having experience in myself not long ago how griev- 
 ous, yea and deadly, it is for any man to have the 
 displeasure of such a man as you are, specially hav- 
 ing your favour before and having only of you, and 
 what desperation or other inconvenience may ensue 
 thereupon to the same, so that I would not wish my 
 most enemy so great a displeasure ; and also con- 
 sidering for your part how ye cannot suddenly and 
 violently use any extremity towards the said Mr. 
 Doctor, but ye shall thereby give occasion to some 
 to reckon that ye were so quick in chosing such a 
 one to that room as ye would so soon after disallow 
 and reprove. Also it would be thought by some 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 622.
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 263 
 
 other that all his doings and proceedings in such 
 places as he was at were reproved by you, and he for 
 the same so handled. ... It would be well, first, 
 gently to admonish him to amendment, and not 
 utterly discourage him and strike him under foot. . " 
 
 He concludes in words, the significance of which 
 it is impossible to mistake. " And forasmuch as the 
 said Mr. Doctor is of such acquaintance and fami- 
 liarity with many rufflers and serving men, if he 
 knew this matter to have proceeded of me, though it 
 be but at your commandment, I having commonly 
 no great assistance with me when I go abroad, might 
 take perchance irrecoverable harm of him or his ere 
 I were aware. Please keep secret what I have said."* 
 Personal violence and even murder was, in the opinion 
 of his colleague, the treatment Legh would mete out 
 to one of the king's agents. How can it be expected 
 that the scurrilous tongue, " eloquent in accusa- 
 tions," should spare and slay not the reputations of 
 the monks and nuns whose destruction was his 
 special -errand. " Quia exacuit ut gladium linguam 
 suam, in'cendit rem amaram ut sagittet in occulto 
 immaculatum." 
 
 These extracts give some idea of the instruments 
 by which Crumwell hoped to effect the ruin of 
 the monasteries. To those, who have studied the 
 history of these times, it is a matter of no surprise to 
 find that these men were allowed free and unre- 
 strained license in dealing with their unfortunate 
 * Ibid., No. 630.
 
 264 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 victims. Legh was written to, apparently, as to his 
 harshness, and his reply is instructive, and no 
 doubt was conclusive from Crum well's point of view. 
 " Where I have in all places that I have been at, ac- 
 cording to mine instructions and to the king's grace's 
 pleasure and yours, restrained as well the heads and 
 masters of the same places as the brethren from 
 going forth of the precints of the said places, which 
 I assure you grieveth the said heads not a little, as 
 ye shall perceive by the instant suites that they shall 
 make to the king's grace and to you."* 
 
 He had acknowledged in a letter previously quoted 
 that the injunctions in this matter were impossible to 
 keep, but would teach the monks the power of the 
 king. The permissions for mitigation, for which 
 there will be " instant suites," may, he hints, be a 
 source of profit also for Crumwell himself, f The 
 latter no doubt considered this point, and left the 
 victims under the torture. The result is, that in his 
 correspondence at this period are numberless appli- 
 cations for relief from the unwarrantable imprison- 
 ment, to which the religious had been consigned. We 
 can imagine the satisfaction with which Crumwell 
 penned a note in his " remembrances," possibly on 
 the information contained in Legh's letter, " of the 
 visitations and how much it grieveth the heads to be 
 kept within their monasteries."! Chapuys under- 
 stood the whole movement, and wrote in September : 
 
 * Wright, p. 56. t Calendar, Vol. ix., Preface xx. 
 
 \ Ibid., No. 498.
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 265 
 
 " Crumwell goes round about visiting the abbeys, 
 making inventories of their goods and revenues, 
 instructing them fully in the tenets of this new sect, 
 turning out of the abbeys monks and nuns who 
 made their profession before they were twenty-five, 
 and leaving the rest free to go put or remain. It is 
 true they are not expressly told to go out, but it is 
 clearly given them to understand that they had 
 better do it, for they are going to make a reforma- 
 tion of them so severe and strange that in the end 
 they will go, which is the object the king is aiming 
 at, in order to have better occasion to seize the 
 property without causing the people to murmur."* 
 This is strangely like the reason assigned by Legh 
 himself for making the injunctions impossible to 
 keep.f 
 
 Over the sad lot of the poor nuns left to the tender 
 mercies of such ruffians, history has, perhaps wisely, 
 drawn a veil. Here and there we may, however, 
 still catch a glimpse of the dreadful reality. Dr. 
 Ortiz, writing to the empress what is reported in 
 Rome as to the visitation of English monasteries, 
 which in common with so many he attributes to the 
 influence of Anne Boleyn who hated the religious as 
 most opposed to her union with Henry, says : " In 
 England Anne removed from some monasteries the 
 most able persons and left the infirm with so little to 
 maintain themselves that they are constrained to 
 relinquish the state of religion. They took out of 
 
 * Ibid., ix., No. 434. t See letter previously quoted.
 
 266 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 the monastery all the nuns of less than twenty-five 
 years of age, and one of the commissioners who 
 went for this purpose spoke immodestly to the nuns, 
 who rebuked him, saying that their apostolic privi- 
 leges were being violated. The commissary replied 
 that he held more power from the king than there 
 was in the whole apostolic see, and referring the nuns 
 complaint to master Crumwell, who is the secretary 
 of the king, by whom comes the ordering of all these 
 evils, told her this was only the beginning of the 
 end."* Sanders, almost a contemporary, states that 
 " Lee (Legh) indeed, in order to discharge correctly 
 the duties laid upon him, tempted the religious to 
 sin, and he was more ready to inquire into and speak 
 about uncleanness of living than anything else." f 
 
 " The papists," writes the historian Fuller, " do 
 heavily complain (how justly God alone knoweth) 
 that a third sort of agents were employed to practice 
 on the chastity of the nuns, so to surprise them into 
 wantonness. Some young gallants were on design 
 sent to some convents, with fair faces, flattering 
 tongues, store of gold and good clothes, youth, wit, 
 wantonness and what else might work on the weaker 
 sex."J He then goes on to relate a story which 
 bears out what he has said of two young men who 
 went to a convent near Cambridge, and who gave out 
 that they were able to seduce the nuns at their will, 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 873. 
 
 f " Anglican Schism," Lewis trans., p. 129. 
 
 + " Church Hist.," ii., p. 216 (ed. 1837).
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 267 
 
 although the very contrary was the case. One of 
 these confessed the same to Sir William Stanley, 
 who told it to a noble catholic who was alive when 
 Fuller wrote. Of this story a modern protestant 
 authority writes : " The story has too much vraisem- 
 blance to be set aside . . and in addition to this, 
 the tone of Layton's letters to Crumwell are of such 
 a kind as to make one fear that some nuns were 
 indeed thus wickedly seduced, and others not less 
 wickedly accused falsely. Those, however, who 
 duly appreciate the character of their countrywomen 
 will believe that among these evil-intreated ' inno- 
 cents ' there were not a few who passed through the 
 scorching fire of temptation scatheless under the 
 protection of their heavenly bridegroom, for the 
 English daughters of the nineteenth century whom 
 we see around us are sisters to the English nuns of 
 the sixteenth, of whom we know only by vague 
 tradition."* 
 
 No words of description can give so lively a pic- 
 ture of the abject poverty, to which many of the 
 religious houses were reduced under the constant 
 exactions of the king and Crumwell during the past 
 years, as the letters of Laytoh himself. These will 
 also serve to show the rapidity with which the com- 
 missioners got over their work. They will likewise 
 help us to appreciate, at their true worth, charges 
 made in a reckless and wholesale manner and with- 
 
 * " The Reformation of Church of England," Rev. J. H. Blunt. 
 6th ed., 1885. Vol. i., p. 316.
 
 268 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 out the possibility of even a shadow of investiga- 
 tion. 
 
 The following is a letter regarding Layton's Sussex 
 visitation in October, 1535: " On Friday at night 
 I came into Sussex to an abbey called Durford. 
 It might better be called Dirtyford ; the poorest 
 abbey that I have seen, as this bearer, the abbot 
 thereof can tell : far in debt and great decay. This 
 young man for his time hath done right well, whom 
 I have licensed to repair unto you and to declare 
 unto you his mind, concerning license and liberty 
 of himself and other his brethren. 
 
 " An abbey or a priory of minors and a priory of 
 canons nigh together lay towards Chichester, and 
 because of their poverty not able to lodge us, we 
 were compelled to ride out of our way to an abbey of 
 Cistercians called Waverly, there to lodge on Satur- 
 day at night. . These two poor priories we will dis- 
 patch on Monday by the way, and so on Monday at 
 night we shall be at Chichester cathedral church."' 
 
 Apparently the doctor did not enjoy his stay at 
 Waverly abbey, as the following tells us. It also 
 shows how, through the tyranny of the crown in 
 forcing lay servants upon the abbeys, the monks were 
 by this time powerless in their own homes. 
 
 " I have licensed this bringer, the abbot of Waverly, 
 
 to repair unto you for liberty to survey his husbandry, 
 
 whereupon consisteth the wealth of his monastery. 
 
 The man is honest, but none of the children of Solo- 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 444.
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 269 
 
 mon. Every monk within his house is his fellow, 
 and every servant his master. Mr. Treasurer and 
 other more gentleman hath put servants unto him, 
 whom the poor man dare neither command nor dis- 
 please. Yesterday, early in the morning, sitting in 
 my chamber in examination, I could neither get bread, 
 drink, nor fire of these knaves, till I was fretished, * 
 and the abbot durst not speak to them. I called 
 them all before me, and forgot (sic) their names, and 
 took from every man his keys of his office, and made 
 new offices for my time here, perchance as stark 
 knaves as the other. It shalt be expedient for you 
 to give him a lesson and tell the poor fool what he 
 should do amongst the monks. "f 
 
 The kind of treatment, which the religious met with 
 at the hands of this visitor sent to lead them to a 
 better life, may be also gathered from his letters. In 
 a letter from Bath, Layton speaks of his visit to a 
 cell of Lewes priory, near that city, called Farley, 
 where he had got information as to the sub-prior from 
 "a fair young man, a priest late sent from Lewes, " 
 and adds, " I have matter sufficient here found (as I 
 suppose) to bring the prior of Lewes into great 
 danger."^ The information, whatever it might be, 
 thus obtained, was kept ready for the visitation of 
 Lewes some months later. Layton thus describes 
 it: "At Lewes," he says, "I found the monks 
 morally bad and traitors. The sub-prior confessed 
 
 * i.e., numbed with cold. t Calendar, ix., No. 452. 
 
 J Ibid., ix., No. 42.
 
 270 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 unto me treason in his preaching, I have .caused him 
 to subscribe his name to the same submitting him- 
 self to the king's mercy. I have also made him 
 confess that the prior knew the same and counselled 
 it, and the sub-prior subscribed his name to this said 
 confession against the prior/' Upon this, the doctor 
 summoned a chapter and put the unfortunate prior on 
 his knees in the middle, and " I laid unto him the 
 concealment of the treason, and called him heinous 
 traitor, with the 'worst words I could devise, he all 
 the time kneeling upon his knees, and making inter- 
 cession unto me not to utter to you the premises. I 
 listened to him, but ordered him to appear before you 
 to answer on All Hallows eve in court, and perhaps 
 before the king himself, and to bring his sub-prior. 
 You will be able to do -what you like with him" It 
 does not require much imagination to see what the 
 visitor means by Crumwell having the poor man in 
 his power, to do what he " likes with him." 
 
 From Lewes, Layton goes to Battle abbey, to which 
 he gives as bad a character as he had given to Lewes. 
 He ordered the abbot, with whom he seems to have 
 had some disagreement, into court. He also bespeaks 
 Crumwell's attention to his case by the following 
 description of the culprit : " The abbot of Battle is 
 the varaste hayne bette and buserde, and the arants 
 chorle that ever I see. In all other places whereat 
 I come, specially the black sort of devilish monks, I 
 am sorry to know as I do. Surely I thynke they be 
 * Ibid., No. 632.
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 271 
 
 paste amendement, and that God hath utterly wtdrawn 
 his grace from them." 
 
 One more quotation from Layton's letters of this 
 period is of interest, as it describes a fire at Canter- 
 bury. It happened when he was there and nearly 
 terminated his career. " This Saturday at night I 
 came to Canterbury, to Christchurch. At one of the 
 clock after midnight one of my servants called me 
 up suddenly, or else I had been burnt in my bed. 
 The great dining chamber called the king's lodging, 
 where we supped, and whereat the bishop of Winches- 
 ter lay the day before I came, was suddenly fired by 
 some fire-brand or snuff of some candle, that first 
 set the rushes on fire. My servants lying nigh the 
 said lodging were almost choked in their beds, and 
 so called me. And anon, after I found a back door 
 out, called up the house and sent into the town for 
 help, and before ladders and water could be got that 
 great lodging was past recovery and so was the 
 chamber where I lay. Three chambers only are 
 burnt, called the new lodging, or the king's lodging. 
 The gable ends of the house, made of strong brick, 
 kept in the fire from the houses adjoining, with the 
 help of men, so that there is no harm done but in 
 that lodging. As soon as I had set men to squench 
 and to labour, I went into the church and there 
 tarried continually, and set four monks with bandogs 
 to keep the shrine, and put the sexton in the revestry 
 there to keep the jewels, and walked continually in 
 the church above and set monks in every quarter of
 
 27 2 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 the church with candles, and sent for the abbot of 
 Saint Augustine's to be there with me in a readiness 
 to have taken down the shrine, and to have sent all 
 the jewels into Saint Augustine's."* 
 
 No further harm was done than is described above, 
 and nothing lost except such bedding as had been 
 cast down into the cloister for safety, and was car- 
 ried away by the poor people of Canterbury. The 
 anxiety displayed by Layton for the safety of the 
 magnificent shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury, or 
 rather for the precious stones with which it was 
 adorned, is a manifestation of another phase of the 
 visitation of 1535. The commissioners first endea- 
 voured to find out at each monastery all there was of 
 value. They next tried to get possession of it, just 
 as the king had appropriated the jewelled cross of 
 the church of Winchester. " I have crosses of silver 
 and gold," writes the indefatigable Layton, " some 
 of which I send you not now, because I have more 
 that shall be delivered me this night by the prior of 
 Maiden Bradley himself. To-morrow early in the 
 morning I shall bring you the rest, when I have 
 received all, and perchance I shall find something 
 here" (St. Augustine's, Bristol). f There are rea- 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 669. In " the Chronicle of St. Augustine, 
 Canterbury," Camd. Soc., " Narratives of the Reformation," p. 
 281, there is a record of a fire, at which Dr. Layton was present, on 
 October \6th. This in 1535 was a Saturday, and probably refers to 
 the same, as the chronicle says that the fire was "in this visitation'' 
 time. 
 
 f Wright, p. 59, Aug. 24th, 1535. It is worthy of note that the 
 preamble of the act passed for the dissolution of the smaller
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 273 
 
 sons for suspecting a deeper meaning in this illegal 
 spoliation of churches and monasteries. Their move- 
 able property gone ; their right to lease and sell their 
 own put under restraint ; impoverished by demands 
 from king and courtier it was impossible or impolitic 
 to refuse; their resources drained by blackmail levied 
 upon them by Crumwell and his creatures, many 
 houses were brought face to face with the alternative 
 of starvation or surrender. For years many of the 
 religious houses had been on the verge of ruin. To 
 the requests of king and minister they had replied, 
 by humbly begging to be allowed to keep some farm 
 or some manor demanded of them, as necessary to 
 support themselves and the poor who depended on 
 them. The seizure of their treasures by Crum well's 
 agents and the heavy fees which these visitors 
 charged for insulting and robbing them must, in the 
 case of many, have completed their ruin and forced 
 them to surrender.* 
 
 The visitation also had a most disastrous effect 
 upon the internal life of the monasteries. No greater 
 
 monasteries in Feb., 1536, charges them with wasting the "orna- 
 ments of their churches." We may see by the above how the 
 ornaments were wasted ; the charge was made, doubtlessly, to 
 account for their disappearance. 
 
 * These facts are amply borne out by many letters of melancholy 
 interest in the fifty-two volumes of Crumwell Correspondence in the 
 Record Office and other MSS. of the period. It has been stated, 
 with what amount of truth we are not prepared to say, that only 123 
 of the monasteries doomed for destruction were able to hold out until 
 the act of suppression. Cf. Blunt 's " Reformation of Ch. of 
 Eng.," i., p. 301. 
 
 VOL. 1. T
 
 274 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 blow could have been struck at the whole theory of 
 the religious life, than the interference with the vows 
 contained in the order to dismiss those who were under 
 twenty-four years of age, or who had been professed 
 under the age of twenty. The visitors, it is clear, 
 had no scruple about their power to dispense with the 
 solemn obligations of the monastic profession. They 
 freely extended it to any who would go, in the idea 
 that the more they could induce to leave their con- 
 vents the better pleased both the king and Crumwell 
 would be. The order was ambiguous and led to 
 disputes and difficulties. Legh complained of Layton 
 " that he had not dismissed all those under the age 
 of twenty-four," as he believed Crumwell intended. 
 But Ap Rice, on account of his quarrel with Legh, 
 had a scruple as to whether the practice of the 
 latter in the matter was right. " I thought," he 
 writes, " that you ordered that all who were 
 between twenty-two and twenty-four should have 
 leave to go from the religious life if they wished, 
 but he only applies this to men," and "also he 
 setteth a clause in his injunctions that they that will, 
 of what age soever they be, may go abroad, which 
 I heard not of your instructions."* That this was 
 really the intention of Crumwell is more than prob- 
 able. Stow records that they " put forth all religious 
 persons that would go, and all that were under the age 
 of twenty-and-four years," the superior being required 
 to give each one so going " a priest's gown and forty 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 622.
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 275 
 
 shillings of money ; the nuns to have such apparel 
 as secular women wear, and to go where they will." 
 
 In September, 1535, Chapuys wrote: "there is 
 a report that the king intends the religious of all 
 orders to be free to leave their habits and marry. 
 And that if they will stay in their houses they must 
 live in poverty. He intends to take the rest of the 
 revenue, and will do stranger things still."* The re- 
 ligious could not understand that the object aimed at 
 was the destruction of their houses. Their simplicity 
 excites a smile sometimes, as when " Jane Gowring, 
 Frances Somer, Mary Pilbeam, Barbara Larke and 
 Bridget Stravye, aged 23-^, 22, 21 and 15; the first 
 three professed, but all put out of religion," beg that 
 they may be allowed to stay in their beloved convent, 
 and if this would not be allowed at least to wait in 
 the " cloose howse " till they were above the age of 
 24, when they would be professed again. f 
 
 The immediate effect, therefore, of this visitation 
 was to thin the monasteries of their inmates. In 
 some instances only the old and infirm were left to 
 keep up the practices of the religious life. Poor 
 Margaret Vernon, prioress of Little Marlow, had her 
 house almost emptied. " Your visitors," she writes 
 to Crumwell, " have been here of late, who hath dis- 
 charged three of my sisters. The one is dame 
 Catherine, the other two are the young women, that 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 357. 
 
 t Ibid., No. 1075. It is very remarkable how few are repre- 
 sented in the visitors' reports as desirous of leaving the religious life. 
 Of their personal petitions quite as many are to stay, as to leave.
 
 276 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 were last professed, which is not a little to my 
 discomfort. . I most humbly beseech you to be so 
 special good master unto me, your poor bedewoman, 
 as to give me your best advertisement and counsel, 
 what way shall be best for me to take, seeing there 
 shall be none left here but myself and this poor 
 maiden."* Crumwell's advice appears to have been 
 what might be expected from him. At any rate, she 
 soon gave up her house. She is next found in 
 London, trying to get an interview with Crumwell at 
 the " Rolls " in order to make him keep his promise 
 to provide for her. His servants will not allow her 
 to see their master, and " the multitude of suitors " 
 is so great that she cannot get a hearing. The 
 king, she complains, has granted away the lease of 
 her farm at Marlow, and she is in great " trouble and 
 unquietness."f Crumwell generously offers to lend 
 her ^40 to defray her expenses at Stepney, provided 
 she gives him good security. In the end she be- 
 comes governess to his son Gregory, of whom she 
 writes : " Your son is in good health, and is a very 
 good scholar, and can construe his Pater noster, 
 Ave and Credo." The lot of the prioress of Little 
 Marlow, hard though it was, must have been far 
 easier than that of the multitude of poor nuns who 
 were turned out into the world without support or 
 friends. | 
 
 * Wright, p. 55. 
 
 t R. O. Crumwell Corr., Vol. xlv., Nos. 43, 44. 45, 49. 
 \ It is quite untrue that all religious were pensioned, small 
 though that pension might have been. It can be shown from the
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 277 
 
 There are many examples, in the papers and 
 letters of this period, of the difficulties religious 
 superiors experienced in governing their houses at 
 all, during these troubled days. They not only 
 found the restrictions hard and even impossible to 
 bear, but there was every inducement to their sub- 
 ordinates to rebel against an authority they had 
 sworn to respect. Monks were encouraged and 
 urged to turn informers against their brethren and 
 superiors; malicious information sedulously fostered, 
 became the seed of discord and unhappiness, which 
 disturbed the peace of the cloister. The abbot of 
 Breuern was thrice indicted at Oxford for preventing 
 one of his monks going off to London to lay com- 
 plaints before Crumwell.* John, abbot of Whitby, 
 was much troubled about the same injunction and 
 writes : " Also where I am bound by our injunctions 
 to find everyone of my brethren horse and money to 
 come to complain, when and how they shall think 
 fit the injunctions violated, sir, for the love of God, 
 consider the brittleness and lightness of some light 
 persons, that sometimes complain without cause."t 
 
 Dan Peter, a monk of Winchcombe, wrote a 
 letter of complaint about his abbot, the gist of 
 which is that his superior wants to maintain dis- 
 cipline and he does not. He also hinted that the 
 
 " pension books," that only a small number ever had pensions at all. 
 The young received none ; the condition of the grant being " tem- 
 pore dissolutionis et din antea." 
 
 * B. Mus. Cott. MSS. Cleop., E. iv., fol. 1 20. 
 
 f R. O. Crum. Corr., xlviii., No. 17.
 
 278 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 abbot was a staunch supporter of the ancient faith.* 
 Once before, one Andrew Saunders, curate at 
 Winchcombe, had complained that this abbot was 
 no friend to the new order of things. He had 
 stopped payment to the schoolmaster of the 
 grammar school, and would not allow him to help 
 him in the Church. f The same abbot was troubled 
 by another of his subjects, John Horwoode, other- 
 wise Dan Placidus. This young man was very 
 anxious " for the conversion of the people from 
 papistical ways." He would like to see the chapter 
 of Saint Paul ad Romanos, in which he says 
 " non est postestas nisi a Deo," written on every 
 monk's head. And he suggests that Crumwell 
 should compel his brethren more to uphold the 
 king's supremacy. We are not surprised to find 
 that he asks something for himself in return : 
 " Thanks," he says, " for excusing my getting up 
 for matins at midnight. The abbot says this has 
 given cause to some murmurs and grudging among 
 the convent. The truth is, I do not like the burdens 
 and straightness of religion, such as their accustomed 
 abstinence, the f frayter,' j and other observances of 
 the rule." 
 
 The neighbouring priory of Worcester furnishes 
 another example of such troubles. John Musard, a 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 314. 
 
 t Ibid., viii., No. 171. 
 
 % i.e., the community recreations. 
 
 Calendar, ix., Nos. 321-2.
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 279 
 
 monk there, had been put in prison for some reason 
 by his prior. Dr. Legh and William Petre came to 
 visit the monastery, heard his complaint, and ap- 
 parently decided against him ; for Dan John 
 writes in anger to Crumwell : '"' If ever I were 
 such an unreasonable creature as Master Dr. Legh 
 and Mr. Petre say. I am comperted* on be- 
 cause (of) my evil willers. It were pity of my life. 
 Clearly to excuse myself I cannot, but naught 
 (evil) I have done in times past and corrected 
 therefore. Wherefore I desire your honourable 
 mastership, that you will not accept their conspir- 
 ing and false accusations in this time of visitation." 
 In another letter he charges the visitors with having 
 been bought to decide against him.f Dan William 
 Fordham was another thorn in the side of the 
 superiors of Worcester. He had been procurator of 
 the convent, and was dismissed for extravagance and 
 peculation.! The sub-prior, Dan Roger Neckham, 
 was also dismissed from his office, and he, with 
 Fordham, endeavoured to bring the prior into diffi- 
 culty with Crumwell by charges made against him. 
 In this they succeeded, and the government of the 
 convent was handed over to the two refractory monks 
 in spite of the protests of the community. $ The 
 prior was put in prison at Gloucester with one of his 
 
 * Compertcd, i.e., reported, 
 t Calendar, ix., No. 497. 
 R. O. Crum. Corr., i., No. 9. 
 Crum. Corr., ut sup.
 
 280 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 monks, and although the chancellor, Sir Thos. 
 Audeley, doubted whether any case of treason could 
 be made out against them, he thought the best way 
 was " to indict them and let them remain in ward."* 
 Here they were left, although Lady Margery Sandys 
 pleaded in the prior's favour, " that he was a true 
 monk to God and the king," while the present ruler 
 of Worcester, Neckham, bore the most indifferent 
 character. She, however, rightly understood that 
 more was to be hoped for from money than justice, 
 and adds that " he will be glad to give you (Crum- 
 well), in ready money, as much as any other man."f 
 The vicar-general, however, had other letters urging 
 the choice of various people to the office of prior, 
 " soon to be void." John Gostwyk, his secretary, 
 wrote that " Gresham will give you j^ioo and I 2,0 
 if you will make John Fulwell prior of Worcester."! 
 
 " From specimens like these," writes the best 
 authority on the public records of the time now 
 living, " few as the cases may be that have come to 
 light, we may form some estimate of the discord and 
 demoralization created within the walls of monasteries 
 by the proceedings of Crum well's visitors. The 
 wonder indeed is that the recorded cases are so few, 
 and that, in spite of all the inducement offered under 
 the new regime to appeal to the king's vicegerent 
 or the visitors, there are not more frequent instances 
 of such appeal being actually made a fact which, 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 90. f Ibid., No. 656. 
 
 + Ibid., No. 184.
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 281 
 
 -duly considered, seems to imply that the rule in most 
 houses was far more wholesome and more willingly 
 .submitted to than many have been hitherto disposed 
 to believe. Only here and there within the walls of 
 .some great abbey did some one or two of the more 
 audacious monks brave the displeasure of their heads 
 and the ill will of their brethren by malicious tale- 
 bearing, though undoubtedly there were many re- 
 fractory members, such as there must be in all large 
 communities, who did not love the discipline imposed 
 upon them."* 
 
 Another method adopted at this time by Crum- 
 well to worry the monks, was the appointment of 
 teachers or divinity lecturers in the monasteries. 
 One of these unwelcome intruders, Anthony Saunder, 
 writes to his master in November : " Whereas you 
 have appointed me to read the pure and sincere 
 Word of God to the monks of Winchcombe. . 
 I have small favour and assistance amongst these 
 pharisaical papists. The abbot of Hailes, a valiant 
 soldier under Antichrist's banner, resists much, 
 fighting with all his might to keep Christ in the 
 sepulchre. He has hired a great Goliath, a 
 subtle Duns man, yea a great clerk, as he saith a 
 Bachelor of Divinity of Oxford, to catch me in my 
 sermons." The writer further desires Crumwell to 
 appoint a convenient hour in the forenoon of each 
 day for him to deliver his lectures to the monks, who 
 manifest a greater love for their choir duties than he, 
 * Mr. J. Gairdner, ibid. Preface, p. xxiii.
 
 282 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Anthony Saunder, admires. " They will not come 
 in due time ; they set so much store by their popish 
 services."* 
 
 Another example of the same kind of persecution 
 is seen, somewhat later, in the case of Reading 
 abbey. This, although already given in Strype and 
 Burnet, bears repeating. According to instructions 
 sent by Crumwell to the bishops, to have an eye to 
 the monasteries in their districts,! Shaxton of Salis- 
 bury informed his master that there was a monk 
 teaching theology to the religious at Reading, in a 
 way calculated to keep up their adherence to the 
 ancient faith, and particularly as regards their fidelity 
 to the see of Rome. Thereupon he obtained an 
 order to the abbot to appoint one of his own clerks 
 to this office, since " it was not possible to have 
 them to amend their judgments unless they have a 
 better reader." j The abbot, of course, strongly 
 resisted, on the ground that the abbey already had a 
 capable lecturer, who was a graduate of Oxford, 
 well versed in the Latin tongue and in the Holy 
 Scriptures, and because the house could not " well 
 afford the extra cost " of the appointed lecturer, who 
 was to have "a convenient stipend and commons at 
 the abbot's board." He had also this reason, that 
 Richard Cobbes, the clerk recommended by Shaxton r 
 had been priest and canon, " but was then married 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 747. 
 
 t Strype's " Ecc. Mems.," I. i, p. 333 (ed. 1822). 
 
 J R. O. Crum. Corn, Vol. xxxvii., No. 41.
 
 The Visitation of Monasteries in 1535-6. 283 
 
 and degraded, and thus a most dangerous man" to 
 have in a religious community.* 
 
 We have very little information as to the misery 
 and depth of anxiety, which must have prevailed in 
 the cloisters of England during this period. Their 
 forebodings and communings with themselves on the 
 events that were taking place around them must 
 have been sad enough. It requires little stretch of 
 the imagination to picture the dismay and consterna- 
 tion with which the religious must have listened to 
 the reports of violence and injustice, which were 
 carried to them as the visitors proceeded with their 
 work. For years they had endeavoured to buy off 
 the fatal day of doom by plentiful bribes to Crum- 
 well and his master. On what was left to them, they 
 with difficulty supported their own existence and 
 maintained the hospitality and relief of the poor 
 which their traditional obligations required. One 
 glimpse is given of the secret sorrows of the religious 
 at this time, in the depositions made against the 
 abbot of Woburn. When the report of the execution 
 of the Charterhouse fathers reached the monastery, 
 the abbot assembled his brethren in the chapter- 
 house and, having recited the psalm Deus venerunt 
 gentes, spoke thus : 
 
 " Brethren, this is a perilous time. Such a 
 scourge was never heard since Christ's passion. 
 You have heard how good men do suffer death. 
 My brethren, this is undoubtedly for our offences, 
 
 * Ibid., Vol. xxxv., No. 18.
 
 284 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 for ye have heard that so long as the children of 
 Israel kept the commandments of God so long their 
 enemies had no power over them, but God took 
 vengeance of their enemies. But when they broke 
 God's commands then they were subdued, and so be 
 we. Therefore let us be sorry, and undoubtedly he 
 will take vengeance on our enemies, these heretics 
 who cause so many good men to suffer thus. Alas ! 
 it is a piteous case that so much Christian blood be 
 shed. . Therefore, my good brethren, for the love of 
 God, let everyone of you devoutly pray and say this 
 psalm, Deusvenerunt, &c., with the versicle, Exurgat 
 Deus, &c., this same psalm to be said every Friday, 
 immediately after the litany, prostrate when ye lie 
 before the high altar, and doubt not God will allay 
 this storm."* 
 
 The visitation of Henry's royal commissioners 
 lasted till the meeting of parliament in February, 
 1536. The reports they furnished Crumwell seem 
 to show that by no means all the religious houses 
 were inspected and reported upon. Sufficient, how- 
 ever, had been done to serve the king's purpose. 
 True or false, the tales the agents had to tell were 
 used to induce the parliament to confiscate the pro- 
 perty of the lesser monasteries. How this was 
 accomplished, what the charges were which the 
 visitors made against the monks, how far they can 
 be relied upon, and what the characters of the 
 accusers were, will be discussed in the subsequent 
 chapters of this volume. 
 
 * R. O. State Papers, 1538, v. 114.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PARLIAMENT OF 1536 AND THE SUPPRESSION 
 OF THE LESSER MONASTERIES. 
 
 THE year 1536 opened with the death of the unfor- 
 tunate queen Catherine. She had been poisoned, at 
 least so thought Chapuys and others, if not at the 
 instigation, at least with the connivance of Anne 
 Boleyn.* The latter was not left long to enjoy her 
 position. Already she had in great measure lost 
 her hold over the affections of Henry, and for pur- 
 poses of public or private policy Crumwell was 
 secretly plotting her overthrow.! And thus, only four 
 months after the grave had closed on the remains of 
 her rival, Anne Boleyn was led out to the block 
 on Tower Hill. Meantime Henry and his agents had 
 been making preparations since the middle of the 
 previous year for their first attack on the monasteries. 
 This was delivered in the session of parliament, which 
 commenced on the fourth day of February, 1536. 
 Layton and Legh had hurried from house to 
 
 * Friedmann's "Anne Boleyn," Vol. ii., cap. 14. 
 j Ibid., p. 242. On a letter from Chapuys, June 6, 1536 : 
 " il se meist a fantaise et conspira le diet affaire."
 
 286 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 house in the North of England, and had supplied 
 their master, Crumwell, with their reports as to the 
 religious and their property. Meeting at Lichfield 
 on the 22nd of December, the colleagues took their 
 way " to certain abbeys upon Trent side. And so," 
 as they write, " to Southwell and to be at York 
 within a day after the i2th day we intend, and thus 
 to make speed with diligence and true knowledge of 
 everything, is our intent."* On the i ith of January, 
 Thomas Legh informed Crumwell that they had 
 reached York and visited the archbishop. f They 
 had ordered that prelate, he wrote, to appear before 
 the vicar general with all the documents of his office, 
 adding, " I do not doubt when you have read them, 
 but that you shall see and read many things worthy 
 reformation, by the knowledge whereof I suppose the 
 king's highness and you will be glad/ 'j 
 
 To have reached York from Lichfield in little more 
 than a fortnight, and to have visited and examined 
 the conventual establishments, which lay on their 
 route as to property and morals, must have required 
 all their " speed with diligence." The visitation, 
 however, had to be practically finished, their report 
 sent in to Crumwell and prepared for parliament 
 within a period of six weeks from their starting on 
 the tour. They had to journey in this time over the 
 diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, as well as through 
 
 * Layton to Crumwell. Wright, p. 94. 
 
 f Dr. Edward Lee. 
 
 J Legh to Crumwell. Wright, 96.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 287 
 
 the entire province of York.* Hence dispatch was 
 absolutely necessary. As their chief object, how- 
 ever, was certainly to point out, as in the case of the 
 archbishop of York, "many things worthy reforma- 
 tion," so as to please Crumwell and his royal master, 
 they had no need of lengthy examinations. 
 
 The rapidity of their tour, rendering investigation 
 impossible, makes their comperts or reports utterly 
 valueless. They prove, however, were proof needed, 
 that these commissioners were ready to bring any 
 accusation against the monks, and that the fair name 
 of many, who possibly never heard anything of the 
 matter, was blackened by mere reckless assertions. 
 Just as Layton, in the southern monasteries "ex- 
 pected to find " all that his evil imagination pictured, 
 so, from Yorkshire he wrote to Crumwell, " We find 
 corruption amongst persons religious even like as we 
 did in the south . . and worse, if worse may be, in 
 kinds of knavery." He then proceeds to accuse them 
 generally of the most revolting kind of immorality.! 
 The sting of this condemnation is certainly some- 
 what destroyed by the knowledge that he could not 
 have made any inquiry worthy of the name. By his 
 own admission he finds only what he came to seek. 
 '" This day," he says, " we begin with St. Mary's 
 abbey, \ whereat we suppose to find much evil dispo- 
 
 * Comprising altogether eight counties. That this visitation was 
 .really made may be seen by the epitome of reports called " Com- 
 perta." Some 88 monasteries are reported on within the fortnight. 
 
 t Layton to Crumwell. Wright, 97, January 13, 1536. 
 
 J York.
 
 288 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 sition, both in the abbot and the convent, whereof, 
 God willing, I shall certify you in my next letter." 
 
 The parliament, which had been adjourned from 
 the previous November, met at Westminster on the 
 4th of February, 1536. The chief matter of business 
 it had to transact, in this its last session, was the 
 passing of an act to legalize the spoliation of monastic 
 property, which had been already commenced in the 
 previous autumn. The operation of this act of 
 suppression was to be left to the interpretation 
 of the conscience of Henry, and its provisions 
 were to be carried out by Crumwell and his agents, 
 By it, the revenues of abbeys and convents and the 
 untold riches of their churches and shrines together 
 with the patrimony of the poor passed, within the 
 space of four years, into the possession of king and 
 noble and were used as their own private property. 
 
 What is even more important is, that the act 
 robbed the monasteries of England of their good 
 name and affixed to them the stigma of evil repute. 
 The transactions of this memorable session of parlia- 
 ment have been often appealed to, during the subse- 
 quent three and a half centuries, as proof positive 
 that the religious houses of England had forfeited 
 their right to protection against tyranny and spolia- 
 tion, by the infamous character of the lives of 
 their inmates. English writers have accepted, un- 
 questioned, the story of what was done in the 
 old Chapter house of the abbey of Westminster in 
 the spring of 1536, at the passing of the act by
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 289 
 
 which the lesser monasteries were suppressed. Like 
 most unsavory stories, this one has not lost in the 
 telling. Englishmen, with all their native love of 
 honesty and fair dealing, have thus by very custom 
 come to believe implicitly in the general outlines of 
 the narrative and to point to the fact of the destruc- 
 tion of the monasteries as sufficient indication of the 
 cause. 
 
 The story, as for instance told in the pages of 
 Green's "History of the English people," is generally 
 accepted as true. " Two royal commissioners," he 
 writes, " were dispatched on a general visitation of the 
 religious houses, and their reports formed a ' black 
 book,' which was laid before Parliament in 1536. It 
 was acknowledged that about a third of the houses, 
 including the bulk of the larger abbeys, were fairly 
 and decently conducted. The rest were charged 
 with drunkenness, with simony, and with the foulest 
 and most revolting crimes. The character of the 
 visitors, the sweeping nature of their report, and the 
 long debate that followed on its reception, leaves 
 little doubt that these charges were grossly exagger- 
 ated. But the want of any effective discipline, 
 which had resulted from their exemption from all but 
 papal supervision, told fatally against monastic 
 morality even in abbeys like St. Albans." 
 
 A book of another kind, intended for the use of 
 the young, gives much the same version. " The 
 popular complaints," says professor Seebohm, 
 " against them [the monasteries] were not found 
 
 VOL. I. W
 
 290 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 to be baseless. Scandal had long been busy about 
 the morals of the monks. The commissioners found 
 them on inquiry worse even than scandal had whis- 
 pered, and reported to parliament that two-thirds of 
 the monks were leading vicious lives under cover of 
 their cowls and hoods."* 
 
 When this is the story told by every writer, of great 
 or small repute, who deals with the time, it is easy to 
 account for the modern English views as to monks and 
 nuns. Burnet's history, until the days of Mr. Froude's 
 historical romances, was the storehouse from which 
 most of the so-called facts were drawn. Hume, 
 with scarcely any acknowledgment, and writing as if 
 he had seen and examined the original documents, 
 adopts Burnet's glosses and insinuations, and in 
 many places his very words. So often has the tale 
 been retold, that there is probably no part of the 
 history of our country so universally accepted 
 which rests on so slender a basis of fact. 
 The account, quoted above from the pages of Mr. 
 Green's admirable history, may be taken as a 
 very fair sample of what is believed on all hands 
 to be a moderate version of the reasons, which 
 led to the greatest confiscation of property the 
 world has ever seen. Yet in these lines, few as 
 they are, there are some statements which are 
 incapable of proof and others which are distinctly 
 false and misleading. It is quite certain, for example, 
 that more than two commissioners were employed in 
 
 * Epochs of Hist. " Era of Prot. Revolution," 1877, p. 186.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 291 
 
 the work of visitation previous to the meeting of 
 parliament. The records that exist make it likewise 
 improbable, that " on the table of the Chapter house 
 was placed the famous ' black book/ which sealed 
 the fate of all the monasteries of England and sent 
 a thrill of horror through the house of commons 
 when they heard it"' Moreover, it is quite certain 
 that the commissioners never " reported to parlia- 
 ment that two-thirds of the monks were leading 
 vicious lives under cover of their cowls and hoods," 
 and that parliament never declared, that " about a 
 third" of the monasteries "were fairly and decently 
 conducted." 
 
 In considering the action of parliament in this 
 matter, it is necessary to bear in mind the nature of 
 the assembly which handed over the property of the 
 religious to their royal master. In the time of Henry 
 VIII. the House of Commons was not really an elec- 
 tive body at all. The members represented the king 
 rather than the people, and were in fact nominated 
 by the crown. Together with the writ ordering the 
 election, the sheriff received a letter mentioning the 
 name of the candidate the king wished to be chosen. f 
 The " free " electors, or as many as the sheriff in his 
 discretion thought good to call, were summoned 
 
 ^j <j ' 
 
 together and informed of the royal will and pleasure, 
 
 * Stanley's "Gleanings from Westminster Abbey," p. 425. 
 Froude, " Hist.," iv., 520. 
 
 t See Friedmann's " Anne Boleyn," Vol. i., p. 100, &c. ; there 
 were " either no lists of electors or they were not regarded."
 
 292 Henry VII J. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 and as no opposition was of any use the royal nominee 
 was declared chosen to represent the burgesses in 
 parliament. To contest such a tyrannical abuse of 
 power was impossible. Did anyone dare attempt 
 to oppose the royal will he would in all probability 
 be summoned before the council to explain such a 
 rebellious disposition. If contumacious, he might 
 quickly find himself in Newgate or the Marshalsea. 
 
 In the case of corporate towns, as we know from 
 the case of Leicester, the election was practically 
 in the hands of the town councils and other officials, 
 and their members of parliament cannot be considered 
 to have had much representative importance. The 
 officials everywhere at this period were controlled by 
 crown agents, and to all intents and purposes an 
 election was a nomination.* 
 
 For this special House of Commons every attempt 
 was made to secure members pliant to the king's 
 will. Burnet observes that there had been great 
 
 C5 
 
 industry used in managing the elections,! and the 
 chronicler Hall, that " most of the commons were 
 the king's servants."! In fact, the members of this 
 house of commons were about as " freely elected as 
 the bishops."^ As Dr. Stubbs writes, " Henry had 
 
 * Bishop Stubbs' " Lectures," 1886, p. 271. 
 
 t Cf. Cobbett's " Parl. Hist.," i., p. 507. 
 
 J See H. Cole, " Henry VIII. Scheme of Bishopricks," 1838, in 
 which several authorities are quoted to show this. In the B. Mus. 
 Cott. MSS., Cleop., E. iv., fols. 176, 178, are two letters showing 
 the care taken in selecting members in view of the suppression 
 question. 
 
 Friedmann, Vol. L, p. 100.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 293 
 
 clearly got a parliament on which he could depend, 
 and every point now gained became a fresh vantage- 
 ground from which he could grasp at more."* 
 
 There are many examples of the way in which the 
 elections at this time were conducted. A certain 
 Christopher More writes to Crumwell that he under- 
 stands from the instructions he has sent him, that it 
 is his pleasure to have some friend elected for Catton, 
 in Surrey. It shall be as Crumwell wishes. f At an 
 election for the city of Canterbury the mayor, by 
 some mistake, did not receive the usual instructions 
 at the same time as the writ. Without waiting, he 
 assembled some seventy of the electors and chose 
 two representatives. Crumwell was angry, and 
 although the mayor pleaded that unfortunately the 
 election was over, it was cancelled and two bur- 
 gesses, " Robert Darknell and John Dryges," were 
 returned " by the king's direction " in the place of 
 the two formerly chosen.} 
 
 The system of packing the houses of parliament 
 in order to further the king's wishes was carried out 
 very completely, as Mr. Friedmann points out, at 
 the time of the attack on the supremacy of the pope. 
 It was practically this same assembly, which was 
 asked to decide against the monasteries and to 
 hand over their property to the royal treasury. 
 
 * " Lectures," 1886, p. 276. 
 
 t R. O. Crum. Corr. xxix., 19. 
 
 J Ibid., v., Nos. 132, 104, 108. See also Friedmann, ut sup. 
 
 " Anne Boleyn," i., p. 195.
 
 294 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Every artifice had to be used to carry the supremacy 
 question in the lords. " The house of lords," writes 
 Chapuys, " has been carefully packed, many of the 
 members having received no writs, others having 
 been excused from attending."* The same account 
 is given by Dr. Richard Hyliard, who was secretary 
 to bishop Tunstall, of Durham. " In summoning 
 this parliament," he says, "the greatest care was 
 taken that only those should come to it who were 
 favourable to the king's wishes," and members were 
 chosen according to the royal commands. In the 
 house of lords anyone who was thought likely to 
 oppose these designs "was ordered to remain at 
 home " on some pretence or other. " In order to 
 show," he continues, " that what I state I have 
 not learnt from mere rumour, but from knowledge, 
 know that I was at that time in the household of 
 Cuthbert Tunstall, bishop of Durham, who because 
 he was a most learned and upright man was con- 
 sidered likely to stand out against the king's unjust 
 desires. Wherefore when we were on our road, and 
 not far from London where the parliament was to be 
 held, Crumwell, who then managed everything under 
 the king, sent the bishop a letter. In this, after a 
 long account of the king's special affection for the 
 bishop, it was stated that on account of the in- 
 clemency of the weather, the severity of the winter 
 and the difficulty of travelling, a journey to a man of 
 the bishop's age would be almost insupportable." 
 * March 31, 1533. Quoted by Friedmann, ut sup.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 295 
 
 The king's affection had, therefore, prompted him to 
 send the bishop permission to stay away. Tunstall 
 was in great doubt what he ought to do. He had no 
 wish to be absent and thus allow the king's crea- 
 tures to have it all their own way, but he feared to 
 disobey the royal wishes. While he hesitated " be- 
 hold the next day another letter, not now from Crum- 
 well but from the king himself, arrived, which not 
 only allowed but ordered him to return at once to 
 his diocese. I relate this here," says Hyliard, " to 
 show by what machinations and deceits the 
 designs which could not be accomplished by law, 
 order or reason were brought to pass. Nor was 
 there less deception when parliament was sitting in 
 the voting than was used in summoning it."* 
 
 The spiritual peers, at the beginning of Henry's 
 reign, consisted of the two archbishops, 19 bishops 
 and 28 abbots. To these the king added the abbot 
 of Tewkesbury in 1512, the abbot of Tavistock in 
 1514 and the abbot of Burton in 1534. In its 
 
 * B. Mus. Aruncl. MS., 152, fol. 312 d, " Verum in hoc concilio," 
 etc. Hyliard is not mentioned by Tanner or Dodd ; his work 
 must have been in the hands of those who put forth the Roman 
 edition of Sanders, 1586 (seep. iSS). From the fragment con- 
 tained in the Arundel MS. it was evidently a history of his own times, 
 considerable in extent. The author was in a position to obtain the 
 best information. The extreme anxiety of the King and Crumwell 
 (apparent in many letters and documents to which subsequent re- 
 ference will be made) to seize his person shows the importance they 
 attached to keeping him silent. After his escape he was attainted 
 by act of parliament. In these circumstances it is to be desired 
 that this lost (and hitherto forgotten) history should be recovered.
 
 296 Henry VIIL and the English Monasteries. 
 
 greatest strength, about the year 1534, there were 
 52 peers spiritual. These were subsequently reduced 
 to 29, on the dissolution of the greater monasteries. 
 The lay peers varied from 36 to 51. And although 
 the spiritual peers were thus in a majority, until the 
 " dissolution" the journals show that "on the most 
 critical occasions""* there were " about 20 abbots 
 and bishops to 30 lay lords," and that the absent 
 members did not vote by proxy. f It would seem, 
 moreover, that when any government measure was 
 introduced into the house of peers no division was 
 taken, or indeed permitted. Those who were pre- 
 sent were counted as supporters of the measure and 
 all who did not wish to vote for the bill obtained the 
 royal leave to be absent. 
 
 The commons, certainly, had no wish to vote the 
 act of royal supremacy, and to ensure its passing the 
 ministers had to employ every artifice for three 
 weeks. The same plan was adopted to pass it 
 through convocation. The 1 19 clergy, who attended 
 the sitting, voted by proxy for 200 more who were 
 not present. In some instances blank forms were 
 sent by members of the house of lords to Crum- 
 well to insert whatever name he liked to act as 
 proxy, j Even Dr. Lay ton did not dare to come to 
 the upper house of convocation, to which he had 
 been appointed, without first writing to Crumwell for 
 
 * Bishop Stubbs' " Lectures," xii. 
 
 t Hook, " Lives," Vol. viii., pp. 38-9. 
 
 % R. O. Crum. Corn, xix., 58. Lord la Warre to Crumwell.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 297 
 
 his permission. " If you so please," he writes, " I 
 should like to be there for my erudition and know- 
 ledge, there to hear the great reasons of noble and 
 wise men," but he diplomatically adds, that must be 
 " as you wish."* 
 
 In 1536 the abbots formed a very strong party in 
 the house of lords. They numbered 31 out of the 
 52 spiritual peers. At one time the king seems to 
 have contemplated more decisive measures to pre- 
 vent their opposition to his scheme of (( dissolu- 
 tion," than allowing them to absent themselves from 
 their places in parliament. In November, 1535, 
 Chapuys f wrote, that the king intended to exclude 
 them altogether, for fear of their opposition to his 
 intentions as regards the spoliation of the monas- 
 teries, and that a decree to that effect had already 
 been prepared. 
 
 No better picture can be given of the obsequious- 
 ness and venality of the lords and commons in 
 Henry's reign than the words of Hallam convey. 
 " Both houses of parliament," he writes, "yielded to 
 every mandate of Henry's imperial will ; they bent 
 with every breath of his capricious humour ; they 
 were responsible for the illegal trials, for the iniqui- 
 tous attainders, for the sanguinary statutes, for the 
 tyranny which they sanctioned by law, and for that 
 which they permitted without law. Nor was this 
 elfish and pusillanimous subserviency more char- 
 acteristic of the minions of Henry's favour the 
 * Ibid., xx., 30. t Calendar, ix., No. 732.
 
 298 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Crumwells, the Ryders, the Pagets, the Russells r 
 and the Pauletts. The representatives of ancient 
 and honourable names, such as the Norfolks, the 
 Arundels, the Shrewsburys, were the supporters of 
 the king's policy. We trace these noble statesmen 
 concurring in all the inconsistencies of the reign and 
 supporting all the changes of religion, constant only 
 in the rapacious acquisition of estates and honours 
 from whatever source and in adherence to the pre- 
 sent power.*" Henry VIII. hated all Parliaments 
 just as much as Charles I. and his minister, Lord 
 Strafford. The Tudor tyrant carried out his plans 
 by a code of pains and penalties so horrible as to 
 affright every class of society, and when the nation 
 became reduced to this abject and cowardly condi- 
 tion the king imbrued his hands in the best blood of 
 the land, and he plundered his subjects on a scale 
 never before known in any civilized country."! 
 The commons, during what is known as the refor- 
 
 * Henry VIII. employed towards the nobility a different policy 
 to his father, who had depressed them. The streams of royal 
 favour under Henry VIII. swept countless favours to those who- 
 gained his attention, such as wealthy marriages, gifts out of royal 
 domains or confiscated properties, and, after the monasteries were 
 suppressed, a share in the spoils. Not the least curious of these 
 grants to courtiers were annuities out of episcopal sees or monastic 
 revenues. Instances of the latter are numerous; of the former an act, 
 which confirmed to the duke of Norfolk and six others, annuities 
 out of the see of Winchester is a well-known example. By another 
 act, the duke of Suffolk, the earl of Sussex, and lord Fitzwalter had 
 grants confirmed out of the see of Norwich. See Amos, " Statutes 
 of H. VIII.," p. 4. 
 
 f " Constit. Hist, of Eng.," Vol. i., p. 51.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 299 
 
 rriation parliament, numbered two hundred and 
 ninety-eight members. A glance at the returns will 
 show that they represented some counties according 
 to such remarkable disproportion as to plainly indi- 
 cate divisions, in correspondence to royal influence. 
 " As- to parliamentary elections," writes an authority 
 on the statutes passed in this reign, " we find many 
 instances throughout the reign of Henry VIII. of 
 the direct interference of the government, and of 
 bishops or of peers connected with the court, who 
 were possessed of extensive domains. We read, for 
 example, a letter in Ellis' Collections, from lord 
 Dacre of the north to Wolsey, noticing an order 
 from the king for his brother to be elected a knight 
 of the shire of Cumberland, and begging to have 
 him excused. He beseeches that ' it would like his 
 grace to suffer Mr. Heneage or such one of your 
 servants to be in his room as your grace shall nomi- 
 nate.' Mr. Hallam adduces a letter from Sir Robert 
 Sadler, informing a person that the duke of Norfolk 
 had spoken to the king, who was well content he 
 should be a burgess for Oxford, and that he should 
 ' order himself in the said room according to such 
 instructions as the said duke of Norfolk should give 
 him from the king. .' In the session of parliament 
 next preceding the meeting of the reformation par- 
 liament there arose a debate upon a subsidy which 
 had been demanded of unprecedented amount. A 
 letter in Ellis' Collections, communicates to the earl of 
 Surrey that ( yesterday, the more part, being the
 
 300 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 king's council, the king's servants and gentlemen, 
 gave the king his subsidy,' and that the minority had 
 been 'spoken with and made to say yea, it may for- 
 tune contrary to their heart, mill, and conscience! ' 
 
 The parliament, thus so carefully selected for the 
 king's purposes in 1529, met to deal with the monas- 
 teries in their last session on February 4th, 1536. 
 The early days of the session having been occupied 
 with other business, the bill for the suppression of 
 the smaller monasteries was brought up to the house 
 about the beginning of March. Unfortunately the 
 journals of both houses of parliament for this and the 
 next year are missing, and we have little to rely upon, 
 for the history of this session, but the preamble of the 
 act itself. This is to be the more deplored, as pre- 
 ambles are not entirely to be trusted. f That the bill 
 was a government measure is not to be doubted. In 
 all probability it was brought up to the house by the 
 king in person, for such bills were frequently for- 
 warded a stage by the personal interference of the 
 king. It is not unlikely that the following extract 
 from a letter written at this period refers to the 
 royal visit. " On Saturday in Ember week the 
 king's grace came in among the burgesses of the 
 parliament, and delivered them a bill and bade them 
 look upon it and weigh it in conscience. He would 
 
 * Amos, "Statutes of H. VIII.," Introd., p. 5. 
 
 t " If preambles to acts of parliament were to be accepted as 
 trustworthy evidence as to facts the}' recite, English history would 
 be a very strange tale even stranger than it appears in Mr. Froude's 
 pages." Friedmann's "Anne Boleyn," ii., p. 352.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. ^01 
 
 O 
 
 not, he said, have them pass it, nor any other thing, 
 because his grace giveth in the bill, but they to see it 
 if it be for the commonweal to his subjects and have 
 an eye thitherward. And on Wednesday* next he 
 will be there again to hear their minds." f 
 
 The preamble of the act proves beyond doubt 
 that the king did pay a visit to the House on the 
 introduction of this " bill." It says, that the discus- 
 sion was preceded by what is called a " declaration" 
 by the king, as to the meaning and necessity of the 
 proposed measure. It asserts that, " In considera- 
 tion of (the evil lives of those in the smaller monas- 
 teries) the kings most royal majesty . . . having 
 knowledge that the premises be true as well by 
 the compertes\ of his late visitation as by sundry 
 credible informations, considering also that divers 
 and great solemn monasteries of this realm, wherein, 
 thanks be to God, religion is right well kept and 
 observed, be destitute of such full numbers of re- 
 ligious persons as they ought and may keep, hath 
 thought good that a plain declaration should be 
 made of the premises as well to the lords spiritual 
 and temporal as to other his loving subjects the 
 commons in this present parliament assembled. 
 Whereupon the said lords and common's by a great 
 deliberation finally be resolved, that it is and shall be 
 
 * In 1536 Easter fell on April i6lh, and Ember Saturday on 
 March i ith. 
 
 t Wright, p. 36. Thomas Dorset, curate of St. Margaret's, 
 Lothbury, to the mayor and others of Plymouth, March 13. 
 
 + Printed in Wright, p. 107.
 
 302 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 much more to the pleasure of Almighty God " that 
 the property of these religious " should be converted 
 to better uses, and the unthrifty persons so spending 
 the same be compelled to reform their lives."* And 
 therefore they pray the king to take all the property 
 of monasteries having an income under ^200 a year. 
 From this preamble (which, it must be remem- 
 bered, is practically all that is known about the 
 measure) it would seem that parliament had no 
 written documents placed before it, upon which to 
 form any independent judgment as to the justice 
 of the act they were asked to pass. The king, we 
 are told, made a " full declaration " of what he knew 
 to be true from the reports of the visitors and other 
 sources. Upon this, after " a great deliberation," 
 the members acted. Whether the report of the 
 visitors in any shape was also submitted to their 
 examination will probably never be ascertained with 
 certainty. Sanders, it is true, speaks of the " publi- 
 cation of the enormities, "f but this might only refer 
 to the king's " declaration." Bishop Latimer, who was 
 possibly present in the house of lords, also says : 
 "when their enormities were first read in the parlia- 
 ment house, they were so great and abominable that 
 there was nothing but down with them, but within a 
 while after the same abbots were made bishops, for 
 the saving of their pensions."! This is about the 
 
 * H. VIII. , cap. 28. The word used on the parliamentary roll, 
 is " comperfcs" which were the visitors' reports, 
 f "Schism," Lewis' translation, p. 129. 
 J Two sermons before Ed. VI. Parker Society ed., Vol. i., p. 123.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 303 
 
 only authority for the statement that any such docu- 
 ment as the famous " Black Book" was ever pre- 
 sented to parliament. The first mention of the name 
 " Black book " occurs in a document called a decla- 
 ration of the " mode of dissolving the abbeys." It 
 is supposed to have been made for the information of 
 Queen Elizabeth. " This appeared in writing," the 
 author asserts, " with the names of the parties and 
 their facts. This was showed in parliament and the 
 villanies made known and abhorred. "' The villanies 
 " made known and abhorred " (at least as to murders 
 and forging of deeds and the number of those im- 
 plicated) are certainly not borne out by any known 
 letters or reports of the visitors, of which a great 
 many are still in existence. It may be justly asked 
 
 * B. Mus. Cot. MSS. Titus, F. iii., fol. 266, printed by Wright, 
 p. 114. The " vile lives and abominable fads in murders of their 
 brethren," in unnatural sins, " in destroying of children, in forging 
 of deeds and other infinite horrors of life, in so much that dividing 
 all the religious persons in England into three parts two of these 
 parts at least " were guilty of sins against nature. As this is the 
 most important document on which is based the venerable tradition 
 that the Black Book was laid before parliament it may be well to 
 observe, in addition to what is said in the text : (i) that from an 
 expression at the beginning it is clear the writer does not make his 
 statement on inspection of records (he ^imagines that Wolsey's sup- 
 pressions may have had the pope's approval, but is quite ignorant of 
 the fact) : (2) he clearly does not speak from personal knowledge 
 of what passed in parliament : (3) as to the date of the document, 
 all that Mr. Wright can say is that " it appears to have been written 
 in the time of queen Elizabeth." This nameless, dateless produc- 
 tion has not therefore even the value of sub-contemporary evidence ; 
 and in itself, apart from the use made of it, is not worth even the 
 trouble of this note.
 
 304 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 what reliance can be placed upon this account as a 
 history of the event. It moreover professes to be 
 no more than a recollection of what took place, and 
 does not distinguish between the two acts of sup- 
 pression by which the lesser and greater monasteries 
 were destroyed. 
 
 If this " Black book " was presented to parliament, 
 as is so constantly asserted, nothing has since been 
 seen of it. To explain the disappearance of this most 
 important document, a theory started, as far as can 
 be ascertained by the ingenious Burnet, explains 
 that the catholics destroyed this dreadful indictment 
 against the monks during the reign of queen Mary. 
 Their object was to get rid of this damning evidence 
 of the corruption of the monastic system. Burnet 
 bases his assertion* on a commission issued in the 
 fourth year of Mary's reign to Bonner bishop of 
 London, Henry Cole dean of St. Paul's and others, 
 to examine into the documents " compertes, bokes, 
 scroles, &c.," and also into " sundry and divers in- 
 famous scrutinies taken in abbeys and other religious 
 houses tending rather to subvert and overthrow all 
 good religion and religious houses than for any truth 
 contained therein." The commissioners are ordered to 
 get these documents together, " that the said writings 
 and other the said premises be brought to knowledge, 
 whereby they may be considered, read and ordered 
 according to our will and pleasure."! They are further 
 
 * "History of the Reform." (ed. Pocock), ii., p. 547. 
 t Dec. 29, 1556, Rot. Pat., 3 and 4 Phil, and Mary. Pars 12 
 m. (21), 30 d., printed in Burnet's " Records," ii., No. 28.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 305 
 
 commanded to make their report to cardinal Pole. 
 It is obvious that this commission is one of inquiry. 
 There is not one word in the document to justify the 
 assertion that it was one of destruction. Neverthe- 
 less, Burnet says he " soon knew which way so many 
 writings had gone," when he saw the commission. 
 The authority of the late Mr. Brewer may be given 
 for the assertion that there is no trace among the 
 records of this period of any such systematic de- 
 struction.* 
 
 If the book ever existed, its loss, whether destroyed 
 on purpose or by accident, is greatly to be deplored, 
 It is, however, obvious that the cause of the monas- 
 teries would be ill-served by the destruction. On the 
 other hand, when uncorroborated charges had been 
 made to serve their purpose against the monastic 
 houses, when the spoils of sacred shrines and con- 
 secrated cloisters had been allowed to minister to the 
 vices of the monarch or to replenish the empty 
 purses of his corrupt courtiers, the sooner the evi- 
 dence, upon which such destruction and spoliation 
 had been wrought, was destroyed the better for the 
 reputation of those who had profited by it. A 
 modern Church of England authority writes : " If I 
 could visit the island of Glubbdubdrib, and wanted 
 to know what became of this ' declaration ' or ' black 
 
 * Dixon's "Hist, of Church of England," Vol. i., p. 342. "Mr. 
 Froude, with his usual disregard of facts, says 'The report itself is 
 no longer extant. Bonner was directed by Queen Mary to 
 destroy all discoverable copies of it, and his work was fatally 
 well executed '" ! ! ! 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 book,' I should call up the ghost of Crumwell to 
 tell me : that is supposing such a document ever 
 existed."* 
 
 For three centuries and a half the imaginations of 
 writers hostile to the monastic institutions have sup- 
 plied the details of the missing document. Even 
 the most honest historians have neglected to dis- 
 tinguish between what is mere conjecture and what 
 is certain. Dr. Lingard, for example, states " that 
 from their (the visitors') reports a statement was 
 compiled and laid before parliament, which, while it 
 allotted the praise of regularity to the greater monas- 
 teries, described the less opulent as abandoned to 
 sloth and immorality.''! It is, however, by no means 
 certain that any " statement was compiled " from the 
 reports of the visitors, still less that it was laid before 
 parliament. On the other hand, it is expressly 
 stated that the king's information was based on other 
 "credible informations" besides the "accounts of 
 his late visitation." And certainly from what we 
 know of the royal agents and their methods, it is 
 most unlikely that they would give the " praise of 
 regularity " even to the greater monasteries. 
 
 From the records of this event it would seem 
 therefore to be tolerably certain, that the visitors 
 made their reports to Crumwell and in no sense to 
 the houses of parliament. That Crumwell had an 
 abstract of these reports prepared from time to time 
 
 * Canon Dixon, Vol. i., p. 342 note, 
 t " History," Vol. vi. (3rd Ed.), p. 298.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 307 
 
 is more than probable,* and that they were gathered 
 together into one book not unlikely. That they 
 formed, however, a volume called the " Black book" 
 and were in this way laid before the parliament can- 
 not be proved, and on the evidence of the " pre- 
 amble " of the act itself would appear unlikely. One 
 thing seems to be certain : there was no attempt 
 made to inquire into the truth of the charges sug- 
 gested in the king's declaration. They were ac- 
 cepted on his authority, who had " knowledge that 
 the premises were true." 
 
 The preamble! of the act of suppression com- 
 mences by stating, that " manifest sin, vicious, carnal 
 and abominable living is daily used and committed 
 commonly " in religious houses of less than twelve in 
 number, " whereby the governors of such religious 
 houses and their convent spoil, destroy, consume, 
 and utterly waste" their property "as well as the 
 ornaments of their churches " and other goods. On 
 
 * Ap. Rice, one of the visitors, says he made this " Breve 
 docket.'' 
 
 f Amos, " Statutes H. VIII.," p. 9 notes. " With regard to the 
 facts detailed in preambles, their veracity will derive no support 
 from a coincidence with State papers, such as confessions, de- 
 positions, verdicts, judgments, reports, provided both the preambles 
 and such documents should appear to be the productions of the 
 same laboratory, the handiwork of the same craftsmen. Such a 
 coincidence might be anticipated if the king, by his subservient 
 agents, stretched racks, examined prisoners, transcribed and read 
 evidence, empannelled and reformed the pannels of juries, directed 
 and terrified the twelve, pronounced criminal and ecclesiastical 
 judgments, wove the tissue of vilifying reports, and, afterwards, 
 summed up the results in preambles."
 
 308 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 the face of it, it is absurd to suppose that the serious 
 charges here brought against the monasteries could 
 be confined to those houses, which had less than 
 twelve inmates. The limit was very probably sug- 
 gested to the framers of the measure by the terms of 
 the papal bull of 1528, authorizing cardinal Wolsey 
 to suppress certain houses for the establishment of 
 his colleges. This bull provided, that the religious 
 in these monasteries be less in number than twelve 
 and be transferred to the larger monasteries. Such 
 a limit, however, is made ridiculous, when it is set as 
 the line of demarcation between virtue and vice.* 
 
 The records of the visitation, which was the fore- 
 runner of this act, show who were the real " spoilers 
 and destroyers" of, the monastic treasuries. Those 
 who, like Layton, " had packed up the stuff as the 
 monks had," and the " crosses of silver and gold," 
 intending to " bring you (Crumwell) the rest when I 
 have received all," or the king who had taken a fancy 
 to possess himself of the jewelled cross from the 
 cathedral priory of Winchester, were best able to 
 know that the religious houses were being spoiled of 
 their " ornaments." The clause, as it stands in the 
 preamble, seems to have no other object than to 
 cover the fact of the disappearance from the monas- 
 tic treasuries of valuables, which had already 
 
 * Vide Amos, "Statutes H. VIII.," p. 301. The number 12 
 was probably introduced ad captandum. It is never again referred 
 to in the enacting clauses. It may have been thought that numbers 
 could not be diminished so plausibly as values.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 309 
 
 found their way into the king's possession through 
 the hand of his visitors, or had been appropriated to 
 their own private purposes.* 
 
 The professed desire of the king to reform the 
 inmates of the smaller monasteries by sending f 
 them to the greater houses, " where they may be 
 compelled to live religiously for the reformation of 
 their lives," was not carried out in practice. Whole- 
 sale dispensations from the solemn obligations of the 
 religious vows had already been granted to such as 
 desired freedom. A priest's or layman's gown, with 
 forty shillings out of the plunder of their own 
 property, on being turned out into the world to live 
 as best they might, was the usual form of " reforma- 
 
 * Amos, " Statutes H. VIII.," p. 309, says : " It would appear 
 that, with regard to their (the monastic) personal property, and 
 such of their possessions as were capable of rapine or destruction, a 
 great part of the damage they received was done them, under 
 colour of the visitations, before any dissolution act had passed." 
 
 t This provision is also taken from the bull of 1528. How anxious 
 Henry really was for the religious reformation of the monasteries 
 may be judged from a letter written by Chapuys to the Emperor, 
 on July 31,1531. "At the request of the abbots of this country," 
 he writes, " and by the advice and order of the General Chapter of 
 the Order of Cisteau, there has come to this city an abbot of Chalon, 
 (sic) a very learned and virtuous monk, for the purpose of visiting 
 the monasteries of his order in this country, which are in great need 
 of inspection. But notwithstanding the manifold juridical reasons 
 and the right he had to undertake the said visit, as he himself told 
 the nuncio and me when dining at my hotel, the king has never 
 allowed him to make the said visitation, alleging that no one had a 
 right to interfere in the affairs of his kingdom, saying that he was 
 atonce King, Emperor (and if I recollect right) Pope also in his 
 dominions." Spanish St. Papers, iv., No. 775.
 
 310 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 tion " adopted to get rid of the monks from their 
 homes and to get possession of their coveted 
 property. Nevertheless, the same professed desire 
 for perfect religious life and the spiritual welfare of 
 the monastic establishments is repeated in another 
 part of the preamble, where it is suggested that the 
 ejected religious would go to raise the numbers in 
 the " great, solemn monasteries wherein (thanks be 
 to God) religion is right well kept and observed." 
 
 It is, moreover, well to note the only kind of refor- 
 mation attempted by the king or his agents during 
 the six months which preceded the passing of this 
 act. It was the forcible suppression of several small 
 monasteries, the seizure of their possessions, and the 
 violent laying of hands on the treasures of others. 
 In the enacting clauses of the bill, also, the number 
 of the religious to be found in the monasteries is not 
 laid down as the limit to mark them for dissolution 
 or preservation, but a money value of under ^200 a 
 year. The monasteries were, moreover, given to the 
 king and his heirs only in " as ample a manner " as 
 they were possessed by the religious superiors. These 
 were trustees for common purposes and never re- 
 garded their property in any other light than as held 
 for the support of religion and the poor. Further, 
 the purpose, for which the monastic property was 
 diverted by this act from its possessors and given to 
 the king, is stated to be "that his highness may law- 
 fully give, grant, and dispose them, or any of them, 
 at his will and pleasure to the honour of God and flic 
 wealth of this realm"
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 31 1 
 
 However uncertain and vague the terms of this 
 grant may appear, they can hardly be supposed to 
 comprehend those purposes, private, secular and 
 even vicious upon which Henry squandered the 
 property thus obtained. It was ordered, also, that 
 the king should provide occupation and pensions for 
 the monks not transferred to other monasteries. It 
 was further enacted, that on the site of every dis- 
 solved religious house the new possessor should be 
 bound under heavy penalties to provide hospitality 
 and service for the poor, such as had been given 
 them previously by the religious foundations. By 
 this provision not only is the patrimony of the poor, 
 recognized as being merged in the property of the 
 monasteries, but a testimony is afforded as to the 
 way the religious had hitherto discharged their obli- 
 gations in this respect. The repudiation of these 
 rights of the needy, by those who became possessed 
 of the confiscated property, is one of the greatest 
 blots on our national history. It has caused the 
 spoliation of monastery and convent to be regarded 
 as the rising of the rich against the poor. 
 
 In the commons, there are some signs of opposi- 
 tion to the act of suppression^ which made legal, but 
 by no means just, this plunder of monastic property. 
 The "preamble" of the act speaks of a "great 
 deliberation " which preceded the final vote, and Sir 
 Henry Spelman, who no doubt gave the traditional 
 account of the matter, says : " It is true the parlia- 
 ment gave them to him, but so unwillingly (as I 
 have heard) that when the bill had stuck long in the
 
 312 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 lower house and could get no passage, he commanded 
 the commons to attend him in the forenoon in his 
 gallery, where he let them wait till late in the after- 
 noon, and then coming out of his chamber, walking 
 a turn or two among 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 him as he desired." * 
 
 It has always been stated that the abbots of the 
 greater monasteries, who sat in parliament, to save 
 their own abbeys did not hesitate to vote for the 
 suppression of the less powerful houses. Hall in his 
 Chronicle says, that " in this time was given unto 
 the king, by the consent of the great, fat abbots, all 
 religious houses that were of the value of 300 marks 
 and under, in hope that their great monasteries 
 should have continued still. But even at the time 
 one said in the parliament house that these were the 
 thorns, but the great abbots were the putrified old 
 oaks, and they must follow. And so will other do in 
 Christendom, quoth Dr. Stokesley, bishop of London, 
 or many years be passed. "f As stated above,, there 
 does not appear to have ever been any actual voting 
 in the upper house. Consequently all that the 
 
 * " Hist, of Sacrilege," ed. 1853, p. 206. Spelman was born in 
 1562, less than thirty years after the event, 
 f "Union," ed. 1548, fol. 227 d.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries, 313 
 
 mitred abbots would have done, was to have been 
 present during the passing of the bill. Probably 
 those that were there had no choice in the matter. 
 It is, moreover, certain that the king had grave fears 
 that the opposition of these parliamentary abbots 
 would defeat his intended spoliation, and that to 
 prevent them "parrying the blow in store for them" 
 and " complaining of the innovations introduced in 
 their convents," he had prepared to exclude them 
 from parliament altogether. * His intention, how- 
 ever, was not carried out, although there is reason 
 to suppose that many of the abbots were excused 
 from attending this session of parliament. This was 
 the ordinary way by which the success of a measure 
 was ensured at this time. Such an indulgence really 
 meant a command to abstain from appearing at 
 Westminster. After the recent experience of the 
 " great and fat abbots" in the visitation of their 
 monasteries, they could hardly have trusted much 
 to the king's good intentions in their regard. We 
 may at least credit them with as much foresight as 
 Stokesley, the bishop of London is said to have pos- 
 sessed, and not believe that they deluded themselves 
 with any vain hopes of saving their own existence by 
 the sacrifice of their weaker brethren. 
 
 Henry and his minister Crumwell appear to have 
 
 been the first English rulers who realized the immense 
 
 power of public opinion, and who endeavoured by 
 
 definite and elaborate measures to educate it. Every 
 
 * Spanish State Papers, Vol. v., Xo. 221.
 
 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 effort was made to influence the people, by means of 
 preachers selected for their known adherence to the 
 policy of the king, and by stage plays and inter- 
 ludes, often acted in the very churches. These repre- 
 sented " the immoralities and disorders of the 
 clergy " and " the pageantry of their worship," by 
 which they " encouraged them all they could " to 
 adopt their freedom of thought and contempt of 
 religion.* 
 
 In the June of the previous year (1535) Chapuys 
 had described the personal interest the king 
 took in these plays. Henry, he says, had gone 
 thirty miles, walking ten of the distance at two 
 o'clock in the morning, in order to be present 
 at a representation of a chapter of the Apocalypse. 
 He had taken up his position in a house from which 
 he could observe everything, " but was so pleased to 
 see himself represented as cutting off the heads of 
 the clergy, that in order to laugh at his ease, and 
 encourage the people he discovered himself."f 
 Three years later, the French ambassador, Marillac r 
 writing to his master describes a pageant of much 
 the same character enacted on the Thames in the 
 presence of Henry and a large concourse of people. 
 Two large boats, filled with the actors, engaged in a 
 sham battle. The men in the one were dressed to 
 
 * See Blunt's " Reform.," p. 273, note. " The horrible coarse- 
 ness of such representations ; the immorality and blasphemy of 
 parodizing the H. Eucharist in the very house of God itself seem, 
 not to have struck these writers " (i.e., Foxe and Burnet). . 
 
 t Calendar, viii., No. 949.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 315 
 
 represent the pope and his court of cardinals, those 
 in the other the king and his nobles. The latter 
 overcame the former, and the pope and his followers 
 were thrown into the river. No wonder the ambas- 
 sador thought so little of the performance.* 
 
 The pulpit had been already used for the purpose 
 of attacking the papal supremacy and instructing 
 the people in the principles of revolt against 
 authority.! Cranmer, whom Chapuys considered 
 a kind of antipope j set up by Henry, used his 
 short-lived supreme spiritual authority to revoke 
 the licences of the preaching clergy. He granted 
 his permission only to those whom he could trust 
 to speak against the authority of the see of Rome. 
 For the purpose of more easily controlling the teach- 
 ing of the people, all sermons and instructions in the 
 ordinary parish churches were forbidden to be given 
 after nine o'clock in the morning. At that time 
 the services were- to be finished, so " that then the 
 curates, with the parishes, might come to Paul's 
 cross and hear the preachers." These sermons 
 were specially named as occasions when there was 
 to be set forth the doctrine directed by the Privy 
 Council. Moreover, a minute of the council strictly 
 
 * " Inventaire Analytique des archives du Ministere des affaires 
 etrangeres," ed Jean Kaulek, No. 123, June 2Oth, 1539. He con- 
 sidered the spectacle had " paouvre grace et beaucoup moindre 
 invention." 
 
 t Privy Council Memoranda, anno 1533, State Papers, Vol. 
 i., 411. 
 
 \ Calendar, Vol. vii., No. 14. 
 
 Ibid., No. 463.
 
 3*6 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 commands the mayor, aldermen, and common council 
 of London " liberally to speak at their boards " on 
 this matter, and instruct their servants in the same, 
 while provincial officers and the gentry are to see 
 that their families " bruit the same in all places 
 where they shall come."* 
 
 Even adverse opinions of private individuals were 
 not to be tolerated if discovered. For this purpose 
 a system of espionage was established in free Eng- 
 land, which allow r ed no one to feel secure. The 
 rich noble and the poor apprentice were equally 
 unable to express their convictions except at their 
 peril. Lord Hussey had to excuse himself to the 
 tyrant minister for a conversation held at his table 
 three years previously, in which a priest was blamed 
 for irreverently preaching against the Blessed Virgin. f 
 Richard Hill, also, the poor apprentice of a city 
 merchant, had to fly over the seas for defending the 
 catholic doctrine of the necessity of good works, in 
 a controversy with a young companion. The views 
 of this youth were reported to the bishop of London, 
 and on his refusal to retract, his master, who did 
 not dare to furnish him with any money, advised 
 him to fly beyond the seas. From Rouen he wrote 
 to Crumwell to beg that at least what he had done 
 might bring no harm to his parents or his master, j 
 
 * Reminiscences of John Louthe, printed in " Narratives of the 
 days of the Reformation," Camden Soc., p. 23. 
 t R. O. Crum. Corr., xviii., No. 34. 
 + Ibid., No. 78.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 31 7 
 
 At a time when no individual was allowed to have 
 ' an opinion of his own on the policy of the govern- 
 ment, or, indeed, even on the faith of his forefathers, 
 the influence of public preaching was necessarily 
 most powerful in directing popular feeling and 
 sympathy. No sooner, therefore, was the suppres- 
 sion of the monasteries determined upon, and the 
 arrangements for effecting it complete, than the 
 machinery of the public pulpits was set in motion to- 
 endeavour to forestall popular discontent. Coarse 
 invective and unscrupulous insinuation, it was hoped, 
 might alienate the affection of the people from the 
 monks. In pursuance of this object Crutnwell sent 
 forth three kinds of preachers to attack the monastic 
 institutions. " One sort must be railers against 
 religious men, calling them hypocrites, sorcerers, 
 crooked necks, slowbellies, idle drones, abbey 
 lubbers, plants which the Heavenly Father never 
 planted, mumblers of praises in the night, which God 
 heard not, creatures of the pope's making." 
 
 "Another sort," like Cranmer, must needs tune 
 their instruments on another string, " saying that 
 they made the land unprofitable," whilst a third 
 told the people that the king would never want their 
 money again. " This part was well discharged by 
 Cranmer at Paul's cross." So much so " that, al- 
 though wise men saw there was no truth in it," 
 & 
 
 still they allowed themselves to be influenced by the 
 specious promises.* 
 
 * B. Mus. Sloane MS., 2495.
 
 318 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 The fact is, that the people were groaning under 
 the weight of an almost insupportable taxation. 
 They were only too ready therefore to listen 
 to any voice promising them immunity in the 
 future more especially when this was to be pur- 
 chased by sacrificing the property of others. 
 " After his denial of papal obedience," writes 
 Marillac, the French ambassador, in 1540, " Henry 
 employed preachers and ministers who went about 
 to preach and persuade the people that he could 
 employ the ecclesiastical revenues in hospitals, 
 colleges, and other foundations for the public good, 
 which would be a much better use than that they 
 should support lazy and useless monks."* 
 
 Cranmer, at Paul's cross, tried to stifle the natural 
 feelings of dismay and opposition to the proposed 
 suppression, by vague but captivating promises of 
 future exemption from taxation. Nicholas Harps- 
 field, who was present, says f : " This prelate 
 (Cranmer) when the king went about to suppress the 
 monasteries, was his chief instrument and worker, 
 and, to bring the people asleep and cause them to 
 have better contentation that (as it was doubted) 
 would not patiently and quietly bear the suppression 
 (as it proved afterwards by the rebellion of Lincoln- 
 
 * " Inventaire Analytique," No. 242. Marillac au Connetable, 
 Aug. 6, 1540. 
 
 t Nicholas Harpsfield, "The Pretended Divorce," ed. N. 
 Pocock, Camd. Society, 1878, p. 292. The learned editor, in his 
 preface, declares that he considers Harpsfield to be absolutely 
 trustworthy.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 319 
 
 -shire and Yorkshire) came and preached at Paul's 
 cross, and to sweet the people's ears with pleasant 
 words told them, amongst other things, that they had 
 no cause to be grieved with the evertion of the abbeys, 
 but should rather be glad thereof, for the singular 
 benefit ' that should redound to the whole realm 
 thereby . .' and that the king should, by the 
 suppression of the abbeys, gather such an infinite 
 treasure that from that time he sho'uld have no need, 
 nor would not, put the people to any manner of pay- 
 ment or charge for his, or the realm's affairs. This 
 sermon, as no wise man did believe, so myself, that 
 chanced to be there present," have known how false 
 was the promise. " His said sermon was in effect 
 nothing else but a plain invective against all monas- 
 teries as places and dens of all error and superstition." 
 " The bishop of Canterbury," writes another of the 
 audience, " saith that the king's grace is at a full 
 point for friars and chauntry priests, that they shall 
 away all that, saving those that can preach. Then 
 one said to the bishop, that they had good trust that 
 they should serve forth their life time, and he said 
 they should serve it out at the cart then, for any 
 other service they should have by that."* 
 
 These and such like sermons, setting forth the 
 great advantages to be obtained by the proposed 
 suppression, apparently rendered the nation apathetic 
 to the passing of the act. The golden promises of 
 wealth to all, the banishment of poverty from the 
 
 * Wright, p. 38.
 
 320 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 land and the suggested freedom from the terrible 
 taxation of Henry, were matters which naturally 
 appealed to the cupidity of the multitudes.* When 
 the "preachers asserted, that no poor man would be 
 found hereafter in England if the monasteries were 
 once broken up and if the lands and farms by which 
 a few monks were then supported were divided 
 among a larger number of holders, "f their logic, for 
 allowing the king to do what he wished, was irresis- 
 tibly strong. And while all these specious promises 
 were being made to those who crowded to the public 
 sermons, no voice was allowed to be heard on the 
 other side. No one dared to point out how false and 
 illusory was all the promised good. 
 
 Even when the bill of spoliation was actually before 
 the commons, the court preachers were still working 
 to direct the current of popular opinion into the 
 channel, the king's wishes had already marked out. 
 On March i2th, which was in that year the second 
 Sunday of Lent and the day after the "great deli- 
 beration " had opened in parliament, Latimer, the 
 bishop of Worcester, occupied the pulpit at " Paul's 
 cross. He declared that bishops, abbots, priors, 
 parsons, canons resident, priests and all were strong 
 thieves : Yea, dukes, lords and all. The king, quoth 
 he, made a marvellous good act of parliament that 
 certain men should sow every of them two acres of 
 
 * By this time Henry had, it has been computed, already obtained 
 20 fifteenths from his subjects, 
 f Sanders' " Schism," Lewis' transl., 1877, p. 157.
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 321 
 
 hemp, but it were all too little were it so much more, 
 to hang the thieves that be in England. Bishops, 
 abbots, with such other should not have so many 
 servants, nor so many dishes, but to go to their first 
 foundation and keep hospitality, to feed needy people, 
 not jolly fellows with golden chains and velvet gowns, 
 nor let them not once come into the houses of 
 religion for repast. Let them call, knave bishop, 
 knave abbot, knave prior, yet feed none of them all 
 nor their horses, nor their dogs."* 
 
 Aided by much rough rhetoric, of which the fore- 
 going is but a specimen, by the threats of the king's 
 vengeance if " his bill " did not pass, and doubt- 
 less by the arrogance of Crumwell, who six months 
 before had threatened an English jury unless they 
 convicted the Carthusian fathers, the act was passed 
 through the House of commons. The ground, upon 
 which the members agreed to this first measure of 
 spoliation of religion and the poor, was the royal 
 word alone. He, the king, "knew the declaration" he 
 had made to them as to the vicious lives led within 
 the walls of monastery and convent "was true," 
 and his knowledge came from the " reports of his 
 visitors " and other credible sources. Upon this 
 they acted. The commons, servants and creatures 
 of their royal master though they were, perhaps did 
 not know as the present generation do that Henry 
 told the truth only when it suited his purpose. Even 
 
 * Wright, p. 36. Thomas Dorset quoted above. This is based 
 on the supposition that the date of the letter is rightly fixed. 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 322 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 their belief in his " declaration," however, would not 
 hold them guiltless as parties to a measure subver- 
 sive of the elementary rights of property. 
 
 Parliament acts for the commonweal. Just as it 
 cannot without injustice take the property of the 
 individual and bestow it without compensation at its 
 caprice, so without sacrilege and robbery it cannot 
 appropriate the wealth, which pious benefactors have 
 bestowed on religion and the poor. More especially 
 is this so, when the property thus taken is not made 
 to serve any public purpose or to mitigate some of 
 the miseries of poverty, but as a sop to the greedy 
 appetite of a vicious and avaricious monarch and his 
 needy favourites. Vice is a ground for reformation, 
 not destruction. " Henry," it has been well said, 
 " was ever prone to reformation when there was any- 
 thing to gain by it." Here there was more to be 
 gained by destruction. In thus charging the re- 
 ligious houses with being steeped in vice and 
 immorality, the king did them a greater wrong than 
 in the mere robbery of their valuables. In asserting 
 that the reports of his visitors bore him out in this 
 accusation, Henry is but repeating a tale which they 
 were sent by him to tell. 
 
 " In every argument advanced in justification of 
 the dissolution of monasteries," writes Amos, " it 
 must be assumed not only that it shows the measure 
 to have been pregnant with good, but that the good 
 preponderated over the evils resulting from the 
 extinction of all the beneficial services rendered to
 
 Parliament and the Lesser Monasteries. 523 
 
 the community by the monasteries, and from the 
 infraction of the laws of property. Both these evils 
 bore a very different aspect in the reign of Henry 
 VIII. from what they might present in the present 
 day. The destitution of this country in many of the 
 appliances of social life, which has long disappeared, 
 was for centuries remedied or alleviated by monastic 
 institutions in the way of religious duty, or in obedi- 
 ence to the rules of their founders. Again, indepen- 
 dently of the spoliation of actual lifeholders, it was, 
 in the age of Henry VIII., to take away one of the 
 chief enjoyments of property and consequently one 
 of the principal incentives to its acquisition, to shake 
 the confidence of proprietors in the security of any 
 provisions they might make out of their possessions 
 for the health, after their deaths, of their souls,, 
 whether they consisted of endowments for such 
 superstitious uses as Henry appointed in his own 
 will, or for dispelling ignorance of the mind, or for 
 curing ailments of the body." * 
 
 To this quotation may be added an eloquent 
 summary by Sir James Mackintosh, in treating of 
 this act of dissolution, of the uses for which rights 
 of property have been instituted. " Property," he 
 remarks, " which is generally deemed to be the 
 incentive to industry, the guardian of order, the pre- 
 server of internal quiet, the channel of friendly inter- 
 course between men and nations, and, in a higher 
 point of view, as affording leisure for the pursuit of 
 * " Statutes Hen. VIII.," p. 309.
 
 324 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 knowledge, means for the exercise of generosity, 
 occasions for the returns of gratitude, as being one 
 of the ties that bind succeeding generations, 
 strengthening domestic discipline, and keeping up 
 the affections of kindred ; above all, because it is 
 the principle to which all rnen adapt their plans of 
 life, and on the faith of whose permanency every 
 human action is performed, is an institution of so 
 high and transcendent a nature that every govern- 
 ment which does not protect it, nay, that does not 
 rigorously punish its infraction, must be guilty of a 
 violation of the first duties of rulers. The common 
 feelings of human nature have applied to it the 
 epithets of sacred and inviolable." From this con- 
 sideration the attention of the reader is invited to an 
 examination of the charges which the king " knew 
 to be true from the report of his visitors," and upon 
 which royal knowledge parliament justified the sup- 
 pression of the Lesser Monastic houses.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE " COMPERTA MONASTICA " AND OTHER 
 CHARGES AGAINST THE MONKS. 
 
 PARLIAMENT suppressed the lesser monasteries on 
 the faith of the king's " declaration " that vice was 
 prevalent in them. This is certain from the terms of 
 the preamble to the act. It is therein also declared 
 that Henry himself knew "the premisses" to be 
 true, by the " comperts of his late visitation as by 
 sundry credible informations." It becomes therefore 
 necessary to examine into the charges made against 
 the monks by the royal inquisitors, so far as they 
 can be learnt from their letters and reports. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to remark, how easy it is to 
 make accusations of this nature and how difficult to 
 disprove them. More especially must this be so, 
 when these charges were made more than three 
 centuries - ago, and when many documents, which 
 might have thrown much light on the matter, must 
 have perished. The very report, which is supposed 
 to have recorded the reasons for the ruin of the 
 monastic houses and to have formed the basis of 
 the king's " declaration," has never been heard of 
 since the passing of the act. Still, the assertions,
 
 326 Henry VIII. and tJie Euglisli Monasteries. 
 
 vituperations and insinuations of subsequent ages 
 have been accepted as the testimony of contem- 
 poraries. These moreover have often been collected 
 and embellished by the fertile imaginations of authors 
 hostile to the monastic institute. 
 
 Putting aside whatever has been written against 
 the English monks, by those who have endorsed the 
 charges against them without weighing the grounds 
 of the accusation, the reader's attention is invited to 
 the original documentary evidence still remaining. 
 In the first place, there are many letters from the 
 visitors themselves, written whilst engaged on their 
 task of inspection. A selection of these was pub- 
 lished by the Camden society from a volume in the 
 Cotton manuscripts in the British museum.* Many 
 others hitherto little known are to be found in the 
 public Record office. Besides these letters there 
 is a document known as the " Comperta"\ This 
 
 * " The Suppression of the Monasteries," edited by Mr. Wright. 
 The volume is almost entirely taken from the Cotton MS. Cleop., 
 E. iv., which evidently originally formed a part of the " Crurmvell 
 correspondence" in the Record Office. The letters in both collections 
 are endorsed in the same handwriting, which is probably that of Mr. 
 R. Starkey, who lived in the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
 when the Cotton collection was formed. 
 
 f The original in the Record Office is in the handwriting of one 
 of the visitors, John Ap Rice. The two copies in the Museum are 
 evidently taken from this document. There is, however, in the 
 R. O. a fragment of a similar report not transcribed in the Cotton 
 or Lansdowne MSS. It is in all probability a leaf from the abstract 
 of the reports sent by the writer, John Ap Rice, as to the monasteries 
 of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, etc. Since the above was written 
 Vol. x. of the " Calendar of Letters and Papers " has been published, 
 and these documents are entered as No. 364 in that volume.
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 327 
 
 is merely an abstract of the letters or reports made 
 to Crumwell by his agents. The greater part of the 
 document is taken up with a report on the monasteries 
 in the northern province of York and in the diocese 
 of Coventry and Lichfield. The rest consists of two 
 portions of a similar account of the diocese of 
 Norwich, written by John Ap Rice. This visitor 
 had joined with Dr. Legh in a request to Crumwell 
 for the suspension of all episcopal powers during 
 the progress of their visitation.* Ap Rice was 
 occupied with Legh in this part of England, after 
 the latter had finished his examination of the Univer- 
 sity of Cambridge, and before his meeting with 
 Layton at Lichfield in December, 1535, for their 
 northern tour of inspection. 
 
 Besides the manuscript <( comperta" another docu- 
 ment of the same nature has been preserved in the 
 pages of "foul-mouthed Bale"f which refers to 
 
 * A letter from Ap Rice (Wright, 85) written from Bury St. 
 Edmund's, shows he was engaged in the diocese of Norwich. Also 
 two joint letters (R. O. Crum. Corr., Vol. xxii., Nos. 12, 16) 
 from him and Legh as to Westderham show that they were engaged 
 in this part of England. The date of the " comperta " is important 
 and is dealt with below. Canon Dixon (p. 352) thinks they are a 
 report of a subsequent visitation, Mr. Gairdner (Vol. x., No. 
 364) refers them to the visit of 1535-6. 
 
 t " Pageant of Popes." A portion of this is to be found in the 
 third ed. of Speed's " History," and probably not inserted by him, 
 which was copied from Henri Estienne (called Henry Steven). 
 This author in his " Apologie pour Herodote " (ed. 1565) says his 
 extract is " tire d'un livre Anglois." As Bale's book was published 
 in 1555 it is probably the work from which it was copied. The 
 literary history of the extract in Speed (3rd ed.') is interesting, and
 
 328 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 some fourteen of the southern monasteries. These 
 " comperta" " comperts" or accounts were furnished 
 to Crumwell by his visitors whilst on their rounds. 
 For instance, in October, 1535, Ap Rice writes from 
 Cambridge to say that " herewith you have the 
 abridgement of the compertes in such places as we 
 have been at since we came from London." In the 
 same communication he goes on to say of Walden 
 abbey : " Ye may see by the comperta of this 
 house how they live, all the sort of them that pro- 
 fesseth chastity." This house had a good name, 
 and yet is " as some of the other where we have no 
 comperte." " Here they declared the truth, because 
 their superior always exhorted them so to do ; * and 
 in other houses they did not so because of considera- 
 tions made between them to the contrary, as at St. 
 Albans, where we found little, although there were 
 much to be found. "f 
 
 A month later the same visitor and Dr. Legh 
 write from Westacre a joint letter, saying they had 
 dispatched Crumwell another "abridgement of the 
 ' comperts ' from the last ye had unto Crabhouse."J 
 
 accounts for some strange mistakes. For instance, Bale, probably 
 hot knowing the name of the prior of Bermondsey, calls him 
 "Blank" (his real name being Richard Gill). Estienne gives the 
 name as "Blanc," and the editor of Speed retranslates him into 
 " Whiter 
 
 * Ap Rice had already said that this superior was " teaching in 
 his daily lectures, that there was no virtue in monachatu" and was 
 himself a fallen man. 
 
 f Calendar, ix., No. 66 1. 
 
 J " Evidently," writes Mr. Gairdner (Cal. x., Pref. xlii.), " the 
 third paper in No. 364 of the present volume."
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 329 
 
 At the same time they regret they cannot send more 
 to him, for " at the greatest houses that we come to 
 commonly they be so confederate, by reason of their 
 heads being mere pharisees, that we can get little or 
 no comperte there. And albeit that of the others, ye 
 may soon guess what the rest be, yet if it shall please 
 you hereafter to send a commission to certain houses, 
 ad melius inquirendum, and give them that shall go 
 somewhat more leisure, we doubt not but ye shall 
 find them all naught."* 
 
 Again, on September 2yth, 1535, Dr. Legh writes to 
 Crumwell and encloses the " compertes" ot Chertsey 
 abbey, which is headed "compendium comperforum 
 apud Chertsey. ."f This document is in precisely the 
 same form and under the same heading as the other 
 comperta, and leaves no doubt whatever that the 
 documents are the actual reports forwarded to the 
 visitor general by his instruments, during the progress 
 of their work. 
 
 That the chief motive of the visitation and the 
 special desire of the visitors was to discover evil, the 
 letters themselves do not allow us to doubt. " We 
 have no reason, indeed," writes Mr. Gairdner, " to 
 think highly of the character of Crumwell's visitors ; 
 and the letters of Layton show that he really gloated 
 over the obscenities that he unearthed."! From 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 808. Note the confession of the rapidity 
 of their examination, and the expectation of finding all they wished 
 against the religious. 
 
 t Ibid., No. 472. 
 
 \ Ibid., x., Pref. xliii.
 
 33 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Yorkshire, he and his fellow Legh, in a letter quoted 
 above, "suppose to find much evil disposition" in 
 the abbot and convent of St. Mary's, York, "-whereof, 
 God 'willing, I sliall certify you in my next letters." 
 The importance of this communication may be 
 gathered from the conclusion of the letter. Layton r 
 who had already assured Crumwell, " you will never 
 know what I can do till you try me," adds to this 
 letter from York : " In the meantime ye shall be fast 
 assured of my faithful service in all such your affairs 
 as ye commit to me, and for no corruption or lucre 
 from my loyalty to swerve in doing my prince's com- 
 mandment for your discharge who hath put your 
 
 trust in me."* 
 
 Individual members of the religious houses, who 
 were tired of the restraints of monastic discipline or 
 who were bad at heart, may perhaps have welcomed 
 the chance of release afforded them in this visita- 
 tion. From such, Layton, Ap Rice and Legh may 
 have learnt some of the stories, which they entered 
 as charges against members of the various religious 
 communities they visited. That there was even a 
 shadow or semblance of investigation into a single 
 one of the accusations, does not appear by any letter 
 or paper in existence. The very rapidity with which 
 the visitors executed their commission, and the 
 eagerness with which, as their letters prove, they 
 welcomed every indication of evil, would seem to 
 render such an examination impossible and undesir- 
 
 * Wright, 97.
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 331 
 
 able. From the monks, as a body, it is most 
 unlikely that the inquisitors derived much knowledge 
 or assistance. It is probable that most of their 
 charges were the result of illnatured gossip, magni- 
 fied by their own ready imaginations. They found 
 only what they hoped and expected, and in all pro- 
 bability those, whose reputations were at stake, were 
 left in entire ignorance of the whole matter. 
 
 " It is not to be supposed," says Mr. Gairdner, 
 " that abbots and convents generally submitted 
 quietly to a new authority, intent on promoting 
 offensive investigations as a pretext for their own 
 destruction. Many of the principal houses, it is 
 clear, would have nothing to say to the visitors ; 
 and it is quite possible that the monks in many cases 
 refused even to exculpate themselves before men for 
 whose characters and commission they had very 
 little respect. Considering the rapidity with which 
 the work was done the investigations could hardly 
 have been very judiciously conducted."* 
 
 It is impossible for anyone acquainted with the 
 ordinary mode of episcopal visitation of monasteries 
 to believe with Mr. Gairdner, that " the royal visitors 
 probably pursued the old methods of inquiry at these 
 visitations, and the only thing that was new was that 
 the result was now reported to the king."f No 
 bishop ever conducted himself towards the religious 
 communities as, upon the showing of their own 
 letters, Crumwell's agents did upon their tour of 
 
 * Calendar, x., Pref. xlii. t Hnd,, xli.
 
 33 2 Henry VI II. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 investigation. The visitation of religious houses 
 was a solemn duty, fully understood by the bishops 
 of England. It was fulfilled much more generally 
 than has hitherto been believed, and even up to the 
 very time of Henry's royal inquiry an examination, as 
 searching as can be imagined, was made at these 
 visits into the state of monastery and convent. The 
 visit was preceded, as a rule, by a formal notice of 
 it and an order for all to attend the examination. 
 On the appointed day the proceedings commenced 
 by a sermon applicable to the circumstances. The 
 religious were urged as a duty to make known any- 
 thing that was amiss or needed correction. A 
 secret and individual examination of the members of 
 the community followed, and the complaints, or 
 manifestations of the religious, often trivial, were 
 summed up under the head of " comperta." Upon 
 these the bishop or his commissioners passed their 
 judgment in the shape of "injunctions" to the 
 superior and his subjects. Complaints made and 
 entered in the comperta are often passed over as 
 groundless in the episcopal injunctions. Serious 
 matters needing correction are enforced with scrupu- 
 lous severity and with every precaution to ensure 
 due amendment. 
 
 In records of visitations which include the com- 
 perta^ there is to be found a complete account of all 
 that any person connected with the house could find 
 to complain of or suspect, whether with justice or 
 injustice. The grumbler by nature is there seen to 
 give vent to the whole accumulation of his grievances
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 333 
 
 without let or hindrance. The suspicious, timorous, 
 scrupulous person, whose solicitude for the souls of 
 his neighbours is even greater than his fear for his 
 own, has his say ; and he, like his yoke-fellow, the 
 out-spoken, self-satisfied man, finds support in un- 
 pleasant duty, by a deep sense of the obligations 
 and " secret" of the visitation. Lastly, the monk of 
 generally anxious temperament eases his conscience,, 
 by the declaration that in his opinion everything is 
 going to the dogs (omnia patiuntur ruinam). 
 In the injunctions of the visitor, which are often 
 found in the episcopal registers without a record of 
 the previous examination or the collected comperta, 
 there may be seen a calm judgment passed upon 
 the state of the religious house with a special view 
 to all that may have been found amiss. 
 
 Very different indeed is the tale such visitations 
 tell as to the state of the monasteries, from that in the 
 report of Henry's inquisitors. In the latter, there is 
 merely a summary of all that was alleged against the 
 moral character of individual religious. There is no 
 indication in the reports of any inquiry, worthy of the 
 name of an examination. Unlike the episcopal visi- 
 tations there is no judgment such as the " injunc- 
 tions " afford. The comperta, the accusations, and 
 nothing else are given. There is moreover not the 
 slightest indication by whom or under what circum- 
 stances the accusations were made. 
 
 The bishops did not hesitate to correct sternly and 
 uncompromisingly serious faults against good morals. 
 This is clear by instances which appear in their
 
 334 Henry VII I. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 registered acts. One example, taken from the 
 registers of York during the episcopate of arch- 
 bishop Lee may be given. On September ioth, 
 1535, only three months before CrumweH's agents 
 came on their rounds, the archbishop visited a 
 convent in his diocese and found that one of the 
 nuns had been guilty of grave immorality. _ " We, 
 therefore," he says in his injunctions, " willing to 
 reform the same horrible crime, command and enjoin 
 the prioress in virtue of obedience that she incon- 
 tinent after the receipt hereof cause the same dame 
 Joan to remain in prison, or in some secret chamber 
 within the dorter, and that she suffer that no sister 
 nor secular person speak with her without license of 
 the prioress, and that she cause the same dame Joan 
 to keep abstinence every week as followeth, that is 
 to say, every Wednesday and Friday to eat and 
 drink only bread and ale, and abstain from all flesh, 
 fish, butter, eggs, cheese, and milk, and other days 
 to eat as the convent fareth, and that the prioress 
 cause her to have every Friday such discipline in the 
 chapterhouse, in the presence of all the sisters, as is 
 accustomed to be had and done for like offences 
 according to their rule, and we enjoin the prioress 
 that she cause the same dame Joan so to remain in 
 prison and keep the diet aforesaid the space of two 
 years, unless we release the same penance." * 
 
 * Reg. Ed. Lee. Archiep. Ebor., f. 99. The account given 
 above of the episcopal visitations may be verified in the registers of 
 Bishop Nicke of Norwich (Bib. Bod. Tanner MSS., Nos. 132, 210).
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 335 
 
 Returning to the consideration of the comperta 
 document it is necessary to remember how this 
 differs from the summary under the same heading to 
 be found in the episcopal visitations. In the latter 
 are contained not only charges against good morals, 
 but various suggestions as to the better ordering, 
 temporal and spiritual, of the religious house. In 
 other words the comperta of an ordinary visitation are 
 an abstract of suggestions and complaints made by 
 the religious during the progress of the visit. The 
 comperta, composed by Lay ton and Legh, have 
 reference exclusively to charges against good morals. 
 This would be proof, were other evidence than their 
 letters needed, that the aim and scope of the inqui- 
 sition was to incriminate the religious and find a 
 pretext to justify the spoliation of their goods and 
 the suppression of the monastic mode of life. 
 
 The date of the document, known as the com- 
 perta, is of considerable importance. Parliament 
 passed the act of suppression on the faith of the 
 king's " declaration " that the monks were immoral. 
 This he knew to be the case by the compertes of his 
 late visitations. Are the compertes extant those 
 upon which Henry based his declaration ? There 
 is no reasonable doubt that these are the documents 
 which were at this time forwarded to Crumwell, 
 for Henry to use in pushing his measure of suppres- 
 
 Those contained in the ordinary registers are not, as a rule, entered 
 so fully as in -these two volumes, which are devoted to the visita- 
 tions of the religious houses in Norfolk and Suffolk, A.D. 1514 to 
 "534-
 
 336 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 sion through the parliament. They are, moreover, 
 in the same form as they were originally dispatched 
 by the inquisitors as they progressed with their 
 mission. This may be judged from the compertes 
 of the great abbey of Chertsey, which document 
 was written in 1535 during the royal visitation.* 
 The larger comperta of Layton and Legh are 
 the result of the northern tour of these two worthies, 
 and agree with their letters written during this 
 same visitation. The document commences with 
 Lichfield, where it is certain they met on December 
 22nd, 1535.1 It includes reports of the cathedral 
 church of York, St. Mary's abbey and Fountains, 
 where they, were in 1536, on January iith, the 
 I3th, and before the 2oth respectively. | The last 
 letter, moreover, which describes their visitation of 
 Fountains, corresponds with the compertes of this 
 abbey. In it, they speak of having got the abbot to 
 " resign privately into our hands, no man thereof yet 
 knowing. We have accepted and admitted his 
 resignation et declaravimus monasterium jam esse 
 vacans" and "suffered him to minister to all things 
 (for the avoidance of suspicion) even as he did 
 before, till we know your further pleasure. There is 
 never a monk in that house meet for that room. . 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 472. This document was sent with a letter 
 to " The Right Hon. Mr. Thos. Crumwell, Chief Sect, to the King's 
 Highness.' 1 It is, like the letter, in the handwriting of John Ap Rice, 
 and is in form similar to the other comperta which Ap Rice copied 
 from the originals. 
 
 t Wright, 91. Letter of Layton to Crumwell. 
 
 J Wright, pp. 95, 97, too.
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 337 
 
 There is a monk of the house called Marmaduke, to 
 whom Mr. Timmes left a prebend in Ripon church, 
 now abiding in the same prebend, the wisest monk 
 in England of that coat and well learned, twenty 
 years officer and ruler of all that house, a wealthy 
 fellow who will give you six hundred marks to make 
 him abbot, and pay you immediately after the election 
 without delay or respite at one payment, and, as I 
 suppose, without much borrowing. The first fruits 
 to the king is a thousand pounds, which he, with his 
 policy, will pay within three years and owe no man 
 one groat as he saith, and his reason therein is very 
 apparent. . This monk of Ripon hath a prebend of 
 ^"40, which you may bestow also upon your friend if 
 you make him abbot." In the comperta for the monas- 
 tery William Thirsk is called late abbot (nuper abbas). 
 
 After reading the above letter and learning how 
 Thomas Crumwell would be benefited by creating 
 '' Marmaduke" abbot, it need not be a matter of 
 surprise, to find that Marmaduke Bradley was ap- 
 pointed to the post. He wrote to thank his pro- 
 moter on March 6th, 1536.* This fixes the date 
 of the "compendium compertorum " of Layton's 
 northern visitation beyond dispute. 
 
 The other manuscript comperta also, certainly 
 relate to the same period, previous to the meeting 
 of parliament in the spring of 1536.! The portion 
 of the same document preserved by Bale undoubtedly 
 
 * Calendar, x., No. 424. 
 
 t The compertes for the abbey of Bury St. Edmund are founded 
 VOL. I. Z
 
 338 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 refers to the inquisitions of Layton at the monasteries 
 of Kent and Sussex during the summer of 1535.* 
 We may consequently conclude that all the docu- 
 ments of this nature were intended to serve, and did 
 actually serve, as the basis of the king's " declara- 
 tion " to parliament in 1536. They are the compertes 
 of his " late visitation." 
 
 The singular want of honesty in this assurance to 
 parliament is apparent. Henry professed to go by 
 the evidence of his visitors. Their comperta included 
 the greater monasteries with the less in wholesale 
 condemnation. The preamble of the act, passed on 
 the strength of the royal assurance, however, declares 
 that in the larger monasteries " thanks be to God 
 religion is right well kept and observed." The fact 
 that the greater monasteries are not spared in these 
 reports, makes it impossible to believe that they were 
 submitted to the inspection of parliament. Even 
 against the high authority of Mr. Gairdner it may 
 be doubted, whether " the substance at least of what 
 was contained in them was read aloud in justification 
 of the intended measure"! of confiscation. If the 
 
 entirely on Ap Rice's letter of November n, 1535 (Wright, 85), 
 and are almost certainly in his handwriting. Legh and Ap Rice can 
 be also traced at work in the diocese of Norwich by other letters, e.g., 
 Wright, 82, 83 ; R. O. Crum. Corr.,xxii., Nos. 14, 16, 17, 18, 22, &c. 
 
 * See letters, Wright, 58, 75. R. O. Crum. Corr., xx., Nos. 10, 
 13, 18, 19, 20, &c. 
 
 | Calendar, x. Mr. Gairdner (Preface, xlv.) thinks that the 
 comperta were read to Parliament, although in the following page 
 (note) he states that "the idea that the small monasteries rather 
 than the large were particular abodes of vice is not borne out by 
 the comperla"
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 339 
 
 celebrated " Black book" ever existed (of which we 
 have no proof beyond the assertion of later authors) 
 it could only have been based upon the comperta re- 
 ports. Such a document must have been drawn up 
 by Henry or his minister, with the full knowledge that 
 it suppressed the suggestions of their agents against 
 the character of the more powerful religious houses. 
 The motive for such a snppressio veri is obvious. 
 Wholesale condemnation would have roused too 
 great an opposition to the proposed measure and 
 have defeated its own end. At the same time the 
 expressio fahi in the preamble of the act, which 
 (contrary to the comperta of Crumwell's agents) de- 
 clared that " in the great and solemn monasteries of 
 the realm " religion was well conducted, demonstrates 
 the dishonest purpose which actuated the framers of 
 the measure. It is proof positive of the fraud, by 
 which parliament was induced to sanction the appro- 
 priation of the corporate property of the lesser mon- 
 asteries. 
 
 It is well here to note in passing that, with very 
 trifling exceptions, no accusations of the same nature 
 are suggested after the bill had been forced through 
 parliament. This fact, when duly considered, seems 
 to show, that such charges of immorality and incon- 
 tinence were brought against the religious for the 
 distinct object of disarming opposition and securing 
 the passing of the measure. In subsequent letters 
 and reports there is hardly anything that can be con- 
 strued into a charge of the gross nature, with which
 
 34 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Layton, Legh, and Ap Rice delight to blacken the 
 reputation of monastery and convent during their 
 first tour of inspection. 
 
 There is no need to admit that both the letters and 
 reports of the visitors at this period are very damag- 
 ing to the characters of the monastic houses. Still, 
 even accepting their estimate, the proportion of the 
 well conducted, or, at least, of those against whom 
 no charge is suggested, is very much in excess of 
 what is generally believed. " There were many 
 monasteries named in these reports," writes Mr. 
 Gairdner, " against which nothing is said ; and there 
 were more in the dioceses reported on which are not 
 named at all. So that it may be presumed, in the 
 opinion of the visitors themselves, not a few of the 
 monastic houses were pure and well governed."* 
 So far, therefore, from two-thirds of the religious 
 being represented as hopelessly sunk in vice and 
 immorality, even the visitors' ex parte reports really 
 charge only a very small minority with vice of any 
 kind. 
 
 The form of the comperta is the same in each case. 
 The name of the house is followed by a list of mem- 
 bers charged with the immorality, arranged under the 
 
 * Calendar, x., Pref. xlv. Of the 155 monasteries given in the 
 comperta (No. 364), there are 43 against which nothing worse is 
 alleged than the possession of certain relics, which is supposed to 
 argue "superstition." " To judge," says Mr. Gairdner (note) "by 
 the proportion in Yorkshire, the visitors examined only about four 
 out of ten houses,""
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 341 
 
 head of private and personal vice,* or under that of 
 incontinence. Then are given the names of such as 
 desire to quit the religious life a very small number 
 indeed, even taking the numbers of the king's agents 
 as correct.f Lastly, as a rule, the income of the house 
 and the name of the founder is stated. In many 
 instances, amounting to nearly one-third of the whole 
 number, all that the house is charged with, is having 
 an income or being in possession of relics. Upon 
 this latter fact, is founded the vague charge of "super- 
 stition." No list of the monks in each house is given, 
 and hence, on the face of the document, no means are 
 afforded of determining the proportion which the sup- 
 posed guilty bear to the whole body. There is no 
 evidence whatever furnished to support the charge 
 made. And many persons are involved in one accu- 
 sation or linked together with one defamatory epithet. 
 In many instances, moreover, a considerable 
 number of charges are laid against many members 
 of a monastery. If anything approaching an inquiry 
 were made into these cases, weeks must have been 
 occupied in the investigation. Hence, as Mr. Gaird- 
 ner says, " they (the inquiries) could not have been 
 
 * Mr. Gairdner, x., Pref. xliii., says, " In some cases even the 
 terms of the accusation may be more or less deceptive " (note). 
 " The term ' incest,' for instance, was applied to the crime of having 
 sexual intercourse with a nun ; and ' sodomy,' in very many, doubt- 
 less in most cases, signified self-abuse." 
 
 | In the whole of the " Compendium Compertorum " of Legh 
 and Layton for the province of York, &c., there are only 50 men and 
 two women represented as willing to abandon the religious life.
 
 34 2 Henry VIII. and the EnglisJi Monasteries. 
 
 very judicially conducted." The visitors' own letters 
 show how they hurried from house to house, and had 
 many other things to search out and inquire into 
 besides the morals of monks and nuns. It is reason- 
 ably certain, therefore, that the lists contained in the 
 comperta are founded merely upon vague rumours, 
 helped out by the prurient imaginations of Layton 
 and Legh. "As to the monks," writes the highest 
 authority on the state papers of this time, " we can 
 well believe that reports first originated in some cases 
 from the malice of neighbouring proprietors, between 
 whom and them, as monastic chronicles show, there 
 were apt to be frequent disputes. Thus Edward 
 Bestney writes to Crumwell about a ' little religious 
 house named Bygyn in the town of Fordham,' with 
 only two inmates, a prior and a canon, one of whom 
 was old and like to die. Crumwell, it seems, had 
 encouraged Bestney ' to spy out,' he does not say 
 what, but apparently anything that might be for his 
 own advantage ; and he accordingly insinuates that 
 the house was likely to fall into the king's hands for 
 the ' enormities ' of its two inmates, and adds that 
 the house and lands both lay so conveniently adjoin- 
 ing to his own lands that he should very much like to 
 have the farm. Was it after a full and judicial 
 inquiry that the visitors found some minor form of 
 impurity established against both the dwellers in this 
 house, one of them by report being an old man on 
 the verge of the grave ? " 
 
 * Calendar, x., Preface xliii. For the facts see Vol. ix., No. 
 761, and Vol x., No. 144.
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 343 
 
 In several instances besides the one given above, 
 it is quite clear from the comperta itself, that mere 
 idle rumour must have been the foundation of the 
 charge. Malicious reports, also, fostered if not 
 suggested by the visitors, ever anxious to further 
 Crumwell's intentions, were the sole basis of grave 
 accusations. This is seen more clearly in the com- 
 perta of Legh and Ap Rice than in those of Layton 
 and Legh. Ap Rice, for example, writes to Crum- 
 well with regard to the visitation of Bury St. Ed- 
 mund, which in conjunction with Legh he made in 
 November, 1535. 
 
 " Please it your mastership, forasmuch as I sup- 
 pose you will have suit made unto you touching 
 Bury, ere we return, I thought convenient to adver- 
 tise you of our proceedings there and also of the 
 compertes of the same." 5 He then proceeds to say, 
 that they could find nothing against the abbot's 
 character, except that he was much at his country 
 house, was fond of dice and cards and did not 
 preach. " Also he seemeth to be addict to the 
 maintaining of such superstitious ceremonies, as hath 
 been used heretofore." As " touching the convent, 
 we could get little or no reports among them, 
 although we did use much diligence in our exami- 
 nations, with some other arguments gathered of 
 their examinations." And they, therefore, conclude. 
 " that they had confederated and compacted before 
 our coming that they should disclose nothing." 
 * Wright, 85.
 
 344 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 " And yet it is confessed and proved that there was 
 here, such frequence of women coming and resorting 
 to this monastery as to no place more. . Here de- 
 part of them that be under age upon eight, and of 
 them that be above age upon five would depart if 
 they might, and they be of the best sort in the 
 house and of best learning and judgment. The 
 whole number of the convent before we came was 
 60 saving one and besides, three that were at 
 Oxford." 
 
 The compertes, which these visitors sent their 
 master after acknowledging that they could " get 
 little or no reports, although using much diligence in 
 their examinations," fortunately exist. They are in 
 the handwriting of Ap Rice himself. The abbot is 
 charged with being fond of cards and dice and not 
 doing his duty in preaching. It is added, that he 
 delights in frequenting the houses of women, &c.* 
 Ap Rice confessed in the very letter, with which 
 these compertes, written in his own hand, were sent, 
 that there was nothing but vague report against 
 Abbot Melford's character. After this, it is not 
 surprising that nine of his religious are bracketed 
 together, as " defamed of incontinence from too great 
 intercourse with women," and three others "are re- 
 ported " (fatentur) guilty of other faults. Finally, 
 the comperta adds : " There is a grave suspicion 
 that the abbot and convent had agreed together not 
 to tell anything against themselves, for though 
 
 * " Gaudet mulierum contubernio."
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 345 
 
 report says the monks here live licentiously, still 
 there never was less confessed to."* 
 
 From this instance, and others that could be 
 given, it must be allowed that the compertes are 
 merely a collection of reports, tales or malicious 
 informations. They cannot seriously be considered 
 as any evidence of the moral state of the monastic 
 houses. It is a curious revelation of the bias of 
 Crumwell's agents that they suspect, all monks 
 against whom they could learn no ill, of having 
 agreed together to conceal everything.! This deter- 
 mination to see nothing but evil should surely 
 throw discredit on the ex parte reports contained 
 in the comperta documents. The same spirit is 
 evinced in the letters the visitors addressed to Crum- 
 well at various stages in their progress and which 
 were doubtless sent with their reports or comperta, 
 which we no longer possess. Layton, for instance, 
 on his way to meet Legh at Lichfield visits a Gilber- 
 tine convent at Chiksand, in Bedfordshire. \ Here 
 <( they would not in any wise have admitted me as 
 visitor," he writes, " but I would not be so answered, 
 and visited them." From none of. the sisters was he 
 able to find out anything amiss, but on the report of 
 " one old beldame" he accused two of the eighteen 
 
 * Calendar, x., No. 364, 
 
 t Ibid., e.g., Thetford: "Etiam hie colligitur suspicio confedera- 
 tionis quum essent 17 numero." Iklesworth : " Et illic subolet 
 etiam suspicio vehemens confederationis nam quum esset 18 
 numero, nihil tamen confessum." 
 
 I Wright, 91.
 
 346 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 nuns of incontinence. In the same letter, Leicester 
 abbey is declared to be " confederate and nothing 
 will confess." " The abbot," Layton says, " is an 
 honest man, and doeth very well, but he hath here 
 the most obstinate and factious canons that ever 
 I knew." " This morning," he continues, " I will 
 object against divers of them the ' grossest of 
 crime,' et sic specialiter descendere, which I have 
 learned of others (but none of them). What I shall 
 find I cannot tell." " If this method were put in 
 practice generally," says Mr. Gairdner, " how much 
 would have been taken for confession ? Perhaps 
 silence in some cases."" Certainly it would only 
 have been reasonable to expect, that Doctor Layton 
 would have taken some time to inquire into the 
 particular charges of so grave a nature against the 
 character of the Austin canons, who strenuously 
 denied them. He expressly states, however, in the 
 letter, that .he was starting the same morning for 
 Lichfield.f 
 
 By such methods of procedure, it is no wonder 
 that the royal agents succeeded in doing Henry's 
 will and sending in a bad report where others failed. 
 Thus by the king's direction, bishop Gardiner along 
 with Fitzwilliam visited Chertsey abbey shortly 
 before the general visitation. They found nothing 
 
 * Calendar, x., Pref. xliv. 
 
 f Wright, 93 : " This morning we depart towards Lichfield 
 church," &c., " and from thence," &c. For other examples of 
 the rapidity of the visitors' progress, see Wright, 72, and Layton's 
 letters as to Sussex, Somerset, &c., in R. O. Crum. Corr., Vol. xx..
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 347 
 
 wrong. Legh and Ap Rice, however, succeeded in 
 manufacturing comperta for that establishment as foul 
 as what they suggest for many another monastery. 
 The way in which the visitors blacken the good 
 name of convents by ugly epithets in their letters 
 to their master, can be seen in one from Legh and 
 Ap Rice, whilst on their tour in the Eastern counties. 
 Crabhouse is called "a lewd nunery," because the 
 nuns have sold some lands to a Mr. Conisby. And 
 yet this same convent, a year later, is declared to be 
 in a good state, and the nuns " all of good fame and 
 conversation." 
 
 In the comperta of the visitors, attention also should 
 be paid to the nature of the charges brought. The 
 greater number are accused of secret and personal 
 sins, which could hardly have been the subject of in- 
 quiry. Such must either have been the creation of the 
 visitors' imagination, the result of malicious tale- 
 bearing or the record of the self-accusations of the 
 religious themselves. A wide opinion has prevailed 
 in the past, that confessions of conscience-stricken 
 monks and nuns exist in abundance. Upon these, it 
 has been thought, the chief part of the commis- 
 sioners' reports are based. This notion is altogether 
 false. As far as can be ascertained, no such con- 
 fessions or self-accusations are in existence.! It is 
 
 * R. O. Exchequer Q. R. Miscell. Suppression Papers, 8 T 3 y 2 
 
 f Wright, in his preface to the Camden Society Volume, p. vi., 
 
 says, " I think that even the various lists of the conjessions of the 
 
 monks and nuns of the several religious houses, entftled comperta, 
 
 and preserved in manuscript, ought to be made public." To call
 
 348 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 true that the king declared to the Lincolnshire 
 rebels that " there be no houses suppressed where 
 God was well served, but where vice, mischief, and 
 abomination of living was used, and that doth well 
 appear by their own confession, subscribed with 
 their own hands, in the time of their visitations."* 
 There is also the account written -in Elizabeth's 
 reign, which refers to the supposed " confessions." 
 " Let the horrible history of their dark, dreadful, and 
 most devilish doings," it says, " which were notified 
 to king Henry VIII., and after to the parliament 
 house by the report of the visitors returning from their 
 visitations of abbeys, and the monks and nuns them- 
 selves in their own confessions, subscribed with their 
 own hands, be a proof thereof ; which being registered 
 in a black book might more justly be called Dooms- 
 day." These last statements, however, were pro- 
 bably made upon the strength of the king's declara- 
 tion. There is absolutely no record of any such 
 self-accusations subscribed by the names of the 
 offenders. Moreover, the letters of the visitors and 
 their comfiertes prove incontestably, that they did 
 not base the charges they so freely made upon any 
 such confessions. 
 
 The king's declaration goes for nothing. Henry, 
 as has been well said, told the truth when it suited 
 his purpose. If he really possessed these confes- 
 
 the comperta by the name of confessions is to convey an entirely 
 false and misleading idea to the readers of Mr. Wright's preface. 
 * Hall, " Union," &c. (written 1542), f. 229.
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 349 
 
 sions, which must have been large and bulky docu- 
 ments, why were they not widely published ? Why 
 is it that no one has ever set eyes upon them but 
 himself ? How could they have so completely disap- 
 peared ? There are, it is true, one or two so-called 
 " confessions." But these belong to a subsequent 
 period, and were made when the religious were 
 being compelled to surrender their houses into the 
 king's hands. Even these, contain only general and 
 vague self-accusations of "voluptuous living." They 
 were evidently drawn up, not by the religious but by 
 the royal commissioners, who also appear not to have 
 hesitated to sign the document with the names of 
 the monks.* Of these so-called confessions, the 
 best known is that of the monks of St. Andrew's, 
 Northampton.! On the face of it, this lengthy 
 document was composed, not by the conscience- 
 stricken monks, but by those who came to turn 
 them out of their home and take possession of 
 th.eir property. When compared with another 
 similar document from Westacre, it would seem 
 to be merely one of a general type made use 
 of by the commissioners. In fact, the king's 
 officer acknowledges this. " Although, my good 
 
 * e.%., the document relating to Westacre (8th Kept. Dep. 
 Keeper, App. ii., p. 48) is of the same general form as that for St. 
 Andrew's, Northampton. 
 
 t First printed by Weaver, pp. 106-110. It is a most verbose 
 document, made in the presence of Legh and Layt.on. Fuller, 
 " Church Hist.," ed. 1845, P- 39 8 > 8 ives lhe cnoice passages. It 
 has been well dealt with bv Canon Dixon.
 
 35 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 lord," he writes, " there wanted here (Northampton) 
 some part of the occasions comprehended in the 
 submission of the late monastery of Westacre . . . 
 yet found we here . . . sufficient enough for the ful- 
 filling of the submission, that now we send your 
 lordship in the place of the other that wanted, so as 
 by the variety of occasions this book in the more 
 part or all is altered from the other in matter, as by 
 the perusing thereof your lordship shall well perceive, 
 which I humbly beseech you, that it may like you to 
 do. And although it shall seem tedious, or the over- 
 reading unworthy, yet it is the best I could do, and 
 I had the good will to have made the better " if I 
 could. . " Sir, these poor men have not spared 
 to confess the truth, as you shall well perceive, 
 whereby, in my poor mind, they deserve the more 
 favour, and I daresay in their hearts think them- 
 selves rather to have merited pardon by their 
 ignorance, than praise or laud for their form of 
 living." He then concludes by saying: " Sir, w,e 
 have practised with the poor men for their pensions 
 as easily to the king's charges and as much to his 
 grace's honour as we could devise." He adds a hope 
 that his father's request for the lands of the monas- 
 tery of Mallyng may be favourably entertained.* 
 Another letter, about the same matter, was written by 
 Layton and the other commissioners to Crumwell. 
 " The humble submission of the prior and convent," 
 
 * Wright, 71, dated March 3. The surrender was signed on 
 March 2nd, 1538 (Dep. Keeper Rep. 8, No. 172).
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 351 
 
 it says, " will be we suppose to the king's honour 
 and contentation, referring our doing and diligence 
 therein to your judgment." It is well here to note, 
 that in 1535 Layton had written from Northampton, 
 where he was on his visitation : " the prior now is a 
 bachelor of divinity, a great husbond and a good 
 clerk, and pity it is that ever he came there. If he 
 were promoted to a better thing, and the king's 
 grace would take it into his hands, so might he 
 recover all the lands again which the prior shall 
 never. In my return out of the North, I will attempt 
 him so to do if it be your pleasure." Apparently 
 the attempt was not made till later, when the so- 
 called confession* was extracted from him and his 
 community. What was thought of its real purport 
 may be judged from the fact that pensions were 
 arranged for all the religious. The prior, after 
 having been pensioned,! was made first dean of the 
 newly- created see of Peterborough. The history of 
 this so-called " confession," in reality the concoction 
 of CrumwelFs agents, will speak for itself. It has 
 often been quoted as one of the most damning 
 pieces of evidence against the monastic institutions, 
 
 * The " confession " may be seen in the R. O. State Papers (29 
 H. VIII.), Box -50. It is dated March i. We may note, however, 
 that this is only a copy made apparently in the early part of the 
 1 7th century. The body and signatures are in the same hand- 
 writing. It may be added that the real surrender, as it appears en- 
 rolled on the Close Roll (Rot. Claus. 29 H. VIIL, pars 2, m. 7), is 
 a totally different document; being a surrender in the general form. 
 
 f R. O. Aug. Off. Misc. Bks., 232, f. 17.
 
 35 2 Henry VIII, and the English Monasteries. 
 
 and its reproduction has generally been accompanied 
 with the insinuation that there are more of the same 
 kind. As far, however, as is known at present this 
 and its prototype of Westacre, composed and 
 adapted to altered circumstances by the ingenuity 
 of the same royal commissioners, are the only docu- 
 ments of the kind. 
 
 The comperta documents, therefore, cannot be 
 considered as representing " confessions " of vicious 
 life on the part of the monks. They are in reality 
 only the biassed and, probably in many instances, 
 baseless judgments of men who came to report evil. 
 By far the larger number of charges contained in 
 the " reports " are, as has been said, of secret and 
 personal vice, which could not have been easily 
 matter of examination. The other accusations, in 
 the comperta and letters of the king's visitors, refer 
 some few to drunkenness, one or two to supposed 
 theft, an insignificant number to unnatural crime 
 and the remainder to incontinence. Under this 
 latter head, the total number of religious charged 
 in all the known letters or reports bears a very 
 small proportion to the entire body of religious at 
 that time in England. In the comperta and letters, 
 which report as to the monasteries of a considerable 
 portion of England, scarcely 250 monks and nuns 
 are named as guilty of incontinence.* In the same 
 districts the religious must have numbered many 
 
 * This number includes those named in the various MSS. 
 comperta. Bale's printed portion, and the letters of the visitors.
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 353 
 
 thousands. Of these 250, more than a third part 
 can be identified as having subsequently received 
 pensions upon the dissolution of their houses, a fact 
 which even Burnet would consider as disproving the 
 charge in their regard.* Of the entire number of 
 convents of women visited and reported upon by 
 Layton and Legh in the North, they are able to relate 
 very little amiss. Only some twenty-seven nuns in 
 all are charged with vice, and of these, seventeen are 
 known to have been afterwards pensioned. Further, 
 in their whole visitation, extending over thirteen 
 counties, they only report that some fifty men and 
 two women are anxious to abandon the religious life, 
 even under the restrictions imposed by Crumwell's 
 injunctions. This latter fact would seem to show 
 that in truth the monks and nuns were well content 
 with their life and were not so desirous of freeing 
 themselves from their obligations, as is generally 
 believed. 
 
 In the case of the nuns charged with inconti- 
 nence, although the accusation would seem to be 
 clear and unmistakable, it may often be deceptive. 
 " Even here" (in the case of such accusations), says 
 Mr. Gairdner, " we may draw a false inference as to 
 the impurity of convents ; for the occurrence may 
 
 * The difficulty of identifying the religious at this time is very 
 considerable. They are variously described by their Christian, 
 religious or surnames, and often also by the name of their birth- 
 
 O ' ' 
 
 place. Hence there is no doubt that a great number more really 
 received pensions, but not under the same name as that by which 
 they are entered in the comperta. 
 
 VOL. I. A A
 
 354 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 have taken place before the lady was received into 
 the community. A convent was undoubtedly, in 
 many cases, a convenient refuge for a lady of good 
 family who had disgraced herself a case which we 
 have reason to know was by no means very un- 
 common."* It may be acknowledged, that in some 
 cases the charge brought had possibly a foundation 
 in fact. It is more than probable, however, that in 
 others it is altogether misleading. Thus we find in 
 the comperta, a serious charge of incontinence laid 
 against one Agnes Butterfield, of Yeddingham con- 
 vent, in Yorkshire. It is natural to suppose that 
 Agnes Butterfield was a nun ; but, if so, it is a 
 strange coincidence that at the time, there was living 
 in the convent a poor widow woman of the same 
 name. The following document shows this : " Mem. 
 That there is one old poor and lame woman in the 
 said house called Agnes Butterfield> who hath given 
 to the prioress and convent certain chattels to have 
 a corrody, and she hath no convent seal for the same, 
 but only a promise. "f Whether this be the same 
 accused in the comperta or not, one of the name 
 afterwards was entered on the pension list of the 
 establishment. 
 
 * Mr. Gairdner, x., Pref. xliii., says, " Thus, when opposite the 
 name of a nun we read the word peperit, we cannot reasonably 
 doubt the truth of an accusation which, if false, would have been a 
 very impudent libel." Surely this will depend on those who make 
 the accusation. Neither Layton, Legh, nor Ap Rice would have 
 hesitated at "an impudent libel" if it suited their purposes. 
 
 f R. O. Exchequer Q. R. Suppression Papers, W 2 .
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 355 
 
 The comparison of the comperta documents, also, 
 with previous and even subsequent visitations, tends 
 to throw discredit on the revelations supposed to be 
 contained in them and to show how little they can 
 be relied on as manifesting the moral state of the 
 religious establishments. Thus the monasteries of 
 the diocese of Norwich were visited regularly and 
 constantly by the bishop from 1514 to 1532, and in 
 the acts of these visitations, which usually include 
 the comperta, is to be found a record of the state 
 of religious houses in that diocese.* Many of these 
 monasteries and convents are the same, against 
 which, in 1535, Henry's visitors bring charges 
 of a very serious nature. In several instances 
 bishop Nicke, after examination, registers as his 
 judgment "all is well" in 1532, where Legh and 
 Ap Rice, in 1535, find much serious evil. That the 
 bishop was zealous in this duty of visitation, and 
 rigorous in his correction of what he found out of 
 order, is amply proved in his register. Thus, on 
 August ist, 1532, the bishop sent his commissioners 
 to visit and report upon the priory of Pentney. After 
 examination, and on the testimony of the entire com- 
 munity of 15 monks, the visitors declare that every- 
 thing is in a good state. Three years afterwards 
 Legh and his fellow lay grave charges against the 
 prior and five of his religious. In the latter case, 
 nothing is forthcoming but the word of two preju- 
 diced and biassed agents of Crumwell ; in the former 
 * Bibl. Bod., Tanner MSS., 132, 210.
 
 356 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 we have a record of the opinion of every individual 
 member of the community backed by that of the 
 episcopal delegate. This is but one instance of 
 many that might be adduced, in which the evidence 
 of the episcopal registers distinctly contradicts that 
 of the royal visitors, as to the real state of the 
 monasteries. 
 
 The same contradiction is seen in the reports of 
 subsequent royal commissioners. In the spring of 
 1536, or only a few months after the cotnperta were 
 composed by Crumwell's agents, commissions were 
 issued to re-examine the monasteries, with a view to 
 the suppression of such as were under the annual value 
 of ^"200. Besides this, the visitors were to report 
 upon " the number of monks, and their lives and 
 conversations." " Returns of the commissioners," 
 writes Mr. Gairdner, "for a certain number of the 
 monasteries in five several counties, are given in 
 this volume, and it is remarkable that in these 
 the characters given to the inmates are almost 
 uniformly good. More remarkable still, in the return 
 for Leicestershire, we find the inmates of Garendon 
 and Gracedieu two of the houses against which 
 some of the worst compertes were found - - re- 
 ported to be of good and virtuous conversation. The 
 country gentlemen who sat on the commission some- 
 how came to a very different conclusion from that of 
 Drs. Layton and Legh."* These country gentle- 
 men, be it remarked, were "some of the leading men 
 * Calendar, x., Pref. xlv.
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 357 
 
 in each county." How the king appreciated this 
 good report may be understood by the letter of one 
 of the commissioners, George Gyffard, written on 19 
 June, 1536, from the monastery of Garendon, whilst 
 on this very tour of inspection. " And, sir," he says 
 to Crumwell, " forasmuch as of late my fellows and 
 I did write unto Mr. Chancellor of the Augmenta- 
 tions in favour of the abbey of St. James, and the 
 nunnery of Catesby, in Northamptonshire, which 
 letter he showed unto the king's highness in the 
 favour of those houses, where the king's highness 
 was displeased, as he said to my servant, Thomas 
 Harper, saying that it was like that we had received 
 rewards which caused us to write as we did, which 
 might put me in fear to write. Notwithstanding, the 
 sure knowledge that I have had always in your 
 indifference, giveth me boldness to write to you in 
 the favour of the house of Walstroppe. The governor 
 thereof is a very good husbond for the house and 
 well beloved of all the inhabitants therunto adjoin- 
 ing, a right honest man, having eight religious 
 persons, being priests of right good conversation 
 and living religiously, having such qualities of virtue, 
 as we have not found the like in any place ; for 
 there is not one religious person there but that they 
 can and do use either embroidering, writing books 
 with very fair hand, making their own garments, 
 carving, painting, or graving. The house without 
 any scandal or evil fame, and stands in a waste 
 ground, very solitary, keeping such hospitality that
 
 358 Henry VIIL and the English Monasteries. 
 
 except by singular good provision it could not be 
 maintained with half as much land more, as they 
 may spend, such a number of the poor inhabitants, 
 nigh thereunto, daily relieved that we have not seen 
 the like, having no more lands than they have. God 
 be even my judge, that I write unto you the truth, 
 and no otherwise to my knowledge, which very pity 
 alone causes me to write."* 
 
 It has been pointed out that, besides the charges 
 contained in the comperta of the visitors, the letters 
 of Crumwell's agents also contain a variety of accu- 
 sations against religious persons and houses. Some 
 of these choice stories, reflecting on the character of 
 the monastic establishments, have been told and 
 retold by hostile writers, as typical illustrations of 
 the natural tendency of the religious mode of life. 
 One or two of the best known may now be examined. 
 At the outset we may note that, like the rest of such 
 charges, no evidence is offered in substantiation of 
 their truth. No inquiry was apparently made, and 
 no depositions of witnesses are forthcoming. As a 
 rule, therefore, the stories have to be tested on their 
 own merits, and usually they will be found to depend 
 entirely on the ingenuity of the narrator. 
 
 An example very often given, which is supposed 
 to be typical of the depravity prevailing among the 
 monks, is that of the prior of the Crossed friars in 
 London. This religious, " at the dissolution, the 
 watchful emissaries of Crumwell caught in flagrant i 
 * Wright, 136.
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 359 
 
 delicto, and down at once went the king's hammer 
 upon the corrupt little brotherhood."* 
 
 This oft-told story is founded on a letter of one, 
 John Bartelot, to Thomas Crumwell.f The writer 
 certainly says that he so caught the prior. In the 
 first place, however, the circumstances are unlikely. 
 The time, when the offence against good morals was 
 said to have been committed, was eleven o'clock in 
 the day on a Friday, in Lent. Then Bartelot 
 himself admits that to keep him quiet the prior 
 gave him ^30, and promised him more " by his 
 bill obligatory." This, as Mr. Wright concedes, " is 
 not greatly" to the witness's credit. The prior, 
 however, luckily did not pay and Bartelot sum- 
 moned him before the lord chancellor. This judge, 
 having heard the case, not only decided against the 
 accuser, "making the premisses to be heinous 
 robbery," but told him he deserved to be hanged. He 
 further ordered him to refund the blackmail which 
 he had already levied upon the unfortunate prior. 
 This is absolutely all the evidence in existence, upon 
 which so-called history has founded its accusation 
 against the character of the prior of the London 
 Crossed friars. As far as the facts speak for them- 
 selves, they are decidedly against the accuser. This 
 judgment of the matter is somewhat sustained by the 
 
 * " Old and New London," Thornbury, Vol. ii., p. 253. The 
 story is also given in Burnet, ed. Pocock, i., p. 385. 
 
 f Wright, 59. The editor says : " His (Bartelot's) transaction 
 with the prior is not greatly to his credit, and the chancellor 
 appears to have formed no very unjust opinion of him."
 
 360 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 fact, that the prior of this house " was reported by 
 the visitors of the religious houses to lord Crumwell 
 as a man of inoffensive life."' 
 
 Another story constantly repeated, and which has 
 certainly not been allowed to suffer loss by repeti- 
 tion, affects the good name of the Premonstratensian 
 abbey of Langdon in Kent. 
 
 This accusation is also connected in some measure 
 with Crumwell's servant, John Bartelot, who was told 
 by chancellor Audley, that for his part in regard to 
 the prior of the Crutched friars " he was worthy to 
 be hanged." Layton, ever " so eloquent in accusa- 
 tions " according to his fellow-commissioner Legh, 
 who knew him so well, tells the story. f Froude 
 declares, without the slightest grounds, that it was 
 "the more ordinary experiences of the commis- 
 sioners." % The letter describes how Layton skilfully 
 caught that " dangerous, desperate, and hardy 
 knave," the abbot of Langdon. The man Bartelot 
 and other servants were left to watch the outer 
 doors of the abbey house while Layton went to 
 the door of the abbot's lodging. Not getting 
 any answer to his knocking " saving the abbot's 
 little dog that, within his door fast locked, bayed 
 and barked," he broke it open with a pole-axe, found 
 
 * " Monasticon," vi.,p. 1586. Edmund Stretham was the name 
 of the prior who, on April 17, 1534, subscribed to the royal 
 supremacy. 
 
 t Wright, 75. Mr. Wright finds the story " singularly ludi- 
 crous." 
 
 J "Hist.," Vol. ii., p. 425.
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 361 
 
 quite handy. He entered alone, but with his pole- 
 axe, for fear of the abbot. Bartelot, guarding the 
 outlets, caught a woman running away and took 
 her to Layton, who, having examined her, sent her 
 under her captor's charge to Dover. Layton does 
 not say that the abbot was at his lodgings at all, but 
 his letter adds : " I brought holy father abbot to 
 Canterbury, and here at Christchurch I will leave 
 "him in prison." A woman's dress was found, at 
 least Layton says so, in the abbot's chest, which 
 fact has been ingeniously rendered by Burnet, to 
 serve his purpose, as : " in the abbot's coffer there 
 was a habit for her, for she went for a young 
 brother."* 
 
 Accepting the facts of the letter as they stand, 
 what are they apart from insinuations, pleasantry and 
 dressing up ? That a woman was caught running 
 away.f Also, if Layton is worthy of credit, that a 
 female's dress, was found in the "abbot's chest." 
 
 * Burnet, i., p. 307. Layton in his letter only says : " At last 
 I found her apparel in the abbot's coffer." This gloss as to how 
 the woman passed herself off is Burnet's own. 
 
 f "But for a conclusion his . . gentlewoman bestirred her stumps 
 towards her starting holes and there Bartlett, watching the pursuit, 
 took the tender damoisel, and after 1 had examined her, to Dover 
 there to the mayor to set her in some cage or prison for viij days." 
 This is all the information vouchsafed. Layton is very circum- 
 stantial on accessories, very sober or reticent on the main point ; 
 he does not even say that the woman ran out of the " abbottes 
 logeyng." Neither here nor hereafter does he so much as hint at 
 what the examination elicited. The sequel of the story is told in 
 the text ; how far it agrees with the beginning as narrated in Lay- 
 ton's lightest, merriest vein, the reader can judge for himself.
 
 362 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 The fact that some of CrumwelPs own servants- 
 were actually in the house at the time, and yet 
 " marvelled what fellow " it was who thus broke into 
 it looks suspicious. Moreover, both Dr. Layton and 
 Crumwell had a motive in trying to defame the cha- 
 racter of the religious, which appears at the close of 
 this very letter. " AW," says the zealous visitor, " // 
 shall appear to gentlemen of this country, and other 
 the commons that ye shall not deprive or visit but upon 
 substantial grounds. Surely I suppose God himself 
 put it in my mind thus suddenly to make a search at 
 the beginning, because no canon appeared in my 
 sight." 
 
 In a letter written the same night (October 23, 
 1535) from Canterbury, Layton, after describing 
 the fire which took place at Christchurch on the night 
 of his arrival, proceeds to speak very ill of Dover, 
 Folkestone, and Langdon. Although he gives the 
 worst possible character to the abbot of the last- 
 named monastery, nothing is said of the story of 
 his capture, which he had reported shortly before. 
 In place of this, another accusation is substituted 
 against William Dare, the abbot, who is called " the 
 drunkenest knave living." The whole community 
 are, in fact, included in one of Layton's sweeping 
 charges of immorality. It is strange that there is 
 not the least reference, even jocose, to the doctor's 
 achievement the day previous, about which he had 
 been so proud. Was it that, on reflection, he saw 
 after all he had found out absolutely nothing upoa
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 363 
 
 which to found an accusation against the abbot ? 
 Did he hence desire to substitute another and a 
 more hearsay charge against his character ? At 
 any rate his motive was the same, for he expressly 
 warns his master to be " quick in taking the fruits" 
 of the doomed abbey.* 
 
 A fortnight later, November 16, 1535, three com- 
 missioners attended at the chapter-house of Langdon 
 to receive the surrender. These king's officers, 
 although reporting badly of the abbot's administra- 
 tion, bring no graver charges against him. On the 
 contrary, they recommend this man, whom Layton 
 had described as most immoral and " the drunkenest 
 knave living," for a pension. f This reward was 
 granted him by the court of Augmentation for life, 
 or until such time as he received a " fitting eccle- 
 siastical benefice."J If Layton's accusations were 
 true the abbot could have been got rid of with- 
 out expense and without the scandal of proposing 
 to place such a man in cure of souls. This fact, if 
 fairly considered, should suffice to disprove Layton's 
 insinuations and demolish the stock story founded 
 on them. 
 
 Further light is thrown on this Langdon episode by 
 the case of the two neighbouring priories of Folke- 
 stone and Dover. The same commissioners, who took 
 the surrender of the former, were similarly engaged in 
 the case of the two latter. The superiors of both had 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 669. t Wright, 89. 
 
 J R. O. Aug. Off. Misc. Bks., 232, f. 57.
 
 364 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 been reviled by Dr. Layton in no measured terms. 
 Of both, these commissioners speak well. To Lay- 
 ton " the prior of Dover and his monks be even as 
 others be, but he the worst of all." He charges 
 them all generally with immorality and incontinence. 
 The "prior of Folkeston also and his monk" are 
 both guilty of unnatural vice, when looked at by the 
 eyes of this prurient man. To the commissioners, 
 both monasteries appear in a very different light. 
 As to the prior of Dover, "for his now case," they 
 write, " divers of the honest inhabitants of Dover 
 show themselves very sorry." In their opinion, also, 
 the prior of Folkestone " is a very honest person and 
 no less beloved among his neighbours." Both these 
 priors are pensioned, like the abbot of Langdon. 
 Whether they ever received what was thus promised 
 is another question. In the case of the prior of 
 Folkestone it appears very doubtful, since two years 
 later he wrote thus to Crumwell : " Humbly be- 
 seecheth your lordship to have in remembrance your 
 poor beadman and daily orator Thomas Barret late 
 prior of Folkestone, who at your request and motion, 
 without further counsel or knowledge of my friends, 
 upon such promises as your lordship made unto me, 
 did meekly resign into the king's hands, and only 
 kept a bed, lacking both blanket and pillow. I am 
 now destitute of my very living, and so like to con- 
 tinue, having little to succour me, nor no friend to 
 trust unto."* 
 
 * R. O. State Papers, i. 426.
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 365 
 
 Another charge against the character of another 
 monk has been often repeated on the authority of the 
 same Dr. Layton. This visitor, who could write the 
 vilest accusations against a religious man and then 
 add "it were too long to declare all things of him 
 that I have heard, which I suppose are true,"* de- 
 clares that the prior of Maiden Bradley, in Somer- 
 set, had six children. Further, that his sons were 
 " tall men waiting on him," and that " the pope, 
 considering his fragility, had given him license in 
 writing sub plumbo" to discharge his conscience. f 
 This story, so utterly improbable in itself, rests on no 
 authority whatever, but the ipse dixit of the unblush- 
 ing Layton. It is disposed of by the fact that the 
 prior Richard Jennings was pensioned by the advice 
 of the chancellor and court of Augmentation,! and 
 subsequently became rector of Shipton Moyne, in 
 Gloucestershire. 
 
 Something may now be said in reference to 
 accusations against the abbot of Wigmore, an abbey 
 eight miles from Ludlow in Herefordshire. Of the 
 long document in which the charges are made, Mr. 
 Froude says : " It is so singular that we print it as 
 it is found a genuine antique, fished up in perfect 
 preservation out of the wreck of the old world. "|j 
 
 * Wright, p. 48. 
 f Wright, p. 58. 
 
 J R. O. Aug. Office Mis. Bks., 244, No. 143. Original of 
 grants. 
 
 R. O., State Papers, i., 475. 
 
 II Short Studies, i., " Dissolution of Monasteries."
 
 366 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 The same author has made choice of this story 
 as one of two specimens, which he believes 
 completely justify Henry's measures against the 
 monasteries. He goes into rhapsodies about this 
 "flagrant case." which he declares to be " a choice 
 
 & ' 
 
 specimen out of many" of an abbot "able to purchase 
 with jewels stolen from his own convent a faculty 
 to confer holy orders, though there is no evidence 
 that he had been consecrated bishop," and to make 
 ^1,000 by selling the exercise of his privilege. The 
 charges are to be found in a letter to Crumwell from 
 one of the canons of Wigmore, named John Lee. 
 The articles are 29 in number, and give the worst 
 possible character to the abbot. He had sold the 
 jewels of the monastery to pay for the fees for his 
 consecration. He took fees for ordination and acted 
 as a bishop, on the strength of the papal bulls. He 
 kept concubines and squandered money upon them. 
 He was very malicious and wrathful, " not regarding 
 what he saith or doth in his fury." He had 
 murdered a man and his wife, who had purchased a 
 corrody from the abbey, and had consented to an- 
 other murder committed by his chaplain. This 
 chaplain, it is added, is allowed to do what he likes, 
 u to carry cross-bows, and to go fishing and hunting 
 in the king's forests, parks and chases, but little or 
 nothing serving the choir as other brethren do, 
 neither corrected of the said abbot for any trespass 
 he doth commit." Further, the abbot had not kept 
 the injunctions given by Dr. Core from the king, and
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 367 
 
 would have put the brother who denounced him into 
 prison, had he not been prevented by the chapter. 
 The writer of this strange document " will not name 
 now " many acts of incontinence on the part of the 
 abbot, " least it would offend your good lordship to 
 read or hear the same." In a postscript he adds, 
 " My gd lord, there is in the said abbey, a cross of 
 fine gold and precious stones, whereof one diamond 
 was esteemed by Dr. Booth, of Hereford bishop, to 
 be worth a hundred marks." In this is a piece 
 of the true cross, which is used to be brought down 
 to the church with lights and much reverence. " I 
 fear least the abbot upon Sunday next, when he may 
 come to the treasury will take away the said cross 
 and break it and turn it to his use and many 
 other precious jewels that be there." In conclusion 
 John Lee declares that his articles are "true in sub- 
 stance," and that he is ready to prove them. He 
 winds up by the suggestion, that Crumwell should 
 appoint him, " or any man that will be indifferent 
 and not corrupt, to sit at the said abbey" as his 
 commissioner. 
 
 Much of this long document, and notably the 
 accusation of murder, is absurd on the face of it 
 and may be dismissed. For the rest, as no 
 other evidence is forthcoming it is necessary to 
 fall back upon what is otherwise known of Wig- 
 more and its abbot. The monastery had been 
 regularly visited by the bishops of Hereford before 
 its dissolution, and in the year 1518, the community
 
 368 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 placed the nomination of their superior in the hands 
 of cardinal Wolsey. After due consideration, the 
 cardinal made choice of a canon regular of Bristol 
 for the post. This was John Smarte, against 
 whom these grave charges were afterwards brought 
 by his subject, John Lee. At this date, he was 
 declared as publicly known to possess the qualities 
 necessary for a worthy -superior.* Smarte was a 
 scholar of Oxford and a bachelor of divinity at that 
 university. f After his election he was much esteemed 
 by the bishop of Hereford, Charles Booth, who 
 wrote to the pope asking that the abbot might be 
 made his suffragan. \ This request was granted. 
 He became titular bishop of Pavada, and acted 
 as coadjutor of Hereford from 1526 to 1535. During 
 the first six years of this period, he also performed 
 the same office for the diocese of Worcester. In 
 this capacity, as suffragan bishop, abbot John Smarte 
 held the usual diocesan ordinations, some of which 
 (notably that in the first year of his office, 1526) 
 were very great. The fact that the bishop of the 
 diocese had asked from Rome this abbot's nomina- 
 tion as his suffragan, disposes of the insinuations 
 which Mr. Froude makes, as to his having purchased 
 a " faculty " to ordain, "though there is no evidence 
 that he had been consecrated bishop." 
 
 * Reg. Booth, Ep. Heref., f. 24. 
 
 t Reg. Univ. Oxon. Boase, i., p. 53. " Smarte or Smerte, John,. 
 Reg. Can.," B.A. 1508, B.D. 1515. 
 J Reg. Boothe, f. 95. 
 Stubbs' " Registrum," p. 147.
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 369 
 
 The accusations brought against his character by 
 the letter of John Lee are more difficult to meet. 
 His appointment by Wolsey as abbot, and the good 
 opinion certainly formed of him by bishop Booth, 
 are considerable evidence that Lee's charge was 
 malicious and false. Fortunately, however, a visita- 
 tion of Wigmore was ordered by bishop Edward Fox 
 in the autumn of 1536, and his injunctions were 
 issued on 26th March of the following year.* As 
 these orders follow closely the lines of the charges 
 in Lee's letter, it is difficult to resist the conclusion 
 that this exceptional visitation was ordered, in conse- 
 quence of the canon's complaints, f Whether this 
 be so or not, we have in the injunctions for Wigmore, 
 entered in the register of bishop Fox, issued in the 
 spring of 1537, an independent judgment about the 
 state of the abbey and the character of its superior. 
 As to the charges of incontinence against him, Dr. 
 Hugh Coren, the vicar general, who held the visita- 
 tion, appears to have reported mere imprudence on 
 his part. The bishop only enjoins him to avoid being 
 too much with women. That no case had been 
 proved against him, however, appears tolerably 
 certain from the insertion of the clause " if there be 
 any " (st qnce sinf] into the body of this injunction. 
 He is ordered to let the brethren know " whether he 
 has redeemed the jewels which he has pledged," and 
 
 * Reg. Fox, Ep. Heref., f. 21. 
 
 t Ibid., f. 8, says the king had directed these visitations by his 
 letters. 
 
 VOL. I. B B
 
 37 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 to restore them to the monastery. The usual regu- 
 lations are made for the yearly accounts and for the 
 custody of the monastic deeds. The abbot is warned 
 to correct his subjects with mildness and not too 
 roughly, and the subjects on their part are warned to 
 be obedient in all things to their abbot, and to look 
 upon the virtue of chastity as the gem of the religious 
 life. Finally the abbot's chaplain, Richard Cubley, 
 about whom Lee had complained in his letter, is 
 ordered to attend the choir like the rest of the 
 canons and to desist from hunting and other 
 unmonastic occupations. Thus, after a careful 
 examination, little appears against the character 
 of Wigmore and its abbot, John Smarte. The 
 visitation really discredits the charges and base 
 insinuations of John Lee. If this examination 
 followed upon his complaints to Crumwell, as we 
 have every reason to suppose, then the injunctions 
 must fairly be considered as a verdict in favour of 
 the abbot. In any case, we have in this record a 
 picture of the state of the monastery and a judg- 
 ment on the character of its superior altogether at 
 variance with that presented in the letter of the 
 discontented canon. 
 
 In speaking of the charges against monks in 
 general, reference must be made to a source from 
 which many of the tales of crime and vice have 
 sprung. A certain William Thomas, who was clerk 
 to the privy council in 1549, wrote an account of 
 the reign of Henry VIII. shortly after the accession
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 371 
 
 of Edward VI. It was called (( the Pilgrim,"* and 
 
 o ' 
 
 was composed in Italian as a defence of Henry's 
 character against Pietro Aretino. To show how 
 utterly unreliable the whole account is, and yet how 
 it has been the storehouse from which subsequent 
 writers hostile to the monastic institute have freely 
 drawn, what the author says about the destruction 
 of the religious houses may here be given. 
 
 " Wherefore I will now dispose me to speak of the 
 monasteries which his majesty suppressed," he says. 
 "The king had found out the falsehood of these 
 jugglers," and by his commissioners " the matter 
 came fully to light ; for when they had taken upon 
 them the charge of examination, and began by one 
 and one to examine those friars, monks, and nuns, 
 upon their oaths sworn upon the evangelists, there 
 were discovered, hippocrasies, murders, idolatries, 
 miracles, sodomies, adulteries, fornications, pride, 
 envy, and not seven but more than seven hundred 
 thousand deadly sins. Note well these few words, 
 and I shall tell you : In their dark, sharp prisons, 
 there were found dead, so many of their brethren 
 that it was a wonder, some crucified with more 
 torments than ever were heard of, and some famished 
 to death only for .breaking of their superstitious 
 silence, or some like trifle : and specially in some 
 
 * In MS. B. Mus. Cott. MS., Vesp. D. 18, and printed in 1774. 
 Mr. Froude published the book again with notes in 1861. Thomas 
 took part in Wyatt's conspiracy, and was executed at Tyburn, 
 May, 1554.
 
 372 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 children there was used a cruelty not to be spoken 
 of with human tongue. There was of the hermits 
 sopie one that under the colour of confession had 
 used carnally with more than two or three hundred 
 gentlewomen and women of reputation, whose names 
 enrolled by commandment they showed unto the 
 commissioners, insomuch that some of the self-same 
 commissioners found of their own wives titled among 
 the rest.* 
 
 "In conclusion, upon the return of these commis- 
 sioners, when the king was fully informed of the case, 
 incontinently he called his parliament. But or ever 
 the counsellors of the same could assemble together, 
 here came that abbot and that prior, now came that 
 abbess, and there came that friar, from all parts of 
 the realm, unto the king, offering their monasteries 
 into his hands. "f 
 
 This account is obviously at variance with known 
 facts. The charges suggested are quite unsupported 
 by any evidence which exists. And it is quite 
 certain that Henry's visitors would have been only 
 too glad to avail themselves of the harrowing details 
 given by Thomas, had there been the slightest 
 foundation for them. 
 
 In concluding this brief examination of the grave 
 accusations made against the monasteries, it mav 
 be useful to point out how strong is, what may be 
 called, the negative evidence in favour of the general 
 
 * Mr. Froude's edition, p. 71, &c. 
 t Ibid., p. 74.
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 373 
 
 moral tone of these establishments, as against the 
 
 ' O 
 
 biassed accounts of Henry's royal commissioners. 
 The historian Strype says, that special injunctions 
 were sent to the bishops by Crumwell to watch 
 narrowly into the conduct of " the abbeys and reli- 
 gious houses that especially stuck to the pope and 
 kept as much as they could to the old superstitions."* 
 In spite, however, of these special instructions, 
 although we have numerous letters f from the 
 bishops of the time, there is hardly an expression 
 that can be construed into a condemnation of the 
 moral lives of 'the monks. This negative testimony 
 is all the more important, as many of these eccle- 
 siastics were known opponents of this method of 
 life. The old and contemporary chroniclers - 
 Hall, Stow, Grafton, Holinshed and Fabian are 
 also singularly silent as to the pretended vicious 
 lives practised in the cloisters of England. And 
 Wriothesley, although clearly in favour of the cause 
 of the reformers, makes no mention whatever of 
 these charges in his chronicle. He says that in 
 1535 the lesser monasteries were granted to the 
 king, " to the augmentation of the crown," and 
 adds : " It was pity the great lamentation that the 
 poor people made for them, for there was great 
 hospitality kept amongst them, and, as it was re- 
 ported, ten thousand persons had lost their living 
 
 * "Ecc. Mems.," i., i, p. 333 (ed. 1822). 
 t An immense number of letters are in existence from Cranmer, 
 Stokesley, Latimer, Rowland Lee, and others.
 
 374 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 by the putting down of them, which was great 
 pity."* 
 
 Lord Herbert declares that bishop Latimer was 
 anxious to preserve some of the monasteries at 
 least two or three in each diocese. In bishop 
 Latimer's arguments with king Henry VIII. against 
 purgatory, he concludes thus : " The founding of 
 monasteries argued purgatory to be, so the putting 
 them down argueth it not to be. What uncharitable- 
 ness and cruelty seemeth it to be to destroy monas- 
 teries if purgatory be ? Now, it seemeth not con- 
 venient the act to preach one thing, and the pulpit 
 another clear contrary." f This reference must have 
 been to the act for the suppression of lesser monas- 
 teries (1535), because, at the date of the fall of the 
 greater houses, Latimer was not in such circum- 
 stances as would allow him to controvert with 
 Henry. 
 
 Cranmer also, who with others narrowly watched 
 the monks of Christchurch, Canterbury, admitted 
 
 * Camd. Soc., ed. Hamilton. This is a contemporary London 
 chronicle, and its negative evidence is very valuable. Had there 
 been much talk about the immoral lives of the monks it is reason- 
 able to suppose the author would have made some note of it. He 
 had every means of knowing, as he had an official position among 
 the heralds, having become Windsor herald on Christmas day, 
 1534. He was attached chiefly to the person of chancellor Audley. 
 See editor's remarks, p. 274. It is also very remarkable that no 
 mention of the great outcry against the monasteries is to be found 
 in the letters of the well-informed Chapuys or of other writers at 
 this time. 
 
 f Printed in Strype, " Ecc. Mems.," i., p. 388.
 
 The Charges against the Monks. 375 
 
 that there was nothing whatever against their moral 
 character. Many of these same monks became the 
 first secular canons of the cathedral, although they 
 were amongst those most seriously accused by the 
 visitors. Moreover, Richard, the suffragan of Dover, 
 who was much employed on the work of suppression 
 and has left many letters, particularly as to the friars, 
 makes no charge of so serious a nature, as those 
 brought by Layton, Legh and Ap Rice. This may 
 be accounted for, possibly, because his mission was 
 rather to suppress than to find motives for the work. 
 As he was occupied in this, after parliament had 
 given over the smaller houses to the king, there was 
 no need for furnishing such evidence. It is true that 
 Crumwell, even then, did not approve of the way he 
 spoke of the religious, and charged him with having 
 still "a friar's heart." But, "the favour I have 
 shown," replied the bishop, " hath not been for my 
 friar's heart, but to bring all things with the most 
 quiet to pass ; and also till now that your honourable 
 letter came to me I never could perceive anything of 
 your pleasure, but ever feared that if I were too 
 quick that I should offend your lordship." And so, 
 to do Crumwell's pleasure, he makes some general 
 accusations against the friars he has visited, and adds 
 this significant postscript :" And my good lord, I 
 beseech you think not that I am any feigner to you, 
 for I assure you I am nought, but am and will be 
 true and as secret to you as any servant that ye 
 have, and as glad to do that thing that should
 
 376 Henry VI I L and the English Monasteries. 
 
 please God specially and the king's grace and 
 you."* 
 
 In fact, there is very little evidence of any kind 
 that the gross insinuations against monks and nuns 
 in general, and the special charges, brought against a 
 certain small proportion, by such men as Lay ton, 
 Legh and Ap Rice, were made or believed in by 
 others. There is, moreover, most positive evidence, 
 to which subsequent reference will be made, of the 
 esteem and respect in which many religious houses 
 were held by those who had best, reason to know 
 their true character. If we add to this the singular 
 silence as to such charges, maintained by contem- 
 porary chroniclers, we are led to the conclusion that 
 these terrible accusations were not much insisted 
 upon, even in the parliament, which passed the bill of 
 suppression. More than one authority clearly states 
 that the chief motive, which actuated the servile 
 parliament in passing the measure, was the hope that 
 the property thus appropriated from the church and 
 poor, would be a means of freeing them for some lime 
 from the constant and importunate exactions of the 
 king. It was hoped that the people would thus 
 be indirectly benefited. This conclusion is much 
 strengthened by the fact that within a very short 
 time after .the first dissolutions it was proposed to 
 present to the king a petition from the lords and 
 commons, asking him to stay any further suppres- 
 sions. The ground for this request was, that so far 
 
 * Wright, 197.
 
 The Charges against the Monks, 377 
 
 from doing good to the country, as had been repre- 
 sented, the destruction of the religious houses was an 
 unmitigated evil. " And albeit," this remarkable 
 document runs, " most dread sovereign lord, at the 
 making of the said act it was thought that we might 
 full well thereby have advanced the revenues of your 
 noble crown without prejudice or hurt of any your 
 poor subjects, or of the commonwealth of this your 
 realm ; yet nevertheless they perceive those houses 
 already suppressed showeth plainly unto us, that a 
 great hurt and decay is thereby come and hereafter 
 shall come to this your realm, and great impoverish- 
 ing of many your poor obedient subjects for lack of 
 hospitality and good householding, which was wont in 
 them to be kept to the great relief of the poor people 
 of all the country adjoining to the said monasteries, 
 besides the maintenance of many servants, husband- 
 men and labourers that daily were kept, in the said 
 religious houses." Then, after some suggested regu- 
 lations for the property of monasteries already sup- 
 pressed, the proposed petition asks that all monas- 
 teries, of whatever kind they were beyond the Trent, 
 and which, although falling under the act, had not as 
 yet been suppressed, " shall stand still and abide in 
 their own strength and foundation, and the act afore- 
 said of suppression of religious houses that were not 
 above the yearly value of 200 lands, to be frustrate 
 as concerning them and of no effect." 5 
 
 Such a document would be impossible, if the chief 
 * B. Mus. Colt. MS. Cleop., E. iv., f. 215 (182).
 
 378 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 cause of the suppression had been, as is supposed r 
 the hopeless state of immorality in which the monas- 
 teries were sunk. The truth is, that money was the 
 object, which Henry and his minister had in view. 
 This is emphasized by the fact that many monas- 
 teries were allowed to purchase temporary continu- 
 ance by heavy payments to the royal exchequer. As 
 for the charges brought by Layton and his fellows 
 they are unsupported by any other evidence but their 
 bare assertions. They are worth so much and no 
 more.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL, THE KING'S VICAR 
 GENERAL. 
 
 FIRST and chief among the accusers of the monks 
 must be reckoned Thomas Crumwell. His was the 
 mind, which first conceived the idea of attacking the 
 papal power in its strongholds and procuring thereby 
 the wealth to gratify the covetousness of the king. 
 Perhaps no actor on the stage of history has ever 
 possessed greater powers, personal and political. 
 Certainly.no single minister in England ever exercised 
 such extensive authority, none ever rose so rapidly, 
 and no one has left behind him a name covered with 
 greater infamy and disgrace. 
 
 Thomas Crumwell, so far as his early history is 
 known, was born of parents in poor circumstances. 
 His father is said to have been a blacksmith at 
 Putney, and Thomas in his youth seems to have 
 been apprenticed to a fuller named Wix.* He was 
 not contented, however, to remain long in this 
 humble state. As the gossip in the day of his 
 power went, he had in youth been thrown into 
 
 B. Mus., Sloane MS., 2495, f. 8.
 
 380 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 prison for some offence, and had been subsequently 
 obliged to leave the country.* At an early period, we 
 find him, or someone of his name, in the service of 
 the Marchioness of Dorset, and all accounts agree 
 in saying, that he passed a portion of his youth as a 
 common soldier in Italy. He once told Cranmer 
 that he had been at one time a " ruffian," and some 
 authorities seem to think it not improbable that he 
 was present when Rome was assaulted and taken in 
 May, 1527, by the imperial army, under the Duke of 
 Bourbon. Among those who took part, in the sack 
 of the city there is said to have been f " an English- 
 man of low, vicious habits and infidel principles, who 
 afterwards became of terrific importance to the 
 church of England." This is thought by some to 
 have been Thomas Crumwell. j 
 
 From his own letters he appears to have been 
 settled as a merchant at Middelborough in 1512, 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 862. Chapuys to Granvelle, London, Nov. 
 2I J 1 535 (printed in Mr. Froude's ed. of "Thomas' Pilgrim/' p. 
 106). " Sir Master Crumwell, of whose origin and antecedents 
 your secretary, Antoine, tells me you desire to be informed, is the 
 son of a poor blacksmith, who lived in a small village four miles 
 from this place, and is buried in a common grave in the parish 
 churchyard. His uncle whom he has enriched was cook to the 
 late archbishop of Canterbury (Warham). The said Crumwell in 
 his youth was an ill-conditioned scapegrace. For some offence 
 he was thrown into prison, and was obliged afterwards to leave the 
 country." 
 
 f Maitland, "The Reformation," p. 228. The author thinks 
 that if Crumwell was present it probably was in the service of 
 Wolsey, and not at this time as a soldier. 
 
 J Lord Herbert, in Foss' " Judges of England," Vol. v., p. 147.
 
 Thomas Crumwell, the King' s Vicar General. 38 1 
 
 for in that year he employs a correspondent, in 
 Antwerp, to buy an iron chest of considerable size, 
 in which presumably to keep his money. Before 
 1 520, Crumwell had added the occupation of scrivener 
 to his other avocations and was also engaged in 
 accommodating members of the aristocracy with 
 loans of considerable amount. This money-lending 
 business appears to have always possessed special 
 attractions for him, as he is found lending large 
 sums of money, even when at the very height of his 
 power.* In 1523, Crumwell entered parliament. 
 And though, apparently, he did not take any very 
 prominent part in the debates, it is possible that 
 he was of service to Wolsey in obtaining the 
 parliamentary grant of a very large subsidy voted in 
 that year. In 1525 he was living near Austin 
 Friars, in London, and engaged as a merchant, 
 lawyer and money lender, f Amongst those, who 
 were obliged to have recourse to him in this latter 
 capacity, was lord Henry Percy, then attached to 
 the court of the cardinal of York a court hardly 
 less magnificent and costly than that of the king 
 himself. By this client Crumwell may well have 
 been introduced to the notice of Wolsey. 
 
 A portion of the wealth he possessed at this time 
 is said to have come from the sale of forged in- 
 dulgences. The story goes, that whilst acting as a 
 merchant at Antwerp he was employed, by two 
 
 * R. O. Chapter House Books B$. 
 
 t Calendar, iv., Nos. 1385, 1586, 1620, &c.
 
 382 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 citizens of Boston, to journey to Rome for the 
 purpose of obtaining from pope Clement VII. the 
 renewal of indulgences attached to the guild of St. 
 Botolph's church in that town. This apparently 
 suggested to him that profit might be made by the 
 sacrilegious sale of these indulgences, which became 
 known as " Boston pardons."* For a time also he 
 seems to have traded as a merchant in Italy, f and 
 whilst in that country to have studied and imbibed 
 the principles of Machiavelli, whose works were then 
 being published at Venice. \ It was certainly in the 
 school of that Italian writer that he learnt those 
 maxims he afterwards carried out in his dealings 
 with Henry and his subjects. 
 
 Whilst in cardinal Wolsey's service, Crumwell was 
 chiefly employed in the work of suppressing the 
 monasteries, which had been doomed to extinction 
 for the purpose of endowing the cardinal's colleges 
 at Oxford and Ipswich. In this occupation he 
 acquired a knowledge of the monastic houses, and 
 of the methods useful to employ in seizing the pro- 
 
 * B. Mus., SloaneMS., 2495, f. 24. Foss' " Judges of England," 
 v., p. 147- 
 
 f " Apologia Keg. Poll ad Car. V." (1744), Vol. i., p. 126. 
 ' I (Pole) knew a merchant in Venice who did business with him." 
 
 | " The History " appeared at Venice in 1527. " The Prince " 
 in 1532, and reprinted at Florence 1534. 
 
 Cardinal Pole says, that when Crumwell was in the service of 
 Wolsey, he strongly recommended the works and principles ot 
 Machiavelli, especially those contained in " II Principe " to him 
 (Pole). Ellis, Letters, 3rd Series, iii., 278.
 
 Thomas Crumivell, the King's Vicar General. 383 
 
 perty of the monks.* This work may very possibly 
 have suggested to his mind the subsequent wholesale 
 confiscations. It certainly gave him opportunities, 
 of which he was not slow to profit, to promote his 
 own advancement and interests. In these, his 
 earliest public employments, he gained no enviable 
 notoriety. " The agents," says Mr. Brewer, " em- 
 ployed in the suppression were not men who exer- 
 cised their functions meekly, or even with scrupulous 
 integrity. One of them, Dr. Allen, f a hard, astute 
 man, who like his fellow Crumwell had apparently 
 been trained to business, was afterwards made arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, where his imperiousness and 
 rapacity brought him to a violent end. Of Crum- 
 well it is enough to say that, even at this early 
 period of his career, his accessibility to bribes and 
 presents in the disposal of monastic leases was noto- 
 rious.'' j When Wolsey, who was at Amiens, pro- 
 posed to send Allen on a message to the king, 
 Knight wrote to him : " In case Mr. Allen be not 
 
 t> 
 
 dispatched hitherwards on your message, or may be 
 in time revoked, your grace might use better any 
 about you for your message to the king but him. I 
 have heard the king and noblemen speak things 
 
 * R. O. Exchequer Q. R. Treasury of Receipt, |f-. The sales by 
 T. Crumwell of Begham Priory, Kent, at this time. It might well 
 be taken for an account of a suppression ten years later. 
 
 t About this Dr. Allen see the chapter on " Wolsey and the 
 monasteries," p. 89. 
 
 J " Henry VI11.," ii., p. 368. The suppressions under Wolsey 
 are spoken of.
 
 384 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, 
 
 incredible of the acts of Dr. Allen and Crumwell, 
 a great part whereof it shall be expedient that your 
 grace do know."* Cardinal Pole also declares that 
 these violent suppressions, carried out under cover of 
 authority from the pope, obtained by the masterful 
 influence and diplomacy of Wolsey, proved a. 
 fortune to Crumwell. From this time his worldly 
 prospects, as Pole says, were secured. " He 
 (Crumwell) was certainly born," he adds, "with an 
 aptitude for ruin and destruction."! 
 
 There is no doubt that in 1529 Crumwell was a 
 very prosperous man. By a will dated in July,. 
 a few months before his patron's fall, he makes 
 complicated bequests, which prove that he must 
 have been possessed of considerable property.! To 
 each of the five orders of friars within the city of 
 London, for instance, he leaves twenty shillings to 
 pray for his soul. He directs his executors to 
 " engage a priest " who for the three years next 
 after his death is to sing mass for his soul. For this 
 service they are to pay him 20 a year. That 
 Henry fully understood the character of the tool he 
 
 * Calendar, iv., No. 261 (Aug. 19, 1527). This has been quoted 
 previously in this volume. 
 
 t ''Apologia," Epist. collectio , Vol. i., p. 127. 
 
 J See Froude, " Hist.," Vol. ii., ed. 2nd, note to chapter vi. "It 
 proves that Crumwell, although in the service of the cardinal, was in- 
 possession of a large private fortune, and at the head of a consider- 
 able household." 
 
 Five or six years after he changed the provisions of this will 
 somewhat, but still enjoined payments for prayer for his soul. In. 
 fact, the 20 is increased to ^"46 I2s. 6d.
 
 Thomas CruimaeU, the King's Vicar General. 385 
 
 made use of for his own purposes, is not to be 
 doubted. He is said once to have boxed his minis- 
 ter's ears right soundly,* and "' when at cards he 
 had a knave dealt him, he would exclaim ' Ah ! I 
 have Crumwell.' " f 
 
 On Wolsey's disgrace, Crumwell's first thought 
 was how to save himself from being involved in his 
 master's ruin. He had reason to fear the conse- 
 quences of acts which, although perpetrated in the 
 cardinal's service and under cover of his authority, 
 had placed him within reach of the law. Now r that 
 the strong arm which had shielded him was para- 
 lyzed, the popular resentment against him did not 
 fear to make itself heard. In defending his patron 
 in parliament it is possible that he may have been 
 actuated by sincere motives of gratitude, but in 
 defeating the bill of attainder, he was in reality only 
 making the best possible defence for himself. To 
 have allowed the bill to pass, would practically have 
 been to acquiesce in his own ruin. The charges 
 against the cardinal were founded, at least partially, 
 on the grave injustice done in the work of suppress- 
 ing certain monasteries. And it was on this very 
 work, that Crumwell had been specially employed 
 and had earned for himself unenviable notoriety. 
 His own, as well as his master's, safety consequently 
 demanded the defeat of the attainder. " I have 
 read," says dean Hook, " with attention the letters 
 
 * Blunt "Reformat.," i., p. 47. 
 t B. Mus. Sloane MS., 2495, f. 8. 
 
 VOL. 1. C C
 
 386 Henry VI 1 1. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 addressed to Crumwell by Wolsey, and I think that 
 any one who does so will come to the conclusion 
 that Wolsey had no confidence in Crumwell's sin- 
 cerity ; and that Crumwell did not treat his fallen 
 master with consideration and kindness. He was 
 obliged to defend him, for he had no other course to 
 pursue." 
 
 Moreover, the very fact of Crumwell's attitude 
 towards the measure, at a time when no opposition 
 to the king's wishes and intentions would be tolerated, 
 shows that some secret understanding had been 
 arrived at between the monarch and his future ad- 
 viser, f The account given by Cavendish of the way 
 Crumwell left the cardinal, proves that the former 
 knew he was in great danger, and that he had the 
 intention of trying to escape from the difficulties 
 which beset him, by treating at once with the court. 
 In no other way can the scene described by Caven- 
 dish be explained. Thomas Crumwell evidently 
 thought it high time he should look to his own 
 affairs. More especially was this necessary as there 
 seems to have been a report current, which affected 
 him most seriously. When Wolsey's case was 
 settled, the people said, then would come Crum- 
 well's turn for punishment. In fact, the popular 
 
 * "Lives of archbishops," vi., p. 128. 
 
 f Dr. Pegge says, " The rejection of the bill may be justly ascribed 
 to the relentment of the king, for Crumwell would not have dared to 
 oppose it, nor the commons to reject it, had they not received an 
 intimation that such was the royal will. Singer's "Cavendish," i., 
 p. 209 note.
 
 Thomas Cnumvell, the King's Vicar General. 387 
 
 voice had already consigned him to the gallows. 
 Cardinal Pole, who was in London at the time, 
 asserts that he himself heard the expression of 
 popular exultation over the expected punishment of 
 one considered so well deserving of death. He de- 
 clares also, that it was asserted Crumwell had already 
 been arrested and cast into prison.* That he was 
 really in danger appears from the account Caven- 
 dish gives of the scene he witnessed in the cardinal's 
 house at Esher, on November i, 1529.! " It chanced 
 me/' he says, " upon All-hallowe day to come into 
 the great chamber at Esher, in the morning, to give 
 mine attendance, where I found Mr. Cromwell lean- 
 ing in the great window with a primer in his hand, 
 saying our Lady matins, which had been a strange 
 sight in him before, j Well, what will you have 
 
 * " Apologia Reg. Poll, ad Carolum V. Caesarem," Epist. Col- 
 lectio, Brixiae, 1744, Vol. i., p. 126. " Ipse (Crumwell) omnium 
 voce, qui aliquid de eo intellexerant ad supplicium posceretur. 
 Hoc enitn affirmare possum, qui Londini turn adfui et voces audiri, 
 adeo etiam ut per civitatem unive'rsam rumor circumferretur, eum 
 in carcerem fuisse detrusum, et propediem productum iri ad sup- 
 plicium." 
 
 f Cavendish's "Life of Wolsey," Ed. Singer, 1825, i., p. 192. 
 
 + The reading here adopted is that approved of by Dr. Maitland 
 ( i; Reformation," p. 230). Some authorities have printed "since" 
 in place of " afore." Dr. Maitland adds : " That Crumwell had 
 before that time avowed infidel principles is beyond a doubt. 
 Cardinal Pole asserts that he openly told him he considered that 
 vice and virtue were but names, fit indeed to amuse the leisure of 
 the learned in their colleges, but pernicious to the man who seeks to 
 rise in the courts of princes. The great art of the politician was 
 in his judgment to penetrate through the disguise which sovereigns 
 are accustomed to throw over their real inclinations, and to devise
 
 388 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 more ? He prayed no more earnestly than he dis- 
 tilled tears as fast from his eyes. Whom I saluted, 
 and bade good-morrow. And with that I perceived 
 his moist cheeks, the which he wiped with his 
 napkin. To whom I said, ' Why, Mr. Cromwell, 
 what meaneth this dole ? Is my lord in any danger, 
 that ye do lament for him ? or is it for any other loss 
 that ye have sustained by misfortune ? ' 
 
 " ' Nay,' quoth he, ' it is for my unhappy adven- 
 ture. For I am like to lose all that I have laboured 
 for, all the days of my life, for doing of my master 
 true and diligent service.' 'Why, 'sir,' quoth I, ' I 
 trust that you be too wise to do anything by my lord's 
 commandment, otherwise than ye might do, whereof 
 you ought to be in doubt or danger for loss of your 
 goods.' ' Well, well,' quoth he, ' I cannot tell ; but 
 this I see before mine eyes, that everything is as it is 
 taken ; and this I know well, that I am disdained 
 with all for my master's sake ; and yet I am sure 
 there is no cause why they should do so. An evil 
 name once gotten will not lightly be put away. I 
 never had promotion by my lord to the increase of 
 my living. But this much I will say to you, that I 
 will this afternoon, when my lord hath dined, ride to 
 London, and so the court, where I will either make 
 or mar, or ever I come again. I will put myself in 
 prease, to see what they be able to lay to my charge.' 
 
 the most specious expedients by which they may gratify their appe- 
 tites without appearing to outrage morality or religion." (See 
 Singer's " Cavendish," i., p. 193, note).
 
 Thomas Crumwell, the King's Vicar General. 389 
 
 'Then," continues Cavendish, "my lord came 
 thither with his chaplain, one Dr. Marshall, and first 
 said mattins, and heard two masses in the time of his 
 mattins saying. And that said, he prepared himself 
 to mass ; and so said mass himself. And when he 
 had finished all his service, incontinent, after he was 
 returned into his chamber, he called for his dinner, 
 which was served into his privy chamber. And there 
 dined, among divers his doctors, among whom this 
 master Cromwell dined. And sitting at dinner it 
 came to pass that he fell in communication of his 
 gentlemen and "servants, whose true and faithfully 
 service my lord much commended. Whereupon Mr. 
 Cromwell took an occasion to tell my lord that he 
 ought in conscience to consider the true and good 
 service that they did him in this his necessity, the 
 which do never forsake him in weale nor in woe." 
 
 The cardinal lamented his sad fortunes, which had 
 left him nothing but words of thanks to give his 
 servants. Crumwell thereupon suggested, that the 
 cardinal's chaplains should be made to give up to 
 him some of the income they had from the prefer- 
 ments to which he had presented them, so that he 
 might have something to give his retainers. " Your 
 poor servants," he said, " have taken more pains in 
 one day than all your idle chaplains have done in a 
 year. Therefore if they will not frankly and freely 
 consider your liberality, and depart with you of the 
 same goods gotten in your service, now in your great 
 indigence and necessity, it is a pity that they live,
 
 39 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 and all the world will have them in indignation and 
 hatred for their ingratitude to their master.'' 
 
 The scene after dinner, when the cardinal took 
 leave of his servants, may be read in the graphic 
 account of Cavendish. Crumwell, who declared 
 that he had " not received of your grace's gift one 
 penny for the encrease " of his living, gave his 
 master a present of five pounds. He then ex- 
 claimed, in the presence of all the household, " And 
 now let us see what your chaplains will do." No 
 judgment need be formed of Crumwell's motives in 
 thus trying to humble the clerical retainers of his 
 master. However, <( when my lord returned into his 
 chamber lamenting the departure of his servants, 
 making his moan to master Crumwell, who comforted 
 him as best he could, and desired my lord to give 
 him leave to go to London, where he would either 
 make or mar ere he came again (which was always 
 his common saying)." 
 
 It is not easy to understand what means Thomas 
 Crumwell took to defeat the popular clamour for his 
 punishment, and to change the king's views regard- 
 ing him. Henry no doubt saw in him one who 
 was likely to be a useful instrument in his hands. 
 Something more, however, was needed to alter the 
 king's known contempt and distrust into immediate 
 reliance on his services, and to establish a secret 
 understanding between them. It has appeared 
 probable to some that Crumwell at his interview 
 with Henry suggested, a solution of the king's
 
 Thomas Cr unwell, the King's Vicar General. 391 
 
 difficulties with the pope. ' It was nothing less than 
 the entire withdrawal of England from spiritual 
 allegiance to the Holy See, and the declaration that 
 the king was henceforth to be considered the head 
 of the Church in England. Others have imagined 
 that he captivated the king by showing him how 
 easily he might lay his hand on the riches of the 
 Church and the broad lands of the monastic bodies. 
 Whatever the motive or the inducement, it seems 
 certain that at this interview Crumwell obtained 
 the king's approval to the defeat of the " bill of 
 attainder " and to the policy of proceeding against 
 the cardinal under the statute of " praemunire." In 
 this way the king would still possess himself of 
 the fallen minister's property. Indeed, by this 
 method Henry would be the gainer. For not only 
 could the cardinal be brought under the law, for 
 acting as legate of the pope, but the entire body of 
 clergy also. In fact, all who had admitted these 
 legatine powers were involved in the meshes of the 
 legal statute and were in danger of forfeiting goods 
 and chattels to the king's majesty. 
 
 That Henry had granted his royal license for the 
 cardinal to act as he had done, is unquestioned. 
 The obvious way, therefore, of meeting the charge 
 was by the production of the royal permission under 
 the great seal. When the commissioners came to 
 ask him, what answer he could make to the indict- 
 ment, Wolsey replied : '' The king's highness knovveth 
 right well whether I have offended his majesty and
 
 39 2 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 his laws or no, in using of my prerogative legatine for 
 the which ye have indicted me. Notwithstanding, I 
 have the king's license in my coffers, under his hand 
 and broad seal, for exercising and using the authority 
 thereof in the largest wise within his majesty's 
 dominions, the which remaineth now in the hands 
 of my enemies." Not having the document, 
 Wolsey threw himself on the king's mercy. By 
 what means did this license under the great seal find 
 its way " into the hands " of the cardinal's enemies ? 
 Was it the peace offering of Crumwell to Henry ? An 
 early account of the transaction, which clearly took 
 place between the king and the servant of the fallen 
 cardinal, declares that the price paid by Crumwell to 
 secure his own safety and the king's favour, was the 
 theft of this document from the private papers of 
 his master, to which he had access. " And so like 
 an unfaithful and traitorous servant the said Crum- 
 well stole from his master and delivered to the 
 king."f 
 
 By this method of acting at any rate, Crumwell 
 served his own purposes. He retained the manage- 
 ment of the revenues forfeited to the king under the 
 statute of praemunire. Amongst the cardinal's pro- 
 perty was accounted the endowments of the see of 
 Winchester and the revenues of the abbey of St. 
 Albans, together with those of the Ipswich and 
 Oxford colleges. The king had granted pensions 
 
 * Singer's '' Cavendish," i., p. 209. 
 f B. Mus. Arundel MS., 152, f. 426.
 
 Thomas Crumwell, the King's Vicar General. 393 
 
 and annuities out of these estates to several of the 
 nobles. Crumwell in dispensing them, was brought 
 into contact with many of these who came to solicit 
 therein his good offices.* " On which master Crom- 
 well," writes Cavendish, " perceiving an occasion, 
 and time given him, to work for himself, and to bring 
 the thing to pass, which he had long wished," was 
 liberal in his promises to those who asked his help, 
 and having through the management of these estates 
 constant intercourse with the king he soon " enforced 
 the king to repute him a very wise man, and a meet in- 
 strument to serve his grace, as it after came to pass." 
 Crum well's rise after this was rapid and unchecked 
 as long as he served Henry's purpose. " It more 
 resembled," writes Lord Campbell, " that of a slave 
 at once constituted grand vizier in an Eastern des- 
 potism than of a minister of state promoted in a con- 
 stitutional government where law, usage, and public 
 opinion check the capricious humours of the sove- 
 reign.'^ He became successively master of the king's 
 jewels, chancellor of the Exchequer for life, master 
 of the Rolls, and secretary of state, the king's vicar 
 general in matters ecclesiastical, lord privy seal, 
 dean of Wells, and great chamberlain, j In 1533 he 
 
 * " Out of the revenues of Winchester and St. Albans the king 
 gave to some one nobleman three hundred marks, and to some a 
 hundred pounds, and to some less, according to the king's royal 
 pleasure." '* Cavendish," ed. Singer, i., p. 299. 
 
 f " Engl. Chancel.," i., p. 600. Jbid., p. 230, et seq. 
 
 % Master of king's jewels, 1532 ; chancellor of Exchequer and 
 knighted, 1533; master of Rolls, vicar general and secretary of
 
 394 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 was knighted, and three years later became a peer of 
 the realm under the title of Earl of Essex. By 
 virtue of his commission as vicar general of the 
 king, who had according to act of parliament taken 
 on himself " all spiritual and temporal jurisdiction m 
 the Church of England," he had power to " exercise 
 all spiritual jurisdiction belonging to the king for the 
 due administration of justice in all cases touching 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and godly reformation,, 
 and redress of errors, heresies, and abuses in the 
 said church." 
 
 The position occupied by Thomas Crumwell during 
 the years of his power is unique in English history, 
 As vicegerent and vicar general he was placed above 
 the archbishops and bishops, even in convocation 
 and other strictly ecclesiastical assemblies. Hardly 
 was the venerable Fisher executed, than he was 
 elected his successor as chancellor of the University 
 of Cambridge.* Though a layman, he did not scruple 
 to hold the deanery of Wells and other ecclesiastical 
 benefices. f In parliament, he took precedence of 
 the nobility of every rank by virtue of his ecclesias- 
 tical title of king's vicar general. 
 
 Armed, as he was, with supreme and absolute 
 
 state, 1534; lord privy seal and a peer of the realm, July, 1536; 
 vicegerent in ecclesiastical causes, 1536; dean of Wells, 1537 ' r 
 great chamberlain, 1539. 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 208. (Aug. 30, 1535.) 
 
 f Record Off., Chapter H. Books, B. , e.g., April 2nd, 30 H, 
 VIII. " Item. Mr. Gostwyke for the first fruits of my lord's divers- 
 benefices." Ibid. " 2Qth. The tenths for deanery of Wells."
 
 Thomas Crume// t the King's Vicar General. 395 
 
 power, both civil and spiritual, he succeeded in 
 establishing and maintaining a complete reign of 
 terror in free England. How he used his authority 
 for the appointment of other agents of destruction 
 the foregoing pages have partly told. How they 
 together accomplished their work, every ruined abbey 
 and every desecrated shrine in England proclaims. 
 Every pauper is made to feel, by the cold charity 
 extended to him in the poor houses of the country, 
 how cruelly he was robbed of his inheritance, by the 
 destruction and spoliation of the monastic houses of 
 the land. 
 
 " To Crumwell," writes Froude, " 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 word of God, 
 and to perish in his success. He had no party."' 
 The records of this period of Henry's reign bear. out 
 the assertion, that Crumwell had no following and 
 was hated by those, who had to lean on his favour. 
 They would not, however, suggest to most men 
 that he " was condemned to do the will of God." 
 Dean Hook takes a fairer estimate of his career 
 when he says : " Party spirit may do great things, 
 but perhaps its most wonderful feat is the conversion 
 of Thomas Crumwell into a saint. Protestants are 
 so unreasonably vehement in their condemnation, of 
 what Hugh Latimer called monkery, that they not 
 only believe every tale that can be told against a 
 
 * " Hist.," iii., p. 444-
 
 396 Henry VI I L and the English Monasteries. 
 
 monk, but the ' Diabolus Monachorum' himself they 
 have canonized."* 
 
 It is by no means easy to realize the completeness 
 of the autocratic power, which was placed by the 
 king in C rum well's hands at this time, and which 
 he used unscrupulously to crush all opposition to his 
 schemes, for the overthrow of the Church and the 
 seizure of its revenues. His agents and spies were 
 everywhere, and the most secret conversations were 
 reported to him. The abbot in the midst of his 
 community could not reckon upon his word being 
 safe from the prying ears of the minister's agents. 
 The sayings of a religious in the " shaving house " 
 or the " frater" might be, and often were, repeated 
 and distorted to his injury. The preacher had his 
 sermons commented upon, and the conversations of 
 noblemen at table were often carried to Crumwell. 
 The mass of his correspondence that still remains, 
 and the private notes for his "remembrances," prove 
 conclusively that nothing was too trivial for him to 
 inquire into. He was ever anxiously watching, in 
 order to guard against any possible interference with 
 his plans, and to entrap others whom he had reason 
 to fear. Mr. Froude allows that the spy system was 
 carried out to an enormous extent both here and 
 abroad by lord Crumwell. " He bought his infor- 
 mation," he writes, " anywhere and at any cost ; and 
 secret service money for such purposes he must 
 
 * " Lives of Archbishops," vi., p. 119.
 
 Thomas Cr urn-well, the King's Vicar General. 397 
 
 have provided, like his successor in the same policy, 
 Francis Walsingham."* 
 
 Dean Hook gives a better picture of the times 
 when he writes, that " in every county and village, 
 almost in every homestead he had a secret force of 
 informers and spies. They depended on the patron- 
 age of the vicegerent, who, generous and despotic, 
 could give as well as take away. In the enthusiasm 
 of their selfish loyalty they were on the watch for 
 traitors, and in the well-paid piety of their hearts 
 they had a terrible dread of superstition. "f Every 
 modern notion of justice, or of the certainty of fair 
 and honest trials, must be altogether laid aside in 
 regard to the charges and convictions of this period 
 of our national history. Crumwell was on some occa- 
 sions '* prosecutor, judge and jury." For a word of 
 disapproval about the king or his minister, for a jest 
 or slighting remark at their expense, the offender 
 might find himself summoned before the magistrates 
 to answer for his offence. The accused and his 
 accusers probably never met face to face. Cases of 
 serious import, often of life and death, were decided 
 on the depositions of men whose interest it was ta 
 obtain convictions. Words spoken against Crum- 
 well, or in condemnation of a tyranny subversive of 
 the first principles of freedom, were construed into 
 treason against the king and the state. Even sus- 
 pected persons, against whom no case could be 
 
 * " Hist.,'' Vol. iii., p. 444- 
 
 f " Lives of Archbishops," vi., p. 98.
 
 398 Henry VIII. and tlie English Monasteries. 
 
 made out, might be summoned to have the oath of 
 supremacy tendered to them. Their houses could be 
 ransacked for evidence of disaffection, and they 
 themselves brought before the council in London, to 
 be transferred untried or unconvicted, if thought to 
 be obstinate or otherwise obnoxious, to the Mar- 
 shalsea, the Tower, or Newgate. 
 
 John Beech,* or, as he is sometimes called, Thomas 
 Marshall, the abbot of St. John's, Colchester, is 
 reported by a so-called guest he had entertained at 
 his table as having expressed admiration for the con- 
 stancy of bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More.f The 
 result is, a summons to the abbot to appear before 
 the council. Depositions! are obtained ; he is sent 
 to the Tower, and after remaining there some con- 
 siderable time is executed before the gates of his 
 abbey at Colchester. || There were, it is true, other 
 things objected to abbot Marshall besides approval 
 of the conduct of Crumwell's first victims. John 
 Seyn, a clerk, deposes that when he had informed 
 him of the abbot of S. Osith's surrender of his house 
 to the king, " the abbot of S. John's answered, ' I 
 
 * It has always been represented that Thomas Marshall and John 
 Beech were two different abbots of Colchester ; the Record of Attain- 
 der (Controlment Roll, 31 Henry VIII., M. 37 d), leaves no doubt 
 about the statement made above, that John Beech was the same as 
 Thomas Marshall. 
 
 t B. Mus. Arund. MS., 152, f. 235 d. 
 
 J R. O. Crum.Cor., Vol. xxxviii., Nos. 41-2-3-4. 
 
 B. Mus. Cott. MS., Titus B. i., fol. 133. 
 
 |i Ibid., fol. 136. " List of those executed," John Pechy, Abb. 
 of Colchester, at Colchester, i Dec., 1539.
 
 Thomas Crnimxell, the King's Vicar General. 399 
 
 will not say the king shall never have my house, but 
 (it will be) against my will and against my heart, for 
 I know by my learning that he cannot take it by right 
 and law, wherefore in my conscience I cannot be 
 content, nor he shall never have it with my heart and 
 will.' To the which I said, ' beware of such learning 
 .as ye learned at Oxenford* when ye were young. Ye 
 would be hanged and you are worthy. I will advise 
 you to conform yourself as a true subject, or else you 
 shall hinder your brethren and also yourself.' My 
 lord, I like not this man, I fear he hath a cankered 
 heart for he was accused but of late of traitorous 
 words by one William Hall, but he had no witnesses." 
 
 Among the letters to Crumwell there is one from 
 a certain William Howard, who writes to his master, 
 saying, " I hear it is your pleasure that I should go 
 into the country to hearken if there be any ill-disposed 
 people in those parts that would talk or be busy any 
 way."f Another correspondent recommends for the 
 service of Crumwell an informer against religious 
 persons. J 
 
 The libraries of monasteries were ransacked for 
 evidence of opposition to the new state of affairs, 
 and even the cherished store of pious books belong- 
 ing to the country priest his service books and his 
 very manuals of piety were overhauled to search 
 
 * Thomas Marshall (Benedictine) was B.D. in 1511 and D.D. on 
 20th Ap., 1515. Boase's " Register," i., p. 63. 
 | R. O. Crum. Corr., xviii., No. i. 
 + B. Mus. Cott. MS. Cleop., E., iv.. 127 (106).
 
 400 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 out proofs, of his clinging to the faith and practice 
 of his fathers. From Bath abbey, for example, the 
 zealous doctor Layton writes : " Ye shall herewith re- 
 ceive a book of Our Lady's miracles well able to match 
 the Canterbury tales. Such a book of dreams as ye 
 never saw, which I found in the library."* Another 
 of Crumwell's agents, a certain " Ralph Lane, 
 junior," reports that according to his master's com- 
 mands he went after " the books of one Sir Thomas 
 Cantwell, parson of Hardwick . . which had been 
 brought to a poor man's house in Whitchurch." 
 Having examined them, he selected and forwarded 
 to his employer five volumes " belonging to the said 
 parson, whereof three are entitled Homeliari Johis 
 Echii, being all three dated A.D. 1438 ; one book of 
 the life of Sf. Thomas Becket, and a missal wherein 
 is the word papa ' throughoutly uncorrected.' "f 
 
 Another informer of a different class, William 
 Waldegrave, writes : " There is a chaplain of my lady 
 Waldegrave, my grandam, which is a papist and 
 causes (those) here to hold off from the truth, hath 
 in his mass book daily this Thomas Beckett's name 
 with all his pestiferious collects."! So also the 
 curate of Wrington, Somerset, "will not abrogate 
 the name of Thomas Becket." This was taken in 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 42. 
 
 f R. O. Crum. Corr., xix., No. 20. See also 21, where the 
 library of Dr. Lussh, the vicar of Aylesbury, is searched. Also 
 xliv., 35, where the prior of Twynham is ordered to search for 
 certain books. 
 
 J Ibid., xlvi., 14.
 
 Thomas Crumivell, the King's Vicar General. 401 
 
 all cases, as a certain sign of wrong-headed ob- 
 stinacy, and an intention to resist the king's changes. 
 The monks of Christchurch, Canterbury, got into 
 trouble for singing the old domnum apostolicum in 
 their litanies, and the priest who sang high mass was 
 reported for keeping the pope's name in the Canon. 
 
 The celebrated Miles Coverdale was one of Crum- 
 well's zealous informers, and we learn from some of 
 his letters the methods adopted to force compliance 
 upon the people. He writes, for example, to Crum- 
 well to say that two men have come and reported to 
 him* "that in a glass window of our lady's chapel 
 in the church of Henley on Thames the image of 
 Thomas Becket with the whole feigned story of his 
 death is suffered to stand still. Not only this, but 
 that all the beams, irons, and candlesticks (whereon 
 tapers and lights were wont to be set up unto images) 
 remain still untaken down, whereby the poor, simple, 
 unlearned people believe that they shall have liberty to 
 set up their candles again unto images, and that the 
 old fashion shall shortly return. f . . . Now, though 
 Sir Walter Stoner, Knight, be the king's justice of 
 
 * R. O. Crum. Corr., vii., Fol. 64. 
 
 f See also ibid., xlvi., No. 31. Robt. Ward's description of the 
 windows in the church of S. Thomas Acres : " I saw on the 
 north side of the church, certain windows with St. Thomas' life 
 displayed, and in especial I noted a superstitious and a popish re- 
 membrance in the absolution of the king that was in that time, 
 that is thus set forth : There be divers monks portrayed with rods 
 in their hands, and the king kneeling naked before a monk, as he 
 should be beaten at the shrine of Saint Thomas." 
 
 VOL. 1. D D
 
 .jo* Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 peace at Henley, yet (under your correction) I 
 reckon great and notable negligence in the bishop of 
 Lincoln, which, being so nigh, doth not weed out 
 such faults. Yea. I fear it be as evil or worse in 
 many more places of his diocese." 
 
 88 It is my duty also to signify unto your good lord- 
 ship the great oversight of the stationers of London, 
 which for their license and gains are not ashamed to 
 sell still, such primers as corrupt the king's subjects. 
 A great number of them have my neighbours brought 
 unto me, and a great sort of other most ungracious 
 popish books (both contrary to God and the king's 
 highness) have I taken up within the precincts of 
 Newbury, and will do more if your good lordship do 
 give me your authority, or bid me do it. I humbly 
 beseech you (my most dear and singular good lord) 
 to have your loving answer by the mouth of this 
 bearer, young Mr. Winchcombe, and to know your 
 good pleasure what I shall do with these popish 
 books that I have already; whether I shall burn 
 them at the market-cross or no. 9 * 
 
 A few weeks before, Coverdale had written in the 
 same way, pointing out that the priests were not 
 sufficiently energetic in carrying out the intentions of 
 die long and his minister. The following day he 
 wrote again, to say "that as methinketh (I speak 
 under collection) a great number of the priests of 
 this realm are run in premunire unto the king, inas- 
 much as they have not utterly extinct all such 
 ecclesiastical service, as is against his grace's most
 
 Thomas Crumwell, the King's Vicar General. 403 
 
 lawful supremacy and prerogative. For in the feast, 
 called Cathedra S. Petri, a great part of their matins 
 is plainly a maintenance of the bishop of Rome's 
 usurped power. This is evident in all the great 
 matin books of the church of Xewbury, and I doubt 
 not but it is so likewise in many churches more. I 
 found it the seventh day of this month, and I wonder 
 at it, considering that (it) is so long since the act 
 was made, for the abolishing of all such usurped 
 authority."'* 
 
 All classes of society throughout the countrvwere 
 made to feel, that they were subjected to the omni- 
 potent will of Thomas Cromwell and to the petty 
 tyranny of those, who thought to win his favour 
 by proving that his power was above all law and 
 justice, f When the chapel of Our Lady of Wal- 
 singham had been despoiled by the king's commis- 
 sioners and the image taken away, a report got 
 noised abroad of some grace or favour granted at 
 the old shrine. Sir Roger Townsend went there to 
 find out the author of the report, which might remind 
 the people of their old attachment to this place of 
 pilgrimage, and so beget trouble. In a letter written 
 
 * MM., TOL, f. 65. 
 
 f FCOM, v., PL %6, ed. i $46, gives an mtfpnne of this. * Here- 
 onto also pertuneth the riample of friar Barney,, urba mmg 
 suffl bis friar's cowl after die MHr,.%sin of id^giom haaats 
 Cromwell, coming into Panfs chardbjard and espying him in 
 Rheines shops, * Yet,' said he, 8 wiB not daft cowl of JOTS be left 
 off ytt ? And, if I bear by one o'dock that this apparel be not 
 changed, ttaa doll be bnyd immediately for example of * 
 others."'
 
 404 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 to Crumwell on January 2oth he thus describes the 
 result of his visit : 
 
 " There was a poor woman of Wells beside Wal- 
 singham that imagined a false tale. . And upon 
 the trial thereof by my examination from one person 
 to another to the number of six persons, and at last 
 came to her that she was the reporter thereof, and 
 to be the very author of the same as far as my 
 conscience and perceiving could lead me. I com- 
 mitted her, therefore, to the ward of the constables 
 of Walsingham. The next day after, being market 
 day there, I caused her to be set in the stocks in 
 the morning,* and about nine of the clock, when the 
 said market was fullest of people, with a paper set 
 about her head, written with these words upon the 
 same, ' a reporter of false tales] was set in a cart 
 and so carried about the marketsted and other 
 streets of the town, staying in divers places where 
 most people assembled, young people and boys of 
 the town casting snowballs at her. This done and 
 executed, she was brought to the stocks again, and 
 there set till the market was ended. This was her 
 penance, for I kneiu no law otherwise to punish her 
 but my discretion, trusting it shall be a warning to 
 other light persons in such wise to order themselves. 
 Howbeit I cannot but perceive that the said image 
 is not yet out of some of their heads. "f 
 
 * Note that it was in the depth of winter and snow on the 
 ground, as will be seen. 
 
 f Ellis, " Orig. Lett.," third ser. iii., p. 162.
 
 Thomas Crum-well, the King' s Vicar General. 405 
 
 A Worcester man named Thomas Emails, servant 
 to Mr. Evans, got into difficulties for blaming the 
 spoliation of the shrine of Our Lady of Worcester. 
 He was tried by a mixed commission, headed by 
 Latimer, the bishop of the city. It was proved 
 against him that he had come to the church, and 
 leaning on the shoulder of one Roger Cromps, had 
 said : ;< Lady art thou stript now, I have seen the 
 day that as clean men hath been stript at a pair of 
 gallows, as were they that stript thee. Then he 
 entered into the chapel" and "knelt down, saying 
 his Pater and Ave, and kissed the image and turned 
 to the people and said ' though Our Lady's coat and 
 her Jewells be taken away from her, the similitude is 
 no worse to pray, unto having sorrow, than it was 
 before.' ' The depositions carry on the story of 
 this bold and turbulent fellow, who confessed to the 
 charge made against him, no further than his com- 
 mittal to safe custody.* 
 
 Never in the history of England had words and 
 signs of disapprobation of the action of a minister 
 been regarded as treason to the country. Yet words 
 spoken in anger or jest of Crumwell or his arbitrary 
 measures were made the subject of serious inquiries, 
 and were sufficient to surround those who were bold 
 enough to utter them with grave peril. For words 
 so spoken by a priest in Herefordshire, the Ludlow 
 
 * R. O. Crum. Cor., xlvi., No. 19. The offence was com- 
 mitted on the eve of the feast of the Assumption, 1537. The 
 examination took place on the i9th of August.
 
 406 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 justices apprehended him and placed him in gaol. 
 They then proceeded to ransack his house in search 
 of evidence to convict him and not being able to 
 find anything which could be turned against him, 
 although they searched even his private papers, 
 they determined to ask further instructions from 
 Crumwell. Meantime they luckily found a bag 
 containing ^76 i6s. of the unfortunate priest's 
 savings. From this they proceeded to pay them- 
 selves for the work already done. On that score 
 they took 20 (about ^"240 of our present money), 
 and gave a like sum to be equally divided between 
 the scribe who had made the inventory of the priest's 
 effects and the lucky messenger who conveyed the 
 intimation of their righteous doings to their em- 
 ployer. We may fairly conclude what they thought 
 would be the final fate of their victim by their 
 deliberate division of his little property. 
 
 It is impossible to peruse the records of these 
 years of Crumwell's supremacy without feeling 
 deeply, that even a pretence of justice and fair deal- 
 ing was little thought of, that prisoners were left to 
 languish untried in the gaols of the country, and to 
 die in numbers from pestilence,* which was digni- 
 fied on the public rolls into "a visitation of divine 
 providence." The long lists of those who were each 
 term called upon to find security for their good 
 behaviour or convicted of assembling for riotous 
 purposes, are sufficient proofs of the efforts made to 
 
 * See the lists, twelve and twenty at a time, on the "Controlment 
 Rolls " for these years.
 
 Thomas Cmmmelt, the Kings Vicar General. 407 
 
 extinguish the last remnants of a struggle for free- 
 dom from the masterful rule of Crumwell and his 
 creatures. 
 
 1 The persecutions," says dean Hook, " under 
 Henry originated in avarice or a desire to maintain 
 the peace of the country, to the infraction of which 
 the people were at the same time excited by the lust 
 of plunder on the part of the king and his ministers."* 
 Of the unjust and unscrupulous character of Crum- 
 well's personal dealings as to these persecutions, the 
 notes he has left in his own handwriting do not 
 admit of any doubt. " Item to remember," he 
 writes, " to go to the Charterhouse myself. Item 
 what the king his pleasure shall be touching the 
 learned man in the tower. Item to send for the 
 abbot of Boxley with speed. Item for the indict- 
 ment against the abbot of Reading and others. 
 Item certain persons to be sent to the tower for 
 the further examination of the abbot of Glaston." 
 And, to quote once more an example more wonderful 
 in its calm ignoring of justice than the rest : " Item 
 to see that the evidence be well sorted and the indict- 
 ments well drawn against the said abbots and their 
 complices. Item the abbot Reading to be sent 
 down to be tried and executed at Reading with his 
 complices. Item the abbot of Glaston to be tried 
 at Glaston, and also executed there with his com- 
 plices."! 
 
 * "Lives of Archbishops," Vol. vi., p. 102. 
 t B. Mus. Cott. MS. Titus, B. i., fok. 422, 435. The " learned 
 man " is Sir T. Moore, 439, 441.
 
 408 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 How the persons, who were sent to the Tower 
 " for the further examination of the abbot of Glas- 
 ton " fared, we do not know, but it is certain that 
 these examinations were sometimes conducted whilst 
 the unfortunate victim was tortured on the rack,* and 
 that Crumwell himself on occasions superintended 
 the torture. When an Irish monk had been caught 
 on a ship near the English coast the minister writes 
 to the king: " We cannot as yet get at the pith of 
 his credence, whereby I am advised to-morrow to go 
 to the Tower and see him set in the bracks (rack), 
 and by torment compelled to confess the truth. "t 
 It is a matter of history that he attended in state 
 with his officers to witness the sufferings of friar 
 Forest, burning to death in Smithfield for refusing to 
 accept the doctrine of the royal supremacy. That 
 Henry quite entered into Crumwell's views as to 
 setting the ordinary principles of justice aside, is 
 seen in the despatch he wrote to the duke of Norfolk 
 dictating the method he was to adopt in suppressing 
 the Pilgrimage of Grace. " Our pleasure is that 
 before you shall close up our banner again, you 
 shall cause such dreadful execution to be done upon 
 a good number of the inhabitants of every town, 
 village and hamlet that have offended, as they may 
 be a fearful spectacle to all others hereafter that 
 would practise any like matter, remembering that it 
 
 * See Ellis' " Letters," 3rd series, iii., 70. 
 
 f B. Mus. Cott. MS. Titus, B. i., fol. 259; printed Ellis, 2nd 
 series, ii., 133.
 
 Thomas Crum-well, the King's Vicar General. 409 
 
 should be much better that these traitors should 
 perish in their unkind traitorous follies than that so 
 slender punishments should be done upon them as 
 the dread thereof should not be a warning to others. 
 Finally, forasmuch as all these troubles have ensued 
 by the solicitation of traitorous conspiracies of the 
 monks and canons of these parts, we desire you, at 
 .such places as they have conspired and kept their 
 houses with force, since the appointment at Doncas- 
 ter, you shall, without pity or circumstance, cause all 
 the monks and canons that be in any wise faulty to 
 be tied up without further delay or ceremony."* 
 
 The following letter from lord Crumwell to the 
 earl of Chester, president of the marches of Wales, 
 shows the rough and ready justice with which the 
 king's minister was prepared to carry out his master's 
 royal will : " After my right hearty commendations. 
 Whereas the king's majesty about a twelvemonth 
 past gave a pardon to a company of lewd persons 
 within this realm calling themselves Gipcians,f for a 
 most shamefull and detestable murder committed 
 amongst them, with a special proviso, inserted by 
 their own consents, that unless they should all avoid 
 this his grace's realm by a certain day long since 
 expired, it should be lawful to all his grace's officers 
 to hang them in all places of his realm where they 
 might be apprehended, without any further examina- 
 tion or trial after form of law, as in their letters patent 
 of the said pardon is expressed. His grace, hearing 
 
 * Quoted by Blunt, " Reformation," p. 365. t /'.<?., Gipsies.
 
 4i o Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 that they yet linger here within his realm, not avoid- 
 ing the same according to his commandment and 
 their own promise hath commanded me to signify 
 unto you and the shires next adjoining, whether any 
 of the said persons calling themselves Egyptians, 
 or that hath heretofore called themselves Egyptians 
 shall happen to enter or travel in the same. And in 
 case you should hear or know of any such, be they 
 men or women, that you shall compel them to depart 
 to the next port of the sea to the place where they 
 shall be taken, and either, without delay, upon the 
 first wind that may convey them into any part 
 beyond the seas, to take shiping and to pass therein 
 to outward parts, or, if they shall in any wise break 
 that commandment, without any tract to see them 
 executed according to the king's highness' said 
 letters patent remaining of record in his chancery,, 
 which, with these, shall be your discharge in that 
 behalf : not failing to accomplish the tenor hereof 
 with all effect and diligence, without sparing upon 
 any commission, licence or placard that they may 
 show^ or allege for themselves to the contrary, as ye 
 tender his grace's pleasure, which also is, that you 
 shall give notice to all justices of the peace in that 
 county where you reside, and the shires adjacent,, 
 that they may accomplish the tenour hereof accord- 
 ingly. Thus fare you heartily well. The fifth day 
 of December, in the 29th year of his majesty's 
 
 reign."* 
 
 Ellis, " Orig. Letts.," ist Ser., ii., p. 100.
 
 Thomas Criiiinvell, the King's Vicar General. 41 1 
 
 We may judge, by an instance recorded by the 
 historian Stow, that at the height of his fame the 
 all-powerful minister was not less arbitrary as a 
 man, than as the agent of a despotic king's will. 
 In his " Survey of London " Stow says : " On the 
 south side and at the west end of this church (Augus- 
 tine friars in London)," " many fair houses are builded 
 namely in Throgmorton Street one very large and 
 spacious, builded in the place of old and small tene- 
 ments by Thomas Cromwell, master of the rolls &c. . . 
 This house being finished, and having some reasonable 
 plot of ground left for a garden, he caused the pales of 
 the garden adjoining to the north part thereof on a 
 sudden to be taken down, twenty-two foot to be mea- 
 sured forth right into the north of every man's ground, 
 a line there to be drawn, a trench to be cast, a founda- 
 tion laid and a high brick wall to be builded. My 
 father had a garden there, and a house standing 
 close to his south pale, this house they loosed from 
 the ground and bare upon rollers into my father's 
 garden twenty two foot, ere my father heard thereof, 
 no warning was given him, nor other answer, when 
 he spake to the surveyors of that work, but that their 
 master Sir Thomas commanded them so to do ; no 
 man durst go to argue the matter, but each man lost 
 his ground. My father paid his whole rent which 
 was six shillings and eight pence for that half which 
 was left. Thus much of mine own knowledge have 
 I thought good to note, that the sudden rising of 
 some men, causeth them to forget themselves. The
 
 412 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 company of the drapers in London bought this house, 
 and now the same is their common hall."* 
 
 It is impossible to read the numerous letters 
 addressed to Thomas Crumwell and his instructions 
 to his agents during the period of the suppression of 
 the monasteries, and to credit him with even honesty 
 in regard to his dealings with them. Although their 
 destruction was a foregone conclusion, and the royal 
 commissioners were fully instructed in their master's 
 purpose, he bids them expressly repudiate any such 
 intention on the part of the king. Doctor Layton 
 writes from Norfolk to his master, that he has done 
 his best to stop the rumour that the monasteries are 
 all to go down ; that he has told the monks and 
 their neighbours that such a report is a slander on 
 the king's majesty, and adds that he " now under- 
 stands that your commandment therefore given me 
 in your gallery was much more weighty, than I at 
 the time judged or supposed or would have believed 
 if I had not seen the very experience thereof."f The 
 commandment was evidently to prevent the loss of 
 plate or valuables got rid of by the monks, in view of 
 the threatened seizure of their property, by falsely 
 declaring that the king had no such designs of 
 destruction. | 
 
 * Stow, " Survey of London," Ed. 1602, p. 180. Foxe has 
 recorded other instances of CrumwelPs arbitrary mode of acting. 
 
 t R. O. Crum. Corr., Vol. xx., No. 16. 
 
 % The same declaration that the king had no intention of 
 suppressing the monasteries that remained, and that he " would 
 not in any wise interrupt you in your state and kind of living," is
 
 Thomas Criimwell, the King's Vicar General. 413-, 
 
 During the eight years that Crumwell ruled 
 England as a despot, the plunder he amassed by 
 public and private spoliation must have been 
 immense. The only possible policy for the monastic 
 bodies was one of attempted conciliation. By liberal 
 donations, presents and bribes to their supreme 
 governor, they hoped to buy off the evil day. 
 'Demands for leases, grants and pensions, were made 
 on the monasteries by Crumwell, or in his name, 
 without hesitation or consideration. Generally what 
 was asked was at once granted. The monks had 
 no option, except the prospect of involving their 
 houses in greater difficulties by refusal. Sometimes 
 they pleaded earnestly to be allowed to say no, when 
 some farm or pension was asked, that was necessary 
 to support their very existence, or to maintain the 
 poor who depended on them. 
 
 The account book* of Crumwell' s steward, 
 Thomas Avery, shows that large sums of money 
 came to him by way of presents from all manner of 
 persons, ecclesiastical and lay. Gifts of \.o and 
 20, for the new year, frequently appear in its pages. 
 Archbishops, bishops, abbots and priors, nobles and 
 commoners, officials and unknown laymen, towns, 
 colleges and cathedral chapters, all sent in their 
 fees and new year donations, to propitiate the favour 
 
 made in the draft of a letter from the king to reassure the monas- 
 teries, probably in CrumwelPs handwriting. B. Mus., Cleop. E.. 
 iv., fol. 86. 
 
 * R. O. Chapter House Books, B|.
 
 414 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 of the great man. Some of the amounts are startling. 
 On the ist January, 1539, for instance, the account 
 book records money presents for the new year of 
 ^"800 (more than ^9,000 of our present money). 
 Fees of sums, from ^"10 to ^50, flow in for visitations 
 of monasteries and dioceses and for installation to 
 ecclesiastical and civil offices. In the year 1538, 
 more than ^300 was paid, by the prior of St. 
 Swithin's, Winchester, into the private purse of 
 Crumwell. At one time the prior of Rochester pays 
 ^100, at another the abbot of Evesham 266. The 
 agents he has employed in the visitation of the 
 monasteries, Layton, Legh, Ap Rice and Petre, pay 
 large sums in discharge of debts, as their master's 
 share in the visitation fees and as presents. 
 
 Cranmer, who certainly feared and distrusted his 
 powerful ecclesiastical superior, thought it necessary 
 to secure to him ^40 a year " as a memorial of 
 his friendship."' From Rowland Lee, the bishop of 
 Coventiy and Lichfield, Crumwell demands ^"100 
 in return for the grant of some priory secured to 
 him, but this demand the bishop was bold enough to 
 refuse, saying that he had never promised it, and 
 could not spare it. f 
 
 Bribes of all kinds, unmistakable in their purposes, 
 were offered to him by those who had best reason 
 to know the secret of gaining what they desired. 
 Layton, the most unscrupulous of his tools, is fre- 
 
 * More than ^400 a year of our money. 
 t R. O. Crum. Corr., xxv., No. 1 1.
 
 Thomas Crumivell, the King's Vicar General. 415 
 
 quently the channel by which money of this kind is 
 offered. For the elections at Fountains, Gis- 
 borough, Whitby and many other places, large 
 bribes are offered to Crumwell, in return for a 
 nomination. If he will make a certain monk abbot 
 of Yale Royal " he will be contented," writes Sir 
 Piers Dutton, " to give your mastership a 100 in 
 hand, and further to do you as large pleasure as any 
 man shall."* From a certain John Parkyns there are 
 two offers of ^"100 for some coveted office "and 
 faithful service during my natural life."f William 
 Penison is anxious to obtain the office of receiver at 
 the dissolution of Reading abbey. " Herewith," he 
 consequently writes, " I present unto your lordship 
 a diamond set in a slender gold ring, supposing for 
 proportion and compass thereof, the same somewhat 
 meet to be set in the breast of a George . . And 
 where I moved unto your lordship not long ago of 
 the dissolution of Reading abbey, now so it is, that 
 I am provoked to signify unto you (as I am informed) 
 that the abbot there preparing and looking for the 
 same, selleth sheep, corn, with woods and other 
 things, whereof he may make money. "j A month 
 later the writer has to thank Crumwell for the office 
 he had thus requested. Sometimes, however, the 
 minister does not get his money quite so easily. 
 William Arnold, abbot of Miravale, writes that he 
 learns from Dr. Legh, that Crumwell is looking for 
 
 * Ibid., ix., fol. 100. % Ibid., xxxii., 15, 16. 
 
 % R. O. Crum. Corr., xxxii., Nos. 37, 38.
 
 4i 6 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 the ^"40 " promised you for your trouble in my 
 regard. I have already paid for your use through 
 serjeant Thornton 100, since he demanded this for 
 your pains. He confessed to the receipt of the 
 money, affirming that it is paid already to your 
 mastership." " As to your fee," he concludes, 
 " which Dr. Legh says Mr. Thornton promised you, I 
 never knew anything about it," but of course I must 
 pay and ask you to take it in " goods worth."* 
 
 The reports of the coming suppression, brought 
 many tempting bribes to spare the doomed houses. 
 The abbot of Pipwell will " do all that a poor man 
 can to gratify your lordship . . with ^200." f If 
 Peterborough { may be allowed to stand Crumwell 
 will find it worth his while, and to avert the fate of 
 dissolution from Colchester he is offered as much as 
 -2,000 (^24,000 of our money). In fact, in the 
 matter of bribes, the character of Crumwell had been 
 rightly judged by the religious. For them, it was- 
 the last chance to purchase further existence by 
 liberal donations. The prior of Durham, in a solemn 
 letter, proposes to increase the annuity of ^"5, the 
 monastery of S. Cuthbert had hitherto given him to 
 ;io. The prioress of Catesby will give him a 
 hundred marks to buy a gelding, and the prayers of 
 the convent for life, if he can persuade the king to- 
 accept the 2,000 marks she has offered through the 
 queen, as ransom for her house. | Richard, the 
 
 * Ibid., xxix., No. 3. f Ibid., xxxi., No. 51. J Wright, 179. 
 Ellis, " Orig. Letts.," 3rd ser., iii., p. 44. || Ibid., p. 50.
 
 Thomas Crumwell, the King^s Vicar General. 417 
 
 abbot of Leicester, sends ^40, as he understands 
 " it should be your pleasure/'* and his successor, 
 the abbot John, who had to pay a yearly tax of 
 ^"240, and was deeply in debt, sends a present in 
 kind, of " a brace of fat oxen and a score of fat 
 weathers." The abbess of Shaftesbury, and her 
 neighbour the abbot of Cerne, each offer Crumwell 
 ^"100 to spare their houses. In the same way the 
 interference of the all-powerful minister with legal 
 obligations was besought, under promises of sub- 
 stantial reward. Thus Robert Blakeney, whom 
 Gostwyk, Crumwell's secretary, describes as " mine 
 old acquaintance, the prior of Tynemouth," endea- 
 vours by a good bribe to purchase exemption from 
 the payment of an annuity to which the convent was 
 legally bound. His predecessor in the office had 
 paid some 200 marks in fees, and although the 
 value of the monastery had diminished he still pro- 
 fessed his willingness to " compound " with Crum- 
 well for that amount, provided the abbot of St. 
 Albans were made to secure the office to him for 
 life '' by convent seal." Beyond this, the new prior 
 desired to escape the payment of an annuity, which 
 " my lady Mary Carey, now Stafford, had granted 
 to her by my predecessor under convent seal." It 
 was for 100 marks yearly, and Robert Blakeney did 
 not think she had done anything, " nor does intend 
 to do, as far as I can learn," anything deserving 
 such a payment. He thinks the house, " by reason 
 
 * Ibid., ii., p. 313. 
 VOL. I. E E
 
 41 8 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 of the first-fruits and other charges," cannot afford 
 it, and so has refused to pay it any longer. The 
 chancellor, however, had sent him an order to do so, 
 and hence he begs Crumwell " to take it into your 
 hands, and for your pains, as your lordship has an 
 annuity from me of twenty nobles, it shall be 
 twenty marks, and that not only to yourself, but 
 to Mr. Gregory, your son, if it chance him to sur- 
 vive."* 
 
 As for presents, they come pouring in upon him 
 on all sides, fish from Croyland, apples from Kings- 
 langley, partridges and pheasants from Harrow, Irish 
 hawks from Bath, geldings from Tewkesbury these 
 are but samples of the endless variety and number of 
 his presents, not the least curious of which is ^"40 
 from one John Hunter " towards 'furnishing of your 
 cellar with wine, in recompense " for Crumwell's part 
 in a law case relating to the property of the writer's 
 wife. His accounts reveal that considerable sums 
 were received, in a way to leave little doubt that they 
 were really " secret service " money. For example, 
 " in a purse," " in a white leather purse," " in a 
 crimson satteen purse," " in a handkerchief," " in a 
 glove," "at Arundel in a glove," "in a pair of 
 gloves under a cushion, in the middle window of the 
 gallery." Some of the other items of receipt are 
 hardly less suspicious, for example, "a chain which 
 melted acquired for my lord ^482 " (more than 
 ^5,000 of our money). " Trapes, the goldsmith, in 
 * R. O. Crum. Corr., xiv., 63 ; Vol. xlv., No. 37.
 
 Thomas Crumivell, the Kings Vicar General. 419 
 
 full payment, 1,348 155. 2d.," and "Bowes for 
 144 ozs. of gold, 274 iis. od."* 
 
 (< In Crumwell's time," writes Froude, "the ques- 
 tionable practice of most great men of his time, the 
 practice of receiving pensions and presents for 
 general support and patronage was carried to an 
 extent which, even then, perhaps appeared exces- 
 sive."! His share of the monastic spoils has yet to 
 be calculated. A great deal came into his hands by 
 way of grant from the crown, \ and much more by 
 private arrangement with those to whom, perhaps 
 through his instrumentality, it had been given. His 
 accounts show, that during the years of suppression 
 he was expending large sums in the purchasing of 
 estates. In the last two years of his life he must 
 have spent some 10,000 in this way, a very large 
 sum in those days, and equal to about 120,000 of 
 our money. Large amounts of money pass between 
 him and his agents, which have a suspicious look. 
 Sir Thomas Elliot promises him the first year's 
 fruits from any lands of suppressed monasteries 
 
 * R. O. Chapter H. Books, B |, fol. 25, &c. 
 
 t " Hist.," iii. p. 444. 
 
 J Amongst these must be enumerated Lewes priory, in Sussex, 
 with its cell at Melton- Mowbray, in Leicestershire ; the priories of 
 Mickelham, in Sussex ; Modenham, in Kent ; St. Osithe's, in 
 Essex; Alcester, in Warwick ; Yarmouth, in Norfolk; and Laund, 
 in Leicestershire. His nephew, Sir Richard, the great-grandfather 
 of the Protector, had Ramsey abbey, Hinchinbrooke, Sawtry, St. 
 Neot's, Neath abbey, St. Helen's, London, and other property of 
 monasteries he helped to suppress as a royal commissioner. 
 
 Strype, " Eccl. Mems.," i., i, 399, 407.
 
 420 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 granted to him by his intervention, and his "remem- 
 brances " are full of suggestive hints on this matter.* 
 " Item," he notes, " to remember Warren for one 
 monastery, Mr. Gostwykef for a monastery, John 
 Freeman for Spalding, Mr. Kingsmill for Wherwell r 
 myself for Laund.j Item to remember John God- 
 salve for something, for he hath need," and " Item 
 to remember to know the true value of the goods of 
 Castleacre for my part thereof." Whether he got 
 these goods does not appear, but those of the priory 
 of Lewes came into his possession and were sold by 
 him, as appears from his account book. " May 
 i9th, Thomas Busshope, for the sale of divers goods 
 and cattle at Lewes in part payment of a more sum, 
 ^467 135. o|d." Other items of the sale pro- 
 duced nearly ^"1,200, a large total from the spoils of 
 one monastery for his private purse, representing 
 
 * B. Mus. Cott. MS. Titus, B. i, fls. 446-459. 
 
 f There were large money transactions between Gostwyke and 
 Crumwell at this period. The former, in one month, pays " on his 
 bills obligatory " more than ^"3,000, and, on the other hand, 
 Crumwell pays by " way of present" at onetime ^"1,000, and 
 eighteen months later ^2,000. 
 
 J Illustrating this "remembrance" of " Laund for himself" 
 there is a letter from Thomas Frysby, a canon of the house, accom- 
 panying a present of cheese to Crumwell. In it he says that his 
 good master need not thank the abbot for the gift, and concludes : 
 " Pleaseth it your good mastership to call to your remembrance 
 when ye lay here with us at Launde abbey some time, ye would take 
 pains to walk with me or my brethren about our business." He 
 made himself, so it seems, well acquainted with the property. See 
 Blunt, i, p. 377.
 
 Thomas Crumwell, the King's Vicar General. 42 1 
 
 some ^17,000 of our money.* Crumwell also re- 
 ceived a grant of the priory of Lewes, and having 
 made some alterations -and removed superfluous 
 buildings, the record of which appears in his ex- 
 penses, he allowed his son Gregory, then lately 
 married, to go there with his wife to occupy the 
 monastery from whence the monks had been ex- 
 pelled. Gregory writes to his father to say Mrs. 
 Crumwell found the buildings " very commodious. "f 
 In his expenditure Crumwell appears to have been 
 lavish. His household cost him, for some time at 
 least, more than ^"100 a month, and he indulged 
 considerably his taste for building. In former days 
 he had warned his master, Wolsey, to beware of this 
 very attractive but dangerously fascinating and 
 expensive taste, but when in the height of his power, 
 he himself had buildings in progress at the " Rolls," 
 Austin Friars, Hackney, Mortlake and at Ewhurst. 
 He purchased estatesj as he could get the oppor- 
 tunity, some the spoils of dissolved monasteries, 
 some the hereditary lands of the old nobles, sold to 
 meet their liabilities. No doubt, with Crumwell's 
 
 * Chapter House Books, B. |, fol. 70. 
 
 t R. O. Crum. Cor.,vii., fol. 171. 
 
 | As examples, in his account book we find : " Lord Latimer, 
 the purchase of land, ^"280; the chancellor of augmentations, 
 ditto, ^"800 ; Sir Gregory Somerset, purchase of his house at Kew, 
 200 ; Lord Clynton, purchase of manors at Golston, Folkeston, 
 and Walton, ,"2,374 ; the prior of Folkeston, ^263 is. 3d. ; Sir 
 John Dudley, manor of Holden, &c., ^3,490 ; Sir Thomas Pope, 
 manor of Dunford by Wandsworth, 266 133. 4d.," &c., &c.
 
 422 Henry VIII. and the Englisli Monasteries. 
 
 eye for his own interests, many of them were as 
 great bargains as the annuity of ^84 a year seems 
 to have been, which he purchased of Sir William 
 Gascoyne for ^333- 
 
 Crumwell also indulged considerably in a taste for 
 goldsmith and jeweller's work. Cups, ewers, and 
 trenchers of gold ; platters, dishes and saucers of 
 silver by the dozen, are expenses incurred to " Mr. 
 Trappes of London," John of Antwerp, and Bastian 
 the jeweller; while we would gladly know something 
 more of some of the items of account, such as " the 
 cross of gold of Saint Albans," for which he paid 
 ;io6 to "Aston the auditor," and "the diamond 
 and ruby," sold by " Jenyns the jeweller" to him, for 
 the enormous price of ^2,000. 
 
 On his amusements Crumwell spent his money 
 freely. At bowls, cards and dice he appears to 
 have lost sums varying from twenty shillings to ^30. 
 He was, moreover, liberal in treating the king and 
 court to masks, shows and other spectacles, and 
 minstrels, hobby-horses and players all come in for 
 a share of the plunder of monastery and convent. 
 More than the yearly pension of many a monk and 
 nun, went " for trimming of Divine Providence when 
 she played before the king," and for " the collar of 
 velvet for the strange beast my lord gave to the 
 king." 
 
 The taste of the newly-made peer in matters of 
 dress would seem to have been hardly less expensive, 
 if we may judge by the payments to Sir Richard
 
 Thomas Crumiuell, the King's Vicar General. 423 
 
 Gressham for silks and velvets, and from the strange 
 item of " two satin nightcaps for my lord." His 
 presents were almost regal in number and amount. 
 Some items, however are suggestive of other motives 
 than liberality and seem to partake of the nature of 
 money-lending, an occupation in which, even at the 
 summit of his power, Crumwell continued to engage.* 
 One other trait in the character of Crumwell must 
 be here briefly noticed. That he was the patron 
 and abettor of the shocking blasphemies, which dis- 
 graced the country during his administration does 
 not admit of doubt. His was a policy of destruction 
 of faith, as well as of the rights of property. With- 
 out religion himself, he did not hesitate to sap the 
 foundations of Christian faith in others, and by 
 encouraging and subsidizing a crowd of vulgar 
 satirists on holy and even sacred things, he threw 
 open the flood gates of scepticism and infidelity. 
 " He was," writes doctor Maitland, " the great patron 
 of ribaldry, and the protector of the ribalds, of the 
 low jester, the filthy ballad-monger, the ale-house 
 singers, and ' hypocritical mockers in feasts/ in 
 short, of all the blasphemous mocking and scoffing 
 which disgraced the protestant party at the time of 
 the reformation. . It was the result of design and 
 policy earnestly and elaborately pursued by the man 
 possessing for all such purposes the highest place 
 
 * We have frequent repayments on " bills obligatory " loans 
 without security apparently, and loans similar to those of a pawn- 
 broker " on a statue," " on another statue," " on some plate.''
 
 424 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 and power in the land."* To this man were handed 
 over the monasteries of England, for reformation or 
 destruction, upon his word and that of his creatures, 
 is made to depend their title to good or evil fame. 
 
 It remains to speak of the ending to his career, 
 which took place in well-merited infamy. By a 
 nemesis of fate he passed to the scaffold suddenly, 
 almost untried and certainly unheard in his own 
 defence, and this was possibly by virtue of an act he 
 had devised and obtained, to get rid of inconvenient 
 rivals and others, bold enough to oppose his lawless 
 policy or thwart his schemes. Rumours had not 
 been wanting that the minister's influence over 
 Henry had not been so paramount for some time 
 before his final disgrace. The king to whom 
 Wolsey had " kneeled the space sometimes of three 
 hours to persuade from his will and appetite," but 
 without success, did not become more easy to lead 
 in Crumwell's time, Report spoke of scenes in 
 the audience chamber, when the royal wilfulness 
 developed such an extreme of passion as to result 
 in the boxing of lord Crumwell's ears, right 
 soundly. Castillon, the French ambassador, had 
 heard his majesty read a lesson to the lord privy 
 seal, and tell him " he might be fit to look after 
 
 * "The Reformation," p. 236. Foxe, v., p. 403, glories in this 
 characteristic of his great Christian hero, Crumwell, and instances 
 " The Fantassie of Idolatory " as a specimen of the work done 
 tinder his patronage. With Dr. Maitland we are content to let the 
 work speak for itself.
 
 Thomas Crumwell, the King's Vicar General. 425 
 
 household duties but not to manage the business of 
 kings."* 
 
 On i ith June, 1540, Marillac, who had succeeded 
 Castillon as ambassador of France, wrote that he 
 had heard, an hour before sending his despatch, that 
 Crumwell had been sent to the Tower. He added 
 that it is impossible to foretell how this arrest might 
 change the whole public policy of the king, " even 
 as regards innovations in religious matters in which 
 Crumwell had been the prime mover."f Henry was 
 anxious that Marillac should understand fully the 
 reason of the minister's downfall, and at once sent, 
 asking him to suspend his judgment till their next 
 interview, when he would explain everything. In 
 the meantime he was to believe, that it was because 
 Crumwell had been found to be a heretic at heart, 
 and had supported false German teaching in spite of 
 the king's wishes, boasting that he was powerful 
 enough to do what he liked, j * 
 
 On the 23rd June, the ambassador received a 
 full account of what had taken place, and wrote the 
 substance of his information to the Constable of 
 France. From this letter it appears that Crum- 
 well was altogether unprepared for his downfall. 
 When the lieutenant of the Tower entered the 
 council chamber at Westminster and informed him 
 that he was ordered to take him prisoner, Crumwell, 
 moved with indignation, threw his hat on the floor, 
 
 * " Inventaire analytique des Archives, &c., ed Kaulek," No. 62, 
 
 JMay 14, i53 8 - 
 
 t Ibid., No. 226. J Ibid., No. 189. //</., 'No. 231.
 
 426 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 and declared that he had never done anything but 
 for the king and in his service. Some of the council 
 called out, that he was a traitor, and must be judged 
 " by the laws he had himself made, and which," as 
 Marillac explains, " were so sanguinary that a few 
 words, often perhaps spoken inadvertently or in 
 good faith, could be construed into the crime of 
 high treason." The duke of Norfolk tore the order 
 of St. George from his neck, and the Garter was 
 also taken from him. Before the news spread, 
 Crumwell had already been lodged in the Tower, and 
 the people obtained their first knowledge of the 
 arrest by seeing the king's officers, attended by a 
 large retinue of archers, enter the fallen minister's 
 house for the purpose of searching it. 
 
 Lord Crumwell had few friends and many enemies. 
 The duke of Norfolk assured Marillac that he was to 
 die " by the most ignoble punishment then in use,"* 
 and, as the ambassador considered, the only staunch 
 friend was Cranmer, " who dared not speak a word in 
 his favour."f By the day following the arrest, Henry 
 had already begun to distribute his fallen favourite's- 
 offices. Through the streets of London he sent an 
 officer who " publicly proclaimed that henceforth no 
 one should call him ' Lord Privy Seal ' or by any 
 other title or dignity, but simply ' Thomas Crum- 
 well, cloth carder,' and that the king had taken from, 
 him every privilege and title of nobility, which he had 
 ever granted him." j 
 
 * Ibid., No. 197. f JbM-> No. 227. J Ibid., No. 231.
 
 Thomas Crumwell, the King' s Vicar General. 427 
 
 The record of his attainder* gives more information 
 about the charges brought against him than can be 
 learnt about many of his victims. After stating how 
 much the king had done for him, the bill continues : 
 ' Yet nevertheless Thomas Crumwell, now earl of 
 Essex, your majesty took and received into your 
 trusty service, the same Thomas then being a man 
 of very base and low degree. And for singular 
 trust and confidence, which your majesty bore and 
 had in him, did not only erect the said Thomas into 
 the state of an earl and enriched him with many 
 gifts as well of goods, as of lands and offices," but 
 also made him " one of your most trusty counsellers 
 as well concerning your grace's supreme jurisdictions 
 ecclesiastical, as your most high secret affairs tem- 
 poral." Nevertheless, it has been proved that he 
 has been " a false and corrupt traitor," setting at 
 liberty those he thought fit, and selling "for many- 
 fold sums of money " various grants, even to 
 foreigners and aliens. 
 
 Also " further taking upon him your power, 
 sovereign lord, divers and many times most traitor- 
 ously hath constituted . . subjects to be commis- 
 sioners in many your great urgent and weighty 
 causes and affairs executed in this realm, without 
 the assent or knowledge of your highness." Also 
 he publicly boasted "that he was sure of you" to 
 do what he wished. Further, he hath of his own will 
 granted passports, and being a " destestable heretic" 
 * Parliament Roll, 32 Henry VIII., m. 60.
 
 428 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 has sent over England a great number of false and 
 erroneous books, leading people to a disbelief "in 
 the most holy and Blessed Sacrament of the altar 
 and other articles of the Christian religion." And 
 after these books were translated, he declared the 
 " material heresy so translated, good " and also 
 declared " that it was lawful for every Christian 
 man to be a minister of the said sacrament as well 
 as a priest.' ' 
 
 As vicegerent under the great seal, he "licensed 
 divers persons detected and suspected of heresy, 
 openly to preach, and teach " saying " that he would 
 fight even against the king to maintain these 
 heresies. . And then and there most traitorously 
 pulled out his dagger and held it up on high, saying 
 these words : Or else this dagger thrust me to the 
 heart if I would not die in that quarrel against them 
 all, and I trust if I live a year or two, it shall not lie 
 in the king's power to resist or let it if he would." 
 
 And moreover, the said Thomas Crumwell " hath 
 acquired and obtained into his possession by oppres- 
 sion, bribery, extorted power and false promises" 
 immense sums of money and treasure. He further 
 held the nobles of the realm "in great disdain, derision 
 and detestation," and on being reminded that others 
 had been attainted, declared " on the last day of 
 January in the 3ist year" of the reign, at the parish 
 of St. Martin in the field, most arrogantly and 
 traitorously, that if " the lords would handle him so, 
 he would give them such a breakfast as never was
 
 Thomas Cr unwell, the King's Vicar General. 429 
 
 made in England, and the proudest of them should 
 know to the great peril and danger as well of your 
 majesty as of your heirs and successors." 
 
 Posterity may be grateful that the avenging hand 
 came upon him so suddenly. His arrest, unexpected 
 by all, gave him no time to destroy the papers which 
 had accumulated in the course of his administration, 
 and which we may well believe he would have been 
 unwilling for other eyes than his own to see. On the 
 morning of the tenth of June, 1 540, he was supreme 
 in England,* the evening saw him a prisoner in the 
 Tower, and his fate practically sealed. After begging 
 in the most servile terms that his life might be spared, 
 he was brought out to the scaffold on Tower hill, 
 on the 28th of June. John Stow, the chronicler, 
 
 * In a letter to Bullinger from Rich. Hilles (Zurish Letts. 105 J 
 the following account is given : " Not long before the death of 
 Cromwell, the king advanced him, and granted him large houses 
 and riches, and more public offices, together with very extensive and 
 lucrative domains ; and in the same way he also endowed queen 
 Anne a short time before he beheaded her. But some persons now 
 suspect that this was all an artifice, to make people conclude that he 
 must have been a most wicked traitor. . It was from a like 
 artifice, as some think, that the king conferred upon Cromwell's son 
 Gregory, who was almost a fool, his .father's title and many of his 
 domains, while he was yet living in prison, that he might more 
 readily confess his offences against the king at the time of execu- 
 tion. . There are, moreover, other parties who assert, with what 
 truth God knows, that Cromwell was threatened to be burned at 
 the stake and not to die by the axe, unless at the time of the execu- 
 tion he would acknowledge his crimes against the king, and that 
 he then said, ' I am altogether a miserable sinner ! " See Lewis' 
 " Sanders," p. 149-
 
 430 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 records the following speech. " I am come hither 
 to die, and not to purge myself, as some think 
 peradventure, that I will. For if I should do so I 
 were a very wretch and miser. I am by the law 
 condemned to die, and thank my lord God that hath 
 appointed me this death for mine offences. For 
 since the time that I have had years of discretion I 
 have lived a sinner, and offended my lord God, for 
 which I ask him heartily forgiveness. And it is not 
 unknown to many of you that I have been a great 
 traveller in this world, and, being but a base degree, 
 I was called to high estate, and since the time I 
 came thereunto, I have offended my prince, for which 
 I ask him heartily forgiveness ; and I beseech you 
 all to pray to God with me, that he will forgive me. 
 And now I pray you that be here to bear me record, 
 I die in the catholic faith, not doubting in any article 
 of my faith ; no, nor doubting in any sacrament of 
 the church. Many have slandered me and reported 
 that I have been a hearer of such as have maintained 
 evil opinions, which is untrue. But I confess, that 
 like as God, by his holy spirit, doth instruct us in 
 truth so the devil is ready to seduce us and I 
 have been seduced." 
 
 Thus died unwept and unpitied the man for 
 whose punishment the people had clamoured three 
 years before, in their struggles for freedom from his 
 tyranny. His very daughter-in-law complains of 
 " the extreme indigence and poverty, in which 
 through her father-in-law's most detestable offences
 
 Thomas Crumwell, the King's Vicar General. 431 
 
 the family was involved," and in a petition to the 
 king speaks of his " heinous trespasses and grievous 
 offences."* And John Gostwyke, his trusted secretary, 
 to whom he had lent considerable sums of money, 
 and whom he had "remembered to a monastery," 
 writes to the king: "may it please your most 
 excellent majesty to be advertised that I your most 
 humble servant John Gostwyke -have in my hands, 
 which I treasured from time to time unknown to the 
 earl of Essex, which if I had declared unto him he 
 would have caused me to disburse by commandment 
 without warrant as hitliertolliave done, ^io,ooo."f 
 A few days before the execution, the French 
 ambassador wrote, that " Crum well's effects appear, 
 by inventory, to be less valuable than was expected, 
 though enough and too much for a man of such base 
 origin. He had in money ^"7,000 sterling, which 
 is equal to 28,000 crowns of our coinage. The silver 
 vessels, including many crosses, chalices, mitres, 
 vases and other spoils of the Church, might amount 
 to rather more than that sum.j All these were 
 carried in the night to the royal treasury, a sign that 
 the king has already no intention of restoring 
 
 * Quoted Hook's "Lives," vi., 141. 
 
 f B. Mus. Colt. MS., Appendix, xxviii., fol. 1*5. 
 
 J Considering the large sums that Crumwell had spent on the 
 purchase of real property, building &c., ^"7,000 in money and about 
 the same in Church spoils is a very great amount. To this must 
 be added the ; 10,000 in Gostwyke's hands making in all about 
 or more than a quarter of a million of our money !
 
 43 2 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 them. . . . The following day many letters were 
 found."* 
 
 " Thomas Crumwell, the cloth carder" (to give him 
 the style ordered by Henry VIII.), was regretted 
 by very few in England. He had plundered and 
 murdered defenceless men and women ; he had 
 endeavoured to rob the religious of their reputations 
 as he had of their -property ; he had defrauded the 
 people of their rights, and had seized upon the 
 patrimony of the poor; he had deprived the sick and 
 aged of their hospitals and places of refuge ; he had 
 driven monks and nuns from their cloisters, to 
 wander homeless in poverty and disgrace. But his 
 day of reckoning came at last, and in merited 
 ignominy his career closed. 
 
 * Invenlaire, &c., ut sup., No. 231.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE CHIEF ACCUSERS OF THE MONKS LAYTON, 
 LEGH, AP RICE AND LONDON. 
 
 THE instruments selected by C rum well to carry out 
 his designs in regard to the monasteries were in 
 some respects well fitted for the work. They were 
 not troubled with scruples of conscience or un- 
 nerved by tenderness in effecting the end their 
 master had in view. " The inquisitors," remarks 
 Fuller, the historian, "were men who well understood 
 the message they were sent on, and would not come 
 back without a satisfactory answer to him who sent 
 them, knowing themselves to be no losers thereby."* 
 They were, and professed themselves to be, com- 
 pletely dependent on Crumwell. That they would 
 not hesitate to serve him and their own interests, 
 even at the expense of their honesty, is made clear 
 from their own letters. 
 
 " Seldom in the world's history has a tyrant found 
 baser instruments for his basest designs than Henry 
 found for carrying out the visitation of the English 
 
 * "Hist.," ii., p. 214. Dean Hook adopts Fuller's estimate of 
 these tools of Crumwell. 
 
 VOL. I. F F
 
 434 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 monasteries. That there were foolish superstitions 
 in some of the religious houses, that there were 
 abuses in others, that some of the thousands among 
 the inmates of monasteries, great and small, were 
 leading scandalous lives, and many more were living 
 useless ones, nobody would be so silly as to deny. 
 But that any monastery in England contained half-a- 
 dozen such wretches as the more prominent of the 
 visitors who came to despoil them is almost incon- 
 ceivable. It is a sickening story. The reader . . 
 is in danger of disbelieving everything that these 
 men report in his indignation at the audacious and 
 manifest lying which characterizes their reports."* 
 
 " It is likely," writes Mr. Froude, " that those who 
 did undertake it (the visitation) were men who felt 
 bitterly on the monastic vices, and did their work 
 with little scruple or sympathy. Legh and Layton 
 were accused subsequently of having borne them- 
 selves with overbearing insolence ; they were said 
 also to have taken bribes, and where bribes were not 
 offered to have extorted them from the houses which 
 they spared. That they went through their business 
 roughly is exceedingly probable, whether needlessly 
 so must not be concluded from the report of persons 
 to whom their entire occupation was sacrilege. That 
 they received money is evident from their own reports 
 to the government, but it is evident also that they 
 did not attempt to conceal that they received it. . 
 
 * Athenaum, on Mr. Gairdner's " Letters and Papers," ix., Nov. 
 27, 1886.
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 435 
 
 The visitors of the monasteries travelling with large 
 retinues were expected to make their duties self- 
 supporting, to inflict themselves as guests on the 
 houses to which they went, and to pay their own and 
 their servants' ' wages ' from the funds of the estab- 
 lishments. Sums of money would be frequently 
 offered them in lieu of a painful hospitality, and 
 whether they took unfair advantage of their oppor- 
 tunities for extortion, or whether they exercised a 
 proper moderation, cannot be concluded from the 
 mere fact that there was a clamour against them. 
 But beyond doubt their other proceedings were both 
 rash and blameable. Their servants, with the hot 
 puritan blood already in their veins . . scorning 
 and hating the whole monastic race, had paraded 
 their contempt before the world ; they had ridden 
 along the highways decked in the spoils of the dese- 
 crated chapels, with copes for doublets, tunics for 
 saddle-cloths, and silver relic-cases hammered into 
 sheaths for their daggers." * 
 
 At various times between 1535, and 1538, a con- 
 siderable number of commissioners appear to have 
 been sent to visit the monasteries, to receive their 
 surrender, or superintend their spoliation and destruc- 
 tion, f The chief of the inquisitors, however, were 
 Doctor Richard Layton, Thomas Legh, Doctor John 
 London, and John Ap Rice. Two others, Richard 
 
 * " Hist.," iii., p. 97. 
 
 t The names of thirty-eight are given by Oldmixon. " Hist.," 
 
 p. 107.
 
 436 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Yngworth, suffragan bishop of Dover, and William 
 Petre were engaged principally in the subsequent 
 work of dissolution. Upon the authority of the first 
 four, and chiefly, if not entirely, on that of Layton, 
 Legh and Ap Rice, rest the charges made against 
 the monasteries. No inquiry was ever instituted (as 
 far as can be ascertained) into the truth of their 
 reports. They gathered them from the gossip of 
 ill-disposed and malicious persons, and it becomes, 
 therefore, of importance to understand who they 
 were, that made themselves responsible for these 
 charges. " It is not impossible," writes a modern 
 author, "that even such bad men may have told the 
 truth in this matter : but the character of witnesses 
 must always form an important element in estimating 
 the value of their testimony, and the character of 
 such obscene, profligate, and perjured witnesses as 
 Layton and London could not well be worse. These 
 men were not ' just Lots vexed with the filthy con- 
 versation of the wicked/ but ' filthy dreamers ' who 
 defiled the flesh, despised ecclesiastical dominion, 
 and spake evil of dignities in the very spirit of the 
 evil one."* 
 
 The more the letters and reports of the royal 
 agents are examined, the less worthy of credit does 
 their testimony appear. The word of men of their 
 stamp would be accepted in no matter of serious 
 import. However hopeless, therefore, it may be, 
 after this lapse of time, to disprove the charges made 
 * Blunt, "Reform.," i., p. 359.
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 437 
 
 by them, the very fact of such testimony should be 
 enough to discredit their accusations. " We have 
 no reason, indeed," writes Mr. Gairdner, " to think 
 highly of the character of Crumweirs visitors."* 
 And it is absolutely upon the testimony of these 
 men, unsupported by other evidence, that the monks 
 have been condemned. 
 
 Dr. Richard Layton may be considered the most 
 important of the four monastic inquisitors. He was 
 without doubt the most active and zealous of the 
 servants of Thomas Crumwell. His letters, which 
 are the most numerous and most full of detail, 
 abound in the most filthy accusations, general and 
 particular. They manifest the prurient imaginations 
 of one, who was familiar with vice in its worst forms. 
 His letters, on the face of them, are the outpourings 
 of a thoroughly brutal and depraved nature ; even 
 still, they actually soil the hand that touches them. 
 He tells his stories in a way to allow of no doubt 
 that evil has for him a zest, and that he believes his 
 master will appreciate and approve. 
 
 The origin of this unworthy priest was humble. 
 In one of his letters to Crumwell he says, " but for 
 him, he would have been a basket-bearer ; "f yet he 
 obtained considerable ecclesiastical preferments. He 
 had the sinecure rectory of Stepney, the living of St. 
 Faith's and that of Harrow on the Hill; was 
 prebendary of Kentish Town, dean of the collegiate 
 
 * Calendar, x., Pref. xliii. 
 
 t Cooper's " Athens Cantab.," i., p. 530.
 
 438 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 church of Chester le Street, archdeacon of Bucking- 
 ham and finally dean of York. 
 
 His letters to Crumwell show that a complete 
 understanding existed between them as to the object 
 of his mission. From the outset, when he petitioned 
 for the employment, he professed to have a desire to 
 serve his master's interests in every way. In return, 
 he is constantly requesting some office or other 
 reward, for himself or friends. In the late summer 
 of 1535, he writes his excuses for having mistaken 
 CrumwelFs intentions. In over-readiness, being 
 conscious of " what he could do," he commenced 
 his first tour of inspection without the latter's full 
 consent and approval, u and," he says in apology, 
 " as touching my removing from the court on Tues- 
 day, you may be assured that after I knew your will 
 and pleasure touching the visitation of other places, I 
 thought that you were pleased that I should then take 
 my journey forthwith from Berkeley. And I was the 
 better willing so to do, because my horse was all that 
 day in an old barn without meat or litter, and I, not 
 then assured of any lodging in all the town. . 
 Thinking that it had been your resolute and full 
 mind that I should then depart, and so I beseech 
 you to take the very truth for my excuse." He then 
 proceeds to make explanations as to the injunctions 
 which he had given to houses already visited. 
 These Crumwell, on the representation of some of 
 the other zealous visitors, and as not yet cognizant 
 of the methods of bullying and slandering which
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 439 
 
 were peculiarly Layton's own, had blamed " as very 
 slender," and not pleasing to the king. Layton 
 replies with all the confidence of original genius, 
 ' I dare say well that when you have known my 
 conceit in the rules and injunctions premised, and 
 what I have there done in every condition the king 
 shall have no less expectation of your affairs than 
 his grace hath had heretofore. Praying God right 
 effectuously that rather I may be buried quick than 
 be the occasion why the king's highness should 
 diminish any part of the confidence or expectation 
 of your assured and proved mind towards his 
 grace."' But confident as he was, Layton was 
 made to see that his power and acceptability to his 
 employers lay in one direction only. 
 
 In this same visitation Layton makes another 
 mistake in praising the great abbey of Glastonbury. 
 For this he was taken to task by Crumwell, who 
 evidently told him he had not been sent on his 
 round, for the purpose of approving. He replies, 
 " Whereas I understand by Mr. Pollard you much 
 marvel why I would so greatly praise to the 
 king's majesty at the time of visitation, the abbot 
 of Glaston, who appeareth not, neither then nor 
 now, to have known God, nor his prince, nor any 
 part of a good Christian man's religion. So that 
 my excessive and indiscrete praise that time un- 
 advisedly made to my sovereign lord must needs 
 
 * Calendar, ix., No. 7. A portion of this letter has been 
 quoted before.
 
 44 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 now redound to my great folly and untruth, and 
 cannot be well redubbed, but much diminish my 
 credit towards his majesty, and even so to your 
 lordship ; whom I most humbly beseech to consider 
 that I am a man and may err and cannot be sure of 
 my judgment to know the inward thoughts of a 
 monk, being fair in words and outward appearance 
 and inwardly cankered as now by your discreet 
 inquisition appeareth. And although they be all 
 false, feigned, flattering hypocritical knaves, as 
 undoubtedly there is none other of that sort. I 
 must therefore now at this my necessity, most 
 humbly beseech your lordship to pardon me for that 
 my folly then committed, as you have done many 
 times heretofore ; and of your goodness to mitigate 
 the king's highness majesty in the premisses. And 
 from henceforth I shall be more circumspect whom 
 I shall commend either to his grace or to your lord- 
 ship."* 
 
 Layton's letters show that he was on all occasions 
 the mere subservient tool of Henry VIII. and his 
 more immediate master, Crumwell. As Anthony 
 Wood puts it, " he did much to please the unlimited 
 desires of the king." Henry and his minister had 
 determined to make out a case against the monas- 
 teries, and Layton was just the man to assist them. 
 He did not hesitate to promise to be a very " alter 
 ego " to Crumwell, who could " trust him even as 
 well as your ownself." Both he and Dr. Legh, he 
 * R. O. Crum. Corr., xx., No. 14.
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 441 
 
 says, have to depend entirely on Crumwell as their 
 " JAcecenatem et unicum patronum" and their only 
 desire, therefore, is to declare their " true hearts and 
 faithful mind," and the " fast and unfeigned service " 
 they bear him.* 
 
 The fairness and honesty of his examinations may 
 be judged by the expectations he formed and ex- 
 pressed beforehand of what would be the result ; as 
 when at St. Mary's, York, he " supposes to find evil 
 disposition both in the abbot and the convent, 
 whereof God willing I shall certify you in my next 
 letters. "f This is almost as hopelessly opposed to 
 the first principles of justice as Crumwell's sending 
 the abbots of Glastonbury and Reading to their 
 " own countries to be tried and executed there." 
 
 The visitor's treatment of the prior of Lewes has 
 .already been spoken of. This is certainly a strange 
 way to conduct a visitation, but it makes clear 
 that Layton was only carrying out a well-defined 
 policy. 
 
 If Layton's ingenuity, aided by promises or threats, 
 failed (even from an " old beldame," upon whose 
 gossipings two Gilbertine nuns are charged with 
 grave crime) to extract any accusation against a 
 house, the place is " confederated." In fact, the 
 first principle with this visitor in regard to monks 
 and nuns is, as he expresses it, that " they be all 
 false, feigned, flattering hypocritical knaves. "J If 
 
 * Wright, 157. Layton to Crumwell. 
 f Wright, 97, Layton to Crumwell. J Calendar, ix., p. 157.
 
 44 2 Henry VI IL and tJie English Monasteries. 
 
 they are not, they must be made to appear so, and 
 are treated as such. If they do not declare them- 
 selves to be vile they must have agreed together to 
 conceal their evil deeds. If, as in the case of the 
 canons of the abbey of Leicester, for instance, 
 he can bring no definite charges, still, " to divers 
 of them " he intends "to object " the foulest accu- 
 sations, which he " has learned of other (but not of 
 any of them).'^ 
 
 Dr. Layton's money transactions with Crumwell 
 were considerable. There is abundant evidence to 
 prove, that he knew when to tender a bribe and when 
 to determine a special course of action by the sug- 
 gestion of its pecuniary possibilities. From a certain 
 poor monastery he obtains a grant for his master, 
 which not being considered large enough is returned 
 with his "letters persuasory " for better terms. 
 When his cousin, Christopher Joly, is in need of a 
 place, he does not hesitate to offer a bribe of ^"40 to 
 obtain the same from Crumwell. f He did what he 
 promised to do, and kept his eyes open for his 
 master's advantage. As Legh, his companion, 
 writes : " Layton is now at Fountains to do your 
 wishes. "J In this instance these were, to get a large 
 bribe for the appointment of a new abbot. He sent 
 his master word that Adam Graves, the archdeacon 
 of Exeter, was dying, and suggested he had better 
 demand the office for a friend. On the other hand, 
 "he never neglected his own interests even in small 
 
 * Ibid., p. 93. f R- O. Crum. Corr., xx., 38. J Ibid., xxii.. 19-
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 443 
 
 points. When he was requested to resign the living 
 of St. Faith's, he begged "if it be your lordship's 
 pleasure, I might have the Easter book (dues) now 
 on Easter day, which riseth the whole yearly value 
 of my parsonage, I were much bound to your lord- 
 ship."* 
 
 That he fully understood Crumwell's weakness for 
 profitable transactions and accessibility to bribes 
 cannot be questioned. In one of his letters, he points 
 out that the injunctions to the bishops " shall be 
 much profitable . . to your mastership." Shortly 
 after, he offers in behalf of Marmaduke Bradley, a 
 large bribe for the office of abbot of Fountains, f 
 
 Like so many others, Layton was apparently in 
 Crumwell's hands as regards money matters. He 
 borrowed from his master on his " bill obligatory." 
 He is credited with heavy payments to him, and 
 with presenting " my lord a new year's gift" of 20 
 a very large present from a " poor priest," as he 
 calls himself, and worth more than ^200 of our 
 money, j 
 
 There is something about Doctor Layton's obse- 
 quious servility to his master which is particularly 
 repulsive. Nothing could be more exaggerated in 
 sentiment than one expression he used, when he 
 invited Crumwell down to his rectory at Harrow 
 and said : " Surely Simeon was never so glad 
 to see Christ his master, as I shall be to see 
 
 * Ibid., xx., 32. t Ibid., p. 101. 
 
 \ Chapter House Books, B. ^.
 
 444 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 your lordship."* At one period of his career, 
 Layton was anxious to get the office of chan- 
 cellor to the diocese of Salisbury. For this, he 
 did not hesitate to offer Crumwell a large bribe. 
 " For your travail therein taken," he writes, " I will 
 give you ^ioo.""|" Subsequently he was made dean 
 of York. To judge from his letter written to Crum- 
 well in the January of 1536, he was on the look out 
 for the office, even on his first tour of monastic 
 inspection and three years before he obtained the 
 coveted post. He speaks of the dean's unwilling- 
 ness to resign, for fear of his pension being cut down 
 by some subsequent parliament. He relates the break 
 down of an agreement as to the dean's retiring in 
 favour of the treasurer of the diocese, and then 
 adds : " Wherefore I shall desire your mastership 
 to continue your good mind towards me, and in the 
 mean time you shall be fast assured of my faithful 
 service in all such affairs as ye commit unto me, and 
 for no corruption or lucre from my loyalty to swerve 
 in doing my prince's commandment for your dis- 
 charge who hath put your trust and confidence unto 
 me."j When he obtained this deanery through " the 
 good mind " of Crumwell, he showed his old par- 
 tiality for ecclesiastical plate by pawning that belong- 
 ing to the Minster. After his death it had to be 
 redeemed by the chapter. 
 
 * Quoted in "Home and Foreign Review," 1864, p. 181. 
 
 t R. O. Crum. Corr., Vol. xx., 38. 
 
 t Wright, p. 97. 
 
 B. Mus. Had. MS., 6971. Excerpts from York Registers.
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 445 
 
 Lay ton does not, however, appear to have been 
 contented with his deanery in the north, and pro- 
 bably desired more active employment. He wanted 
 to come up to convocation, but writes to his master 
 " I dare not without your leave." He concludes by 
 reminding him that he had often said he would "get 
 him placed beyond the seas."* Crumwell apparently 
 kept his promise and found him occupation abroad. 
 This appears likely, as Layton's death occurred at 
 Brussels in 1545. 
 
 Thomas Legh, a doctor of civil law, was the com- 
 panion of Doctor Layton on more than one of his 
 visitation tours. He had been a member of King's 
 College, Cambridge, and visited that university as 
 Crumwell's deputy in 1535. Shortly after, whilst 
 engaged during the autumn with Ap Rice in visiting 
 various monasteries, the latter gives Crumwell an 
 account of the character of the man, the king's vicar 
 general had selected for this work. He describes 
 him, as " a young man of intolerable elation," who 
 went about with a retinue of twelve servants in livery. 
 He dressed himself, John Ap Rice says, in a most 
 costly fashion, and did not hesitate to brow-beat and 
 illtreat the abbots and superiors he came to visit in 
 an overbearing and insolent fashion. He had abused 
 right roundly the abbots of Bruton and Stanley, the 
 
 "Mem. March 27, 1544. Several Jewells and plate appertaining 
 to the Church of York, pawned by Richard Layton late dean, for a 
 certain term of years, are now, by consent of the prebends, ordered 
 to be redeemed with money extracted out of the chest of divident." 
 * R. O. Crum. Cor., xx., No. 27.
 
 446 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 prior of Bradstock and others, for not being at the 
 doors of their monasteries to meet him, although 
 they had received no warning of his visit, and could 
 not possibly know what he exacted from them. 
 
 When Ap Rice, moreover, shows disinclination to 
 be associated with him " lest he with his bold excuses, 
 wherein he is, I advise you, very ready, would have 
 overcome me being but of small audacity specially 
 in accusations, for I am not eloquent in accusations 
 as some men be." It is clear that even Ap Rice is 
 unwilling at length to endorse the charges, Legh was 
 unscrupulously ready to prefer against the monas- 
 teries, the inmates of which he treated " in his 
 insolent and pompatique " manner. For this reason, 
 possibly, Sir Thomas Audley, the chancellor, begs 
 Crumwell not to allow Legh, who was commissioned 
 to visit the religious houses of London, to make 
 any visitation of the house of Barking. He added, 
 however, somewhat ambiguously that his request 
 was not made " for any suspicion I have of doctor 
 Legh, for I hear not but that he showeth him- 
 self right indifferently in the execution of his 
 charge."* 
 
 As to the fees and bribes Legh demanded from 
 the monks, Ap Rice's letter, quoted above, tells us 
 enough. " He asketh," he writes, " no less than 
 2,0 as of due for every election, which, in my 
 opinion, is too much, and above any duty that was 
 ever taken before." If the unfortunate victims of 
 * Wright, p. 74.
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 447 
 
 his tyranny did not tender him what he pleased to 
 consider the value of his services, he refused their 
 gift. They were then forced to send after him 
 whatever he wished to get. " Surely," adds Ap 
 Rice, " religious men were never so affraid of Dr. 
 Allen as they be of him, he useth such rough fashion 
 with them." 
 
 These fees were, no doubt, shared by Crumwell. 
 Considerable sums of money for elections and visita- 
 tions passed into the visitor general's private 
 accounts. Sometimes, it is clear, that Dr. Legh 
 did a good stroke of business for his master, as 
 when he obtained from William Basing, on his 
 election as prior of St. Swithin's, Winchester, a 
 promise of ^500 " under his writing obligatory."* 
 The payments of this sum appear in Crumwell's 
 account books. From the same prior of Winchester, 
 Legh obtained for his master a patent for an annuity 
 of ^20, to be continued also to his master's son, 
 Gregory Crumwell. Like Layton his fellow, Legh 
 was in his master's power as a borrower of money on 
 his bills. Considerable sums were received from 
 him, or passed through his hands, to swell Crum- 
 well's income. 
 
 It has already been pointed out that Ap Rice told 
 Crumwell that he apprehended nothing less than 
 murder, " irrecoverable harm," as he puts it, from 
 Legh's familiar " rufflers and serving men" did he, 
 
 * R. O. Crum. Corr., xli., 80-8 1. A large sum in those days, 
 and equal to nearly ^"6.000 of our money.
 
 448 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Legh, come to know that his conduct had been 
 animadverted on to the minister by his fellow visitor. 
 Yet by the reports of such a man, as described by 
 his own companion, have the religious houses been 
 judged. Nearly every unfavourable account given 
 of the monasteries can be traced to the authorship 
 of either Layton or Legh, or is a joint production of 
 these two creatures of Crumwell. 
 
 Legh was not recalled, but, on the contrary, 
 employed more constantly than ever in the work 
 of visitation. A letter of admonition, however, 
 was sent. Legh returned a penitent reply, and 
 promised to give up his velvet gown and to discharge 
 some of his servants.* Very possibly Crumwell 
 recognized in Ap Rice's description of Legh's 
 excesses and unscrupulous violence, that he was a 
 fit instrument for his special work of driving the 
 religious in very despair to surrender their houses 
 and themselves, to the king's tender mercies. The 
 explanation Legh gave of the necessity of strong 
 coercive measures at first, in order that petitions for 
 mitigation which would flow in might be a source f 
 of gain to his master, would, no doubt, have great 
 weight with Crumwell, and counterbalance the 
 opinion of Ap Rice that it was not politic to press 
 matters on the religious as hardly as Legh was 
 doing. More than once, by the suggestion that it 
 "might have lain " in Crumwell's " hands to gratify 
 them to his no little commodity,"! Legh appears to 
 
 * R. O. Crum. Corr., xxii., 17. 
 f Calendar, ix., No. 265. J Wright, 66.
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 449 
 
 have carried his point. Coupled with this hint, he 
 prays him " heartily to consider whom " he " sends 
 to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where 
 either will be found all virtue and goodness, or else the 
 fountains of all vice and mischief," according to the 
 person sent. Further, that " if the matter be well 
 arranged, the king's interest shall be well served and 
 your mastership's office well discharged." Crumwell 
 considered and sent him. Legh well understood 
 
 O 
 
 that the art of managing his master, was by appeals 
 to his cupidity, and by the suggestion of "advan- 
 tages " which would follow on any special course of 
 action. 
 
 The views which Dr. Legh propounded as to the 
 utility of united action on the part of the visitors, 
 show that he clearly understood the object of the 
 king and Crumwell in instituting the visitation. Dr. 
 Layton did not, in his opinion, press matters forward 
 in the way of enforcing impossible injunctions 
 with proper vigour and determination. Although 
 he admitted that the regulations were in reality un- 
 workable in practice, still he thought that the 
 religious should be compelled to observe them, in 
 order that they might be brought all the sooner to 
 abandon the useless struggle.* 
 
 They have this point in common, however ; it 
 is with evident relish, that Legh relates a story 
 adverse to the reputation of any monk or nun. 
 It is impossible not to suspect that many of them 
 
 * Cf. Mr. Gairdner's Preface to Vol. ix., Letters, &c., p. xx. 
 
 VOL. I. G G
 
 450 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 come out of his own fertile imagination, with- 
 out even the foundation of encouraged malicious 
 suggestion. Of the prioress of Sopham he reports 
 that she has bestowed a benefice on a certain friar, 
 whom " they say she love well," and adds " to make 
 you laugh" I send you a letter which is supposed to 
 have come to her from some lady, but " as is con- 
 jectured " was sent by the friar.* He well knows 
 what Crumwell wants. Just as Layton thought 
 his master would look upon the tale of the abbot 
 of Langdon as a " comedy," so Legh thinks he 
 will not fail to enjoy his scandalous " conjecture." 
 On the same principle, when he " does not doubt" 
 but that his master will find " many things worthy of 
 reformation," he adds, " by the knowledge whereof 
 I suppose the king's highness and you will be glad." 
 And, not the less, for this reason, that " it shall be 
 much profitable'" to you.f 
 
 Graver charges still have been made against Legh 
 in connection with these visitations of monasteries 
 and convents. Sanders says that "in order to dis- 
 charge correctly the duties laid upon him, he tempted 
 the religious to sin, and he was more ready to inquire 
 into and speak about uncleanness of living, than 
 anything else,"| an accusation which is somewhat 
 borne out by the demands of the " Pilgrims of Grace," 
 for his immediate and condign punishment. 
 
 * R. O. Crum. Corr., xxii., 13. 
 
 t Wright, p. 96. 
 
 J "Schism." Lewis' transl., 1877, p. 129.
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 451 
 
 In some of his letters, Legh represents the religious 
 as anxious to quit their convents and get absolution 
 from their vows. From Cambridge, for example, he 
 writes* that the religious fell on their knees before 
 him and lifting their hands begged to be released from 
 their mode of life, and four days later from Ely, as if 
 his powers of expression failed him, he writes again 
 making use of almost the same words. f How 
 utterly untrue this account of the real sentiments of 
 the religious is, may be understood from the very 
 small number of those returned in the reports as 
 desirous of leaving their religious life, j Even Legh's 
 own letter, written at the same time, belies his words. 
 He suggests that by being compelled to observe 
 impossible injunctions, the lives of the religious will 
 become so burdensome that they shall be glad to 
 go, and it shall seem to the world "that at their 
 own instant suit they are dismissed." S$ 
 
 Legh, as well as Layton, was the channel through 
 which unworthy religious and their friends offered 
 bribes to Crumwell for appointments to offices in 
 religious houses. The case of Marmaduke Bradley 
 at Fountains has been already noticed. Legh 
 also extorts a considerable sum for his master from 
 
 * R. O. Crum. Corr., xxii., 16. Oct. 27, 1535. 
 
 f Wright, 82. Nov. i, 1535. 
 
 + In the province of York and diocese of Coventry, &c., there 
 are only 50 monks and two nuns returned as willing to go. Com- 
 perta B. M. Cleop., E. iv. 
 
 S R. O. Crum. Corr., xxii., 18.
 
 452 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 the abbot of Miravale* and the abbot of St. Albans.f 
 At Whitby, even before they visit the abbey, they 
 ask whether Crumwell has any friend he wishes to 
 appoint to the office, in case the present abbot will 
 resign "or we find any cause of deprivation."! 
 
 So notorious did the two visitors, Legh and Layton, 
 become throughout the country, that against them 
 and their master, Crunwell, the anger of the insurgents 
 in Lincolnshire and the North was chiefly directed. 
 " The chief commissioner, Dr. Legh," writes Chapuys 
 to the queen regent, "who was specially obnoxious 
 to the people, as the summoner of your aunt (queen 
 Catherine) now in glory, before the archbishop of 
 Canterbury, contrived to escape, but his cook was 
 taken, and as a beginning the people hanged him. 
 A gentleman belonging to the lord privy seal, who 
 is called master Crumwell, tried to stop them and he 
 too was immediately laid hands on, wrapped in the 
 hide of a newly killed calf and worried and devoured 
 by dogs, the mob swearing they would do the same 
 for his master." 
 
 The Yorkshire " Pilgrims of Grace" also demanded 
 " that Dr. Legh and Dr. Lay ton may have condign 
 punishment for their extortions in time of visitation, in 
 bribes of some religious houses -\Q and ^20 and 
 other sums, besides horses, advowsons, leases under 
 
 * R. O. Crum. Con., xxix., 3. 
 f Ibid. 
 
 | Wright, 102. See other instances, R. O. Crum. Corr., xxii., 
 16, 19, &c. 
 
 Quoted by Froude, " Thomas' Pilgrim."
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 453 
 
 convent seals by them taken, and other abominable 
 acts by them committed and done."* Mr. Froude 
 even, admits " these two men bore themselves with 
 overwhelming insolence, and to have taken bribes, 
 and when bribes were not offered to have extorted 
 them from the houses which he spared."! 
 
 Thomas Legh was made master of Sherburn 
 hospital, in the county of Durham, in September, 1 535. 
 He took possession of his office and wrote his thanks 
 to his master early in the following year.j By the 
 statutes of this institution, the master was charged 
 with the maintenance of thirteen poor brethren and 
 two lepers, but Legh treated the goods of the poor 
 as if they had been his own. ll The delinquencies 
 of former masters were but a type of his." He 
 leased the property of the hospital to his own 
 relations, and granted away the patronage of many 
 good livings. Moreover, he contracted with those 
 who had the property for the maintenance of only 
 eight poor men and women. Although the leases 
 he granted required the consent of the inmates, he 
 sent the documents for their signatures already sealed 
 with the common seal, and they set their names "for 
 fear of master Legh's displeasure." During the 
 whole of his office he never required the assent of 
 the brethren to any of his improvident grants. Al- 
 together in this office of trust he acted " to the utter 
 
 * Speed, p. 1022, "Exoriginale MS." t " Hist.," iii., p. 97. 
 J R. O. Crum. Corn, xxii., 19. Surtees' " Durham," i., 140.
 
 454 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 disinheritance, decay and destruction of the ancient 
 and godly foundation of the same house."" : 
 
 The third of the names chiefly associated with the 
 visitation and suppression of the monasteries is that 
 of John Ap Rice. During the autumn of 1535 he 
 was occupied as companion to Legh, and conjointly 
 with him brought serious accusations against many 
 of the religious houses they visited. He had been 
 employed as scribe in the examination of prisoners 
 and witnesses in the Tower, and had written out the 
 blank forms of acknowledgment of the king's 
 supremacy, which had been sent for signature to the 
 various religious houses. For these services he 
 asked Crumwell to obtain him some reward, and 
 especially " as he made a breve docket " for the 
 king " out of all his highness' late visitation, com- 
 pendiously touching the name, the order, the state, 
 
 * Depositions in 1557 before a Commission of Inquiry. Surtees' 
 "Durham,"!., 130. That Henry himself distrusted Legh seems 
 clear from an inquiry he ordered as to the sums of money he had 
 received at the dissolution of various religious houses. Sir John 
 Daunce, who made the inquisition, notes : " Memorandum as 
 touching the plate that was supposed to be sold by the late abbot of 
 Merivale, to George Warren, goldsmith of London, to the value of 
 ^18, whereof information was given to Dr. Legh and William 
 Cavendish after they had dissolved the said monastery, riding by 
 the way, the same Dr. Legh and W. Cavendish sent unto the said 
 late abbot for the said /"i8. This ^"18 they confess that the late 
 abbot sent to them by one of their servants by the way (begging) 
 to be good masters unto him and his brethren. And (this) the 
 said Cavendish doth affirm by his answer. Also by the said Doctor 
 Legh confessing the same. Daunce" Exch. Q. R. Miscell. 
 Suppress. Papers 8 |-|.
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 455 
 
 the number and the dates of every religious house in 
 the realm."* 
 
 We have seen how Ap Rice reported the conduct 
 of his companion Legh, of whom he had a whole- 
 some dread, and how he had besought Crumwell 
 that it might never be known from whom the 
 accusation came. He not unnaturally supposed 
 that his master would set some one to spy upon him, 
 as he had been made to do on Legh ; consequently 
 he says : " For my own dealing and behaviour I 
 trust you shall have no cause of complaint against 
 me. One thing humbly desiring your mastership 
 that you give no light credence till the matter be 
 proved and my defence heard. "f That he had been 
 previously in serious trouble is evident from the fact 
 that he feared to report about Legh, because Crum- 
 well might then have thought he had done so in 
 retaliation. " Supposing that you, considering how 
 he was one of them that depraved me heretofore with 
 your mastership, for no just cause, but for dis- 
 pleasure which he have towards me for certain 
 causes, which 1 will declare unto you more at 
 leasure." j 
 
 What the accusations were, which Legh had made 
 against him, do not appear. They were, however, 
 apparently of a nature discreditable enough, under 
 ordinary circumstances, to have rendered his employ- 
 ment, as a visitor of monasteries, especially convents 
 
 * R. O. Crum. Corr., xxxv., 39, 40. f Ibid., 38. 
 
 I Ibid.
 
 456 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 of ladies, most undesirable and unwarrantable. This 
 may be gathered from his explaining that he could 
 not at the time make any defence, because " I was 
 so abashed^ that I had not those things in my re- 
 membrance that were for my defence." Indeed, 
 this would seem in some measure to bear out a 
 statement made of him, that he was a priest who had 
 been unfrocked for misconduct. He does not, more- 
 over, appear to have received any spiritual promotions 
 in reward for his services, like London and Layton. 
 And it is obvious that he must have been in disgrace 
 since he could write, " I had experience in myself 
 not long ago how grievous yea and deadly it is for 
 any man to have the displeasure of such a man as 
 you are." His dependence on Crumwell was like 
 that of the others, abject. 
 
 Like the other commissioners too, Ap Rice had 
 considerable money transactions with the minister. 
 He brought in a good many fees to his master's purse. 
 Amongst the rest was a fee of \o and a bribe of 
 ^"266 135. 4d. for the appointment of an abbot of 
 Evesham, in succession to Clement Lichfield. This 
 latter, as Anthony Wood says, would not surrender. 
 He was for this abused as a "bloody abbot "* by Lati- 
 mer, bishop of Worcester, and ultimately resigned, f 
 giving place to Philip Haforde, who took the post 
 in order to surrender it to the king. It was this 
 latter who gave the bribe to Crumwell to secure a 
 pension of ^240 a year. Of this Philip Haforde, 
 * R. O. Crum. Corr., xlix. t Wright, 177.
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 457 
 
 the same bishop writes, that Crumwell " will find 
 him a true friend."* 
 
 In return for Ap Rice's services, Crumwell ap- 
 pears to have desired to appoint him to some office 
 in the cathedral church of Salisbury. Against this 
 the dean and chapter protested in several vigorous 
 letters, f and the appointment was not made. In his 
 reports of the monasteries Ap Rice proves how little 
 reliance can be placed in the truth of the charges he 
 brings in conjunction with Legh. His manipulation 
 of the reports on St. Edmundsbury has been already 
 explained, and is a sample of his qualification for the 
 work he was called on to perform. 
 
 If he could discover nothing against the good 
 name of a monastery, it was to him a sign that the 
 religious had agreed together to conceal their 
 iniquities, as at St. Albans where he found nothing, 
 " although there was much to be found. "j It is 
 characteristic of Ap Rice, with the other great visi- 
 tors, to speak commendably of persons, who are at the 
 same time stated to be men of dubious or evil con- 
 duct, but compliant to the will of the ruling powers. 
 In the same letter Ap Rice told his master that he 
 had been visiting the abbey of Walden. The abbot 
 Robert, "a man of good learning and right sincere 
 judgment," he said, had confessed to him "an 
 awful secret." This was, that he had privately 
 
 * Ibid., 42. t R. O. Crum. Corr., xxxvii. 
 
 % R. O. Crum. Corr., xxxvii., 36. Compare the letter of Legh 
 and Petre to Crumwell in Wright, p. 250.
 
 458 Henry VIII. and tJie Englisli Monasteries. 
 
 married and would like to abandon the religious 
 habit and give up his monastery " to your hands." 
 Crumwell advised the unfortunate man to go on as 
 he has done, to use caution and avoid scandal.* If 
 this were really what Crumwell recommended, at a 
 time when there were the most serious penalties 
 against incontinence, and when many of the inter- 
 rogatories were framed specially against this vice, it 
 must 'have been with the idea of more deeply in- 
 volving the fallen abbot in crime, and the more readily 
 possessing himself of the monastery. It hardly seems 
 possible, that such a secret as the abbot's marriage 
 could have been concealed very long. The whole 
 story looks like an invention. One thing, however, 
 is clear, Ap Rice knew quite well what Crumwell 
 desired, since he added : " You may have the house 
 soon de-relinquished if you like." 
 
 Doctor London, the last of the four principal 
 visitors and destroyers of the monasteries, is no more 
 reliable a witness against them, than his fellows. He 
 had considerable preferments in the Church, being 
 canon of Windsor, dean of Osney, dean of the 
 collegiate church of Wallingford, and, from 1526 to 
 1542, warden of New College, Oxford. His letters do 
 not reveal any particular animosity against the 
 monks. His zeal in Crumwell's service was princi- 
 pally displayed in collecting for him the plate and 
 jewels of the monastic churches, and in defacing 
 those sacred buildings. In none of his many letters 
 * Ibid., xlv., 10.
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 459 
 
 does he endorse distinctly any charge made by the 
 other visitors, or suggest any but vague accusations 
 on his own authority. He reports generally, that he 
 finds many of the monks and canons "young lusty 
 men always fat fed," by no means " learned nor apt 
 to the same," and he says he has advised them " to 
 turn some of their ceremonies of idleness into some 
 bodily exercise, and not sit all day lurking in the 
 cloister idly."* But beyond these general accusa- 
 tions, although evidently not biassed in favour of the 
 religious, he does not appear to have gone. 
 
 In fact, there is some reason to believe, that Dr. 
 London was induced to throw himself into the 
 schemes of Crumwell and Henry, by motives rather 
 of self-interest than conviction. He had most cer- 
 tainly been amongst those who considered the break 
 with Rome a mere temporary phase of the quarrel 
 about the king's divorce. He had even gone 
 out of his way to prevent his nephew com- 
 mitting himself to any violent language or action 
 against the pope. It is, moreover, quite possible 
 that the doctor's interference upon this occasion, 
 brought, as it certainly was, to the notice of Crum- 
 well by the examination and confession of the nephew, 
 may have been the means of placing him in the 
 minister's power. It may have been this circum- 
 stance, which afforded Crumwell a subservient tool 
 to use in the furtherance of his suppression schemes. 
 The circumstances as they appear in the " confes- 
 
 * Wright, p. 215.
 
 460 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 sion of Edward, nephew to Dr. London," are these. 
 This young man considered that the pope's supre- 
 macy was not to be maintained. For some reason 
 or other his papers were seized and delivered to his 
 uncle. London sent for him early one morning and 
 talked to him in his garden about his views. 
 " Edward," he said, " you be my nephew. I have 
 now sent for you only to give you counsel, that if 
 God had endued you with grace you may return to 
 grace again." He then charged him with writing 
 against the bishop of Rome, and got the bishop of 
 Winchester to try and argue him from his position. 
 The latter, according to the confession, urged " that 
 their ancestors could not have erred so many hun- 
 dred years, and that this world could not continue 
 long," that though the king " has now conceived 
 a little malice against the bishop of Rome because 
 he would not agree unto his marriage," this would 
 never last, and " I trust," he continued, " the king 
 will wear harness on his own back to fight against 
 such heretics as thou art."* Dr. London was thus 
 clearly implicated by his nephew's confession, in an 
 opposition to the king's attitude of hostility to the 
 pope, and was thus completely in the power of 
 Crumwell. 
 
 * Calendar, viii., No. 146. The "confession" was made 
 apparently about 1534, just after the final rupture with the pope, 
 and we know that Bishop Gardiner, of Winchester, was in the 
 April of this year in great danger of being sent to the Tower 
 (Cal. vii., No. 522). A like danger would probably have threatened 
 London.
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 461 
 
 In the work of devastation, London was certainly 
 the most terrible of all the monastic spoilers. He 
 writes, for instance, that he has pulled down the 
 silver image of our lady of Caversham and will send 
 it by the next barge from Reading. He has defaced 
 the chapel, and thinks the lead had better be pulled 
 off the roof. The lodgings of the priest from Noteley 
 abbey, who served this place of pilgrimage, " with 
 its large garden and orchard," he has kept, because, 
 as he tells Crumwell, " it will do well for any friend 
 of yours."* At the friar's houses in Readingf the 
 people somewhat anticipated his work of destruction, 
 much to his disgust, helping themselves " to the 
 very clappers of the bells." However, he did not 
 stay his hand on this account, but a few weeks later 
 informs his master, " I did only deface the church (at 
 Reading) all the windows being full of friars, and left 
 the roof and walls whole for the king's use. I sold 
 the ornaments and the cells in their dorter." J At 
 the Grey Friars, in the same town, he did much the 
 same barbarous work of destruction. ' The inward 
 part of the church," he writes, " thoroughly decked 
 with Grey Friars, as well in the windows as otherwise, 
 I have defaced." In fact, the record of his work, as 
 contained in his letters, tells everywhere the same 
 tale of wholesale destruction. In this he had, as he 
 informs Crumwell, the object of preventing the friars 
 again taking possession of their property. From 
 
 * Wright, p. 222. t Ibid. 
 
 I R. O. Crum. Corr., xxiii., No. 80. Ibid., No. 94-
 
 462 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 Coventry he writes that he has partly destroyed the 
 house of the Grey Friars " because the poor people 
 lay so sore uppon it." At Warwick he had defaced 
 the windows of the friars' church, and as usual pulled 
 down so much of the house as to prevent its being 
 used again.* 
 
 Like the other visitors, London listened to the 
 tales of neighbours, who in many instances were 
 probably only too anxious to gain Crum well's favour 
 by spreading reports adverse to the victims of his 
 policy of destruction. Thus some tale-bearer in- 
 formed the visitor, that the abbot of Combe had 
 hidden ^500 in a feather bed in his brother's house. 
 He proceeded forthwith to the place and searched 
 all the beds for the money. Not finding what he 
 had expected, he examined the abbot himself, who 
 " without any difficulty confessed " what money was 
 there, and it was only ^25. f 
 
 Sometimes even this iconoclast appears to pause 
 in his work of pulling down, and to regret the havoc he 
 'is causing. " At Stamford," he says, " I have left as 
 yet visibly at the Grey Friars a goodly image of copper 
 gilt, and the said (image) laid upon marble made 
 for dame Blanche of Lancaster. It is very beautiful, 
 and I resolved to know of the king's grace concern- 
 ing it. "| The monument, which the aged countess 
 of Salisbury, cardinal Pole's mother, had prepared 
 for herself in the priory of Christchurch, Twynham, 
 
 * Ibid., No. 8 1. t Ibid., No. 79. 
 
 J R. O. Chapter House Books, A. ^ fol. 64.
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 463 
 
 -did not meet with the same sparing hand on his visit 
 there. " In this church," he writes, " we found a 
 chapel and monument curiously made of Caen stone, 
 prepared by the late mother of Reginald Pole for 
 her burial, which we have caused to be defaced and 
 all the arms and badges clearly to be deleted."* 
 
 From the same church, which he found " well 
 furnished with jewels and plate," he selected some 
 he considered " meet for the king's majesty's use." 
 These were "a little chalice of gold, a goodly large 
 cross double gilt with the foot garnished with stones 
 and pearls, two goodly basons gilt having the king's 
 arms well enameled, a goodly great pix for the 
 sacrament double gilt. There be also other things 
 of silver, right honest and of good value, as well for 
 the church use as for the table, reserved and kept to 
 the king's use." In the same way he selected from 
 the sacrist's treasures of the great cathedral church 
 of Coventry, fourteen copes of tissue and two of old 
 work, for the king's use. 
 
 Whilst engaged in this mission London did not 
 neglect his master's interests. From the abbot and 
 monks of Reading, he obtains a grant under their 
 convent seal for Crumwell, and sends him the 
 " parchment" security.! At the new year, sending 
 his blessings and a " poor token," he writes that 
 the monastery of Thelisford, out of which he "has 
 dispatched the brethren, will do well for his master's 
 friend Mr. Lucye," as " he keepeth a right good 
 * Wright, p. 232. t Ibid., p. 224.
 
 464 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 house and has many children and bringeth them up 
 in learning and virtue. He hath also a great many 
 brothers and sisters upon his hands."' 
 
 Dr. London's treatment of the abbess of Godstow 
 is well known. He had been opposed to her ap- 
 pointment, and had " ever since," as she writes to- 
 Crumwell, " borne me great malice and grudge, like 
 my mortal enemy." To him was committed the 
 task of suppression. As Katherine Bulkeley, the 
 abbess, reports, he " suddenly came unto me with a 
 great rout with him, and here doth threaten me and 
 my sisters, saying he hath the king's commission to 
 suppress the house spite of my teeth. And when he 
 saw that I was content that he should do all things 
 according to his commission, and showed him plain 
 that I would never surrender to his hands, being my 
 ancient enemy, now he begins to entreat me, and to 
 inveigle my sisters one by one, otherwise than ever I 
 heard tell of the king's subjects hath been handled,, 
 and here tarreth and continueth to my great costs 
 and charge. . And notwithstanding that Doctor 
 London, like an untrue man, hath informed your 
 lordship that I am a spoiler and a waster . . the 
 contrary is true, for I have not alienated one halporth 
 of the goods of this monastery, moveable or un- 
 moveable, but have rather encreased the same."f 
 
 Crumwell, for some reason or other, ordered 
 Doctor London not to proceed any further in the 
 matter. The abbess writes her thanks, " that it hatb 
 
 * R. O. Crum. Corr., xxiii., 96. f Wright, p. 230.
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 465 
 
 pleased you to direct your letters for the stay of 
 doctor London, who was here ready to suppress this 
 poor house against my will and all my sisters, and 
 had done it, indeed, if you had not sent so speadily 
 contrary commandments."* At the same time Crum- 
 well had demanded some office at Godstow for one 
 Dr. Owen. The abbess assured him that it should 
 be granted as he wished. " I have seen complaints 
 of Dr. London's soliciting nuns," writes bishop 
 Burnet, "yet I do not find Doctor Lee complained 
 of." London's subsequent history makes it seem 
 not at all unlikely that he would have availed himself 
 of exceptional opportunities for entrapping the nuns 
 in so diabolical a manner. Archdeacon South, 
 writing about other matters than his connection 
 with this visitation, gives this character to him : 
 " But to what open shame Doctor London was 
 afterwards put, with open penance, with two smocks 
 on his shoulders, for Mrs. Thykked and Mrs 
 Jennynges, the mother and the daughter, and how he 
 was taken with one of them by Henry Plankney in 
 his gallery, being his sister's son as it was then 
 known to a number in Oxford and elsewhere, so I 
 think that some yet living, hath it in remembrance, 
 as well as the penner of this history."f 
 
 By this, Dr. London nearly lost the favour of Crum- 
 well and his office as warden of new college, Oxford. 
 Thomas Bedyll writes to Crumwell that " Master 
 
 * R. O. Crum. Corr., xiv., 3. 
 
 t " Narratives of Reformation," Camd. Soc., p. 35. 
 
 VOL. I. H H
 
 466 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 London, warden of the new college in Oxford is 
 informed (I wot not by whom) that your lordship is 
 sore amoved from him in the benevolence and favour, 
 which your lordship bore him and you intend to put 
 him forth of his college." I would beg you to re- 
 member, he adds, that he " hath done more good to 
 the reformation of ignorance and superstition than 
 all the other visitors." He retained his office at this 
 time, but only to be involved in deeper disgrace 
 after Crumwell's execution. 
 
 Whilst London was warden of New College the 
 antiquary, Leland, applied to him for some information 
 as to William of Wykeham. At his dictation was 
 written some memoranda, giving a discreditable 
 and wholly false account of that prelate. This was 
 not only devoid of foundation, but must have been 
 known to be so. An act of baseness and ingratitude 
 on London's part, as he had not only been warden 
 of Wykeham's college in Oxford, but, as bishop 
 Lowth * remarks, " he owes his subsistence to Wyke- 
 ham's bounty," having been educated at his school 
 in Winchester.! " His history," the bishop con- 
 siders, "is sufficient to show his want of credit. "j 
 
 After Crumwell's fall, London paid his court to 
 
 * " Life of William of Wykeham," 3rd ed., p. 288. The paper 
 referred to is now in the Bodleian, and consists of 1 3 notes written 
 on the cover of an old letter. 
 
 f London was admitted to New College 1505, took his LL.B. 
 1512, and LL.D. 1518. He was canon of York and Lincoln, and 
 domestic chaplain to archbishop Warham. 
 
 J " Life of Wykeham," p. 289.
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 467 
 
 Gardner, bishop of Winchester, and insinuated him- 
 self into his good graces as dexterously as he had 
 before done, on Warham's death, into those of Crum- 
 well. By this prelate he was used as an instrument 
 to endeavour to ruin Cranmer, and to chastise the 
 would-be reformers with the " whip of the six 
 strings." Between Cranmer and doctor London 
 there was no love lost, and the archbishop calls him 
 " a stout and filthy prebendary of Windsor."' 
 
 At this period of his life he is described as being 
 rough and brutal in his determination to punish those 
 who rejected the six articles. At Oxford " he was 
 one of the three that prosecuted most rigorously 
 the good students in the Cardinal's college, when by 
 imprisonment and hard usage several of them died."f 
 One of these students describes his demeanour when 
 he learnt the escape from Oxford of the chief 
 light among the opponents of the articles. It was 
 at Vespers in St. Friswide's that the news was 
 brought to the dean and commissary, who, as the 
 Magnificat was being sung, left the choir. And 
 "about the middle of the church met them, doctor 
 London, puffing blustering and blowing like a hungry 
 and greedy lion seeking his prey." At a subsequent 
 examination, the narrator says, " doctor London and 
 the dean threatened me, that if I would not tell the 
 
 * Extract from MS. Benet. Coll. Camb., " accusatio Cranmeri." 
 Mem. in the archbishop's own hand, quoted in Strype. " Mems. 
 of Cranmer," i., p. 158. 
 
 j" Strype, Ibid. t p. 156.
 
 468 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 truth . . I should surely be sent into the Tower of 
 London and there be racked and put into little- 
 
 ease."* 
 
 What Dr. London was at this time, he no doubt 
 was a vear or two before as visitor of monasteries 
 
 j 
 
 and convents of nuns. One can well imagine the 
 indignation of the abbess of Godstow at the un- 
 mannerly conduct of this strange kind of visitor, and 
 one shudders to picture the lot of helpless ladies in 
 the convents of England exposed to the rude ques- 
 tionings and intemperate threats of this immoral and 
 unscrupulous man. 
 
 By means of informations and evidence collected 
 by London and presented to -the council by bishop 
 Gardiner, several people suffered death under the 
 " six articles." " He and one Symons a lawyer, and 
 Ockham, that set traps for others," says Strype, 
 " were catched at length themselves. They were 
 men that busied themselves in framing indictments 
 upon the six articles against great numbers of those 
 that favoured or professed the Gospel, and in send- 
 ing them to court to Winchester, who was to prefer 
 the complaints to the council. The king being more 
 and more informed of their base conspiracy, and dis- 
 liking their bloody dispositions, commanded that the 
 council should search into the matter, and so London, 
 &c., being examined before the council, were in the 
 end found to be perjured in denying upon their oaths 
 
 * Anthony Delaber's account of Thomas Garret, printed in 
 Foxe's Acts., v., p. 421.
 
 The Chief Accusers of the Monks. 469 
 
 what they had indeed done, and was proved mani- 
 festly to their faces. Hereupon they were adjudged 
 perjured persons, and appointed to ride through 
 Windsor, Reading and Newbury,"* their faces to the 
 tails of their horses, and to stand in the pillory in 
 each of these towns on a market day, with a paper on 
 their heads proclaiming their offence. This done, 
 they were committed to the Fleet prison, where 
 London died miserably in 1543. Strangely enough 
 it was Thomas Legh, another visitor, who was the 
 chief instrument in proving London's guilt and 
 obtaining his punishment. 
 
 " Such again,"'f writes Mr. Blunt, " a dean twice 
 detected in immorality and put to open penance for 
 it, and afterwards convicted of perjury, is not the 
 stuff of which credible witnesses are made." 
 
 Probably, however, the fact that the avowed 
 object of the visitors was plunder, and that the 
 charges made against the religious were only means 
 to attain that end, will be to most minds the most 
 conclusive evidence of the untrustworthiness of their 
 testimony. Whatever there is to be said of the 
 monasteries, it is unjust to convict them of shame- 
 less irregularities on the word of those who had a 
 motive in endeavouring to blacken their good name. 
 The words of Edmund Burke may here once more 
 be recorded. " It is not with much credulity," he 
 writes, "that I listen to any when they speak ill 
 
 * " Mems. of Cranmer," i., p. 175. 
 t " Reformation," i., p. 358.
 
 470 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. 
 
 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 is a worse."* 
 
 The character of the men upon whose word the 
 monasteries have been defamed would in these 
 days be defended by no honest historian. No other 
 evidence is forthcoming, and it may be fairly asked, 
 in the name of common sense no less than of sacred 
 justice, that the religious houses may not be con- 
 demned on the unsupported word of such miserable 
 men as Layton, Legh, Ap Rice and London. The 
 ground thus cleared, the history of the suppression 
 will be narrated in the second volume of this work. 
 
 * " Reflections on the French Revolution."
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 INDEX TO THE MAP OF THE HOUSES OF CARTHUSIANS 
 
 AND THE " FOUR ORDERS OF FRIARS " AT THE 
 
 TIME OF THE SUPPRESSION. 
 
 In the following list it has been thought convenient to 
 include all the houses of the " four orders of friars " men- 
 tioned by Tanner and the " Monasticon/' although several are 
 not given in the map; the reasons for exclusion are briefly 
 stated. For accurate information as to the state of the 
 Dominican province at the time of the suppression, thanks 
 are due to the Rev. C. R. F. Palmer, O.P. Father Palmer 
 adds on the subject of the frequent confusion between the 
 various orders of friars which now and then causes some 
 difficulty in identifying the orders in the pages of Leland and 
 elsewhere: "The Augustine friars were sometimes called 
 Black friars, from the colour of their habit. In the royal 
 grants of ecclesiastical property under Henry VIII. there 
 was a great deal of confusion as to friars, and the lawyers did 
 not well distinguish between black, white, and grey. In the 
 patent and close rolls and royal wardrobe accounts Newport 
 and Kingston-on-Hull are always set down as Augustinians 
 till the dissolution." 
 
 ALLERTON, North Aust. Project to found. It Ed. III. (Tanner), 
 
 did not take effect. 
 
 Carm. D b. 
 
 AIiNWICK. (see Holme). 
 ANNE, ST. (see Coventry). 
 
 APPLEBY Carm. C b. 
 
 ARUNDEL Dom. f. 
 
 ASHEN Aust. This is the Austin house at Clare. 
 
 ATHERSTONE Aust. D d. 
 
 AYLESBURY Franc. D e.
 
 472 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 AYXiESFORD Carm. 
 
 BABWEXiXi (see Bury). 
 
 BAXKBURGrZX 
 BANGOR 
 
 BARNARD 
 
 CASTLE 
 
 Dom. 
 Dom. 
 Cann. 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Aust. 
 
 BEAUVAXiE 
 
 BEDFORD 
 
 BEVERXiEY 
 
 BARNSTAPX.E 
 BEAUBXARXS (see L'.anvais) 
 
 Garth. 
 Franc. 
 Franc. 
 ,, Dom. 
 
 BX.AKEMORE FOR- 
 EST (Dorset) Aust. 
 
 BX.AKENE Tf (or Suit- 
 
 terley) Carm. 
 
 BliZBURGXZ Dom. 
 
 BODDXXN 
 BOXiTON (Yorks) 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 BRECKNOCK. 
 BRXDGENORTK 
 BRXDGWATER 
 
 Franc. 
 Carm. 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 BRXSOXiXi (Derbyshire ; 
 
 or Bredesall Park) 
 BRISTOL 
 
 BRUSYARD 
 BURNXZAXK NOR- 
 TON 
 
 BURY ST. ED- 
 DIUNDS 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 Ee. 
 
 Da. 
 Be. 
 
 A mistake of Leland's for Blackfriars. 
 
 Leave to build, 1381 ; the proposed 
 foundation never took effect. 
 
 Not continued ; see Oliver, Man. d. Exnn. 
 197. 
 
 Beaumari Franciscans is a mistake of 
 Speed's. 
 
 DC. 
 
 Ed. 
 E b. 
 Eb. 
 
 If it ever existel as an Austin friary, 
 deserted before H. VIII. 
 
 Fc. 
 
 The Dominicans of Dunwichhad license, 
 1384, to remove their house to Bli- 
 burgh ; the removal was never effected 
 (C.R.F.P.). 
 
 Af. 
 
 Mentioned Pat. 9 Ed. III. (Tanner) ; at 
 the least, not continued. 
 
 EC. 
 EC- 
 EC. 
 EC. 
 Bd. 
 Cd. 
 Ce. 
 
 Aust. Austin Canon, temp. H. VIII. 
 
 Dom. C e. 
 
 Franc. C e. 
 
 Carm. C e. 
 
 Aust. C e. 
 
 Franc. Nuns F d. 
 
 Carm. F c. 
 
 Franc. F d. 
 
 Dom. E d.
 
 Appendix. 
 
 473 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Ed. 
 
 ,, 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Ed. 
 
 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Ed. 
 
 CANTERBURY 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Fe. 
 
 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Fe. 
 
 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Fe. 
 
 CARDIFF 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Cd. 
 
 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Cd. 
 
 M 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Probably destroyed in the fifteenth cent. 
 
 
 
 (Mon. VI., 1582). 
 
 CARLISLE 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Ca. 
 
 ,, 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Ca. 
 
 CARMARTHEN 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Bd. 
 
 CHEXiDXSFORD 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Ee. 
 
 CHESTER 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Cc. 
 
 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Cc. 
 
 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Cc. 
 
 CHICHESTER 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Df. 
 
 ,, 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Df. 
 
 CLARE 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Ed. 
 
 CLEOBURY IKORTI1KER (see Woodhouse). 
 
 COLCHESTER 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Fd. 
 
 COVENTRY: St. 
 
 
 
 Anne's 
 
 Garth. 
 
 D d. 
 
 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Dd. 
 
 ,, 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Dd. 
 
 DARTFORD 
 
 Dominican Nuns E e. 
 
 DENBIGH 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Be. 
 
 DENNY 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Nuns. E d. 
 
 DERBY 
 
 Dom. 
 
 DC. 
 
 DONCASTER 
 
 Dom. 
 
 '' The Dominicans never had a house at 
 Doncaster " (C.B.P.P.). 
 
 
 Franc. 
 
 DC. 
 
 
 Carm. 
 
 D c. 
 
 DORCHESTER 
 
 
 
 (Dorset) 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Cf. 
 
 DRAYTON-IN- 
 
 
 
 HALESi Salop; 
 
 Carm. 
 
 License to found, c. 1354 (Tanner). The 
 project did not take effect. 
 
 DROITWICK 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Cd. 
 
 DUNSTABIiE 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Ee. 
 
 DUNWICH 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Fd. 
 
 ., 
 
 Frahc. 
 
 Fd.
 
 474- 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 EPWORTH Carth. D C. 
 
 EXETER Dom. B f. 
 
 Franc. B f. 
 
 FISHERTON (Dominicans; see Salisbury). 
 
 Dom. C e. 
 
 Franc. C e. 
 
 Carm. C e. 
 
 Aust. F d. 
 
 Franc. E c. 
 
 Franc. E e. 
 
 Franc. E c. 
 
 Aust. E. c. 
 
 Dom. E c. 
 
 Franc. D b. 
 
 Dom. A e. 
 
 Dom. C d. 
 
 Franc. C d.' 
 
 Carth. C e. 
 
 Carm. E d. 
 
 Carm. D a. 
 
 Carth. E c. 
 
 Dom. A mistake for Austin friars. 
 
 Carm. E c. 
 
 Aust. E c. 
 
 Aust. E d. 
 
 Dom. C e. 
 
 Dom. F d. 
 
 Carm. F d. 
 
 Franc. F d. 
 
 Aust. A mistake of Speed's. 
 
 Dom. C b. 
 
 FranC Though mentioned in Franciscan Lists of 
 
 the 14th century (C/.Brewer, Mon. FT., 
 App. viii.), there seems to have been 
 no other convent at Lancaster temp. 
 Hen. VIII. than that of the Domini- 
 cans (Cf. Test. Ebor. v., 130, a will of 
 1521 : " I bequethe to the four orders 
 of Freres, &c. . . . Freres of Lancastre 
 and Hartillpole to be tico of them "). 
 
 L ANGLE Y, KINGS 
 
 (Hexts) Dom. E e. 
 
 Ii ANGLE Y (Surrey ; see Guildford). 
 LAUNCESTON "afriery." A mistake of Carew's. 
 
 GLOUCESTER 
 
 GORLESTON 
 GRANTKAIVI 
 GREENWICH 
 GRIIKSBY 
 
 M 
 
 GUIIiDFORD 
 KARTIiEPOOIi 
 
 HAVERFORD- 
 
 WEST 
 
 HEREFORD 
 
 HINTON 
 HITCHIN 
 
 HOLNE (Alnwick) 
 HULL 
 
 HUNTINGDON 
 
 ILCHESTER 
 IPSWICH 
 
 LANCASTER
 
 Appendix. 
 
 4.75 
 
 LEICESTER 
 
 LENTON 
 
 LEWES 
 
 L1CHFIELD 
 
 LINCOLN 
 
 Dom. 
 Franc 
 Aust. 
 Carm. 
 
 Franc. 
 Franc. 
 Dom. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 , Carm. 
 
 ,, Aust. 
 
 LLANVAIS (near 
 Beaumaris) Franc. 
 
 LONDON Carth. 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Aust. 
 LOSENH AM (in New- 
 
 enden parish, Kent) Carm. 
 
 LUDLOW Carm. 
 
 Aust. 
 
 L YIVIE REGIS Carm. 
 
 I.VNN Dom. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Aust. 
 
 MAIDSTONE Franc. 
 
 XKAXiDON (Essex) Carm. 
 MARYBOROUGH Carm. 
 
 IVIELCO1VIBE or mil- 
 ton, near Weymouthj Dom. 
 
 1VIOUNTGRACE Carth. 
 
 NEWARK Franc. 
 
 Aust. 
 
 NEWBRIDGE (Nor- 
 folk) Aust. 
 
 NEWCASTLE-ON- 
 
 TYNE Dom. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Dd. 
 Dd. 
 Dd. 
 
 Mentioned Pat. 2 Ed. in. (Tanner). Not 
 continued. 
 
 Ef. 
 Dd. 
 EC. 
 EC. 
 EC. 
 EC. 
 
 Be. 
 Ee. 
 Ee. 
 Ee. 
 
 Nuns E e. 
 
 Ee. 
 Ee. 
 
 Fe. 
 Cd. 
 Cd. 
 
 Project, 12 Ed. II., never brought to 
 effect (Hutchins, 1st ed., i., 253. 
 
 Ed. 
 Ed. 
 Ed. 
 Ed. 
 
 Not continued; see Hasted, iv., 315 
 (8vo. ed.). 
 
 Fe. 
 De. 
 
 Cf. 
 Db. 
 DC. 
 DC. 
 
 A hermitage or lazar house, not afriary. 
 
 Da. 
 Da.
 
 476 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 NEWCASTIiE-ON- 
 TVNE Carm. 
 
 ,, Aust. 
 
 NEWCASTLE-UNUER- 
 I.YME Dom. 
 
 NEWPORT(Mon.) Aust. 
 NEWPORT (Pemb.) Aust. 
 
 NORTHAMPTON 
 
 NORWICH 
 
 NOTTINGHAM 
 
 >', 
 
 ORFORD 
 OXFORD 
 
 PENRITH 
 PLYMOUTH 
 
 }> 
 PONTEFRACT 
 
 POOIiE 
 
 PRESTON (Lanca- 
 shire) 
 
 READING 
 RHUDDX.AN 
 RICHMOND(Suxxey) Franc. 
 
 RICHMOND (Vozks) Franc. 
 
 Carm. 
 
 RUTHIN Carm. 
 
 Da. 
 
 Da. 
 
 Cc. 
 Ce. 
 
 Newport was Augustiniau, not Domini- 
 can (C.H F.P.). 
 
 See Mon., vi., 1603, and Tanner. This is 
 no more than a confusion with the 
 house of Austin friars at Newport, 
 Mon. 
 
 Dorn. 
 
 Dd. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Del. 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Dd. 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Dd. 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Fd. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Fd. 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Fd. 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Fd. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 DC. 
 
 Carm. 
 
 D c. 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Fd. 
 
 Dom. 
 
 D e. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 De. 
 
 Carm. 
 
 De. 
 
 Aust. 
 
 De. 
 
 Austin. 
 
 Cb. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Bf. 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Bf. 
 
 Dom. 
 
 D c. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Doubtful. 
 
 Carm. 
 
 V 
 
 " a friary " 
 
 No friary; the grant, 3 Ed. VI., seems 
 to have been of gild property. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Cb. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 De. 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Be. 
 
 (Franc. 
 
 Ee. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 D b. 
 
 A mistake in the record, 
 
 If the house ever existed (Lei. Jtin., iii., 
 118 ; v., 42, ed. 1745) it did not con- 
 tinue to H. VIII.
 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 RYE 
 
 SALISBURY 
 
 (Fishertoii 
 
 SALISBURY 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 SANDWICH 
 
 Carm. 
 
 SCARBOROUGH 
 
 Dom. 
 
 a 
 
 Franc . 
 
 Aust. 
 
 SELE (Sussex) 
 
 Carm. The 
 
 SELWOOD \see Witham) 
 SHEEN Carth. 
 
 ,, Carm. 
 
 SHERBORNE 
 
 (Dorset) Aust. 
 
 SHOREHAXtt, NEW 
 SHREWSBURY 
 
 5> 
 JJ 
 
 5) 
 
 SNITTERLE Y (see Blakeney) 
 
 SOUTHAMPTON 
 
 STAFFORD 
 
 >> 
 STAMFORD 
 
 SUDBURY 
 SUTTON-IN-HOL- 
 DERNESS 
 
 TAUNTON 
 
 TAVISTOCK. 
 TKETFORD 
 
 477 
 
 Fe. 
 
 De. 
 D e. 
 Fe. 
 Eb. 
 Eb. 
 Eb. 
 
 The priory of Sele was granted to the 
 Carmelites of New Shoreham, who 
 migrated thither. Sele was after- 
 wards given to Magd. Coll., Oxford, 
 and the Carmelites returned to New 
 Shoreham. 
 
 Ee. 
 
 Mentioned Pat., 9 and 11 Ed. II. 
 (Tanner). Did not continue. 
 
 Mentioned Pat., 9 Ed. III. (Tanner;. 
 Not continued. 
 
 Carm. 
 
 E f. 
 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Cd. 
 
 
 Franc. 
 
 C d. 
 
 
 Carm. 
 
 A mistake of Speed's. 
 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Cd. 
 
 
 lakeney) . 
 Franc. 
 
 D f. 
 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Cd. 
 
 
 Aust. 
 
 C d. 
 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Ed. 
 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Ed. 
 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Ed. 
 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Ed. 
 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Fd. 
 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Ment. Pat., 34 Ed. 1. (Tanner). 
 
 Did 
 
 
 not continue. 
 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Ment. Pat., 15 Ed. III. (Tanner) ; 
 mintffist. of Taimton) thinks it 
 
 Toul- 
 mav 
 
 have been dissolved before H. VIII. 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Mentioned Pat., 8 K. II. (Tanner). 
 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Fd. 
 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Fd. 
 
 
 Aust. 
 
 D c. 
 
 
 Dom. 
 
 Af. 
 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Fc. 

 
 478 Appendix. 
 
 WARE Franc. 
 
 Ee. 
 
 WASHINGTON Aust. 
 
 Cc. 
 
 WARWICK. Dotn. 
 
 Dd. 
 
 Carm. Seems to be only an error of Le Neve's. 
 
 WATERBE ACH Franc. Nuns 
 
 Ed. 
 
 WEYITCOTJTH (see Melcombe). 
 
 
 WILTON (Wilts) Dom. 
 
 De. 
 
 WINCHELSEA Dom. 
 
 Fe. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Fe. 
 
 WINCHESTER Dom. 
 
 D e. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 De. 
 
 Carm. 
 
 De. 
 
 Aust. 
 
 De. 
 
 WITHA1VI Garth. 
 
 Ce. 
 
 WOODHOUSE (near 
 
 
 Cleobury Mortimer) Aust. 
 
 Cd. 
 
 WORCESTER Dom. 
 
 Cd. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Cd. 
 
 YARMOUTH Dom. 
 
 Fd. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Fd. 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Fd. 
 
 YARMOUTH, LITTLE (Aust; 
 
 see Gorleston). 
 
 YARIK Dom. 
 
 Db. 
 
 YORK Dom. 
 
 Db. 
 
 Franc. 
 
 Db. 
 
 Carm. 
 
 Db. 
 
 Aust. 
 
 Db.
 
 .A Welcome Present to the Clergy, Religious Communities, Newly-ordained 
 Priests, Deacons, and Theological Students. 
 
 A TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH OF THE 
 
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