They received only forty shillings and a gown, and with this slender provision it was estimated that about ten thousand were turned adrift upon the world, in which their previous life had incapacitated them from earning a support. The result is visible in the Act for the punishment of "sturdy vagabonds and beggars," passed by Parliament in this same year, inflicting a graduated scale of penalties, of which hanging was the one threatened for a third offence.1 This was a dangerous addition to society when discontent was smouldering and ready to burst into flame. The result was soon apparent. After harvest-time great disturbances convulsed the kingdom. A rising, reported as consisting of twenty thousand men, in Lincolnshire, was put down by the Duke of Suffolk with a heavy force and free promises of pardon. In the North matters were even more serious. The clergy there were less tractable than their southern brethren, and some Injunctions savouring strongly of Protestantism aroused their susceptibilities afresh. Unwilling to submit without a struggle, they held a convocation, in which they denied the royal supremacy and proclaimed their obedience to the Pope. This was rank rebellion, especially as Paul III., on 30 August, 1535, had issued his bull of excommunication against Henry, and self-preservation therefore demanded the immediate suppression of the recalcitrants. They would hardly, indeed, have ventured on assuming a position of such dangerous opposition without the assurance of popular support, nor were their expectations or labours disappointed. The "Pilgrimage of Grace," according to report, soon numbered forty thousand men. Although Skipton and Scarboro' bravely resisted a desperate siege, the success of the insurgents at York, Hull, and Pomfret Castle was encouraging, and risings in Lancashire, Durham, and 1 27 Henry VIII. c. 25, renewed by 28 Hen. VIII. c. 6.—Parliament. Hist. I. 574. Westmoreland gave to the insurrection an aspect of the most menacing character. Good fortune and skilful strategy, however, saved the Duke of Norfolk and his little army from defeat; the winter was rapidly approaching, and at length a proclamation of general amnesty, issued by the King on December 9, induced a dispersion of the rebels. The year 1537 saw another rising in the North, but this time it only numbered eight thousand men. Repulsed at Carlisle, and cut to pieces by Norfolk, the insurgents were quickly put down, and other disturbances of minor importance were even more readily suppressed.1 Strengthened by these triumphs over the disaffected, Henry proceeded, in 1537, to make the acknowledgment of papal authority a crime liable to the penalties of a præmunire; and, as resistance was no longer to be dreaded, he commenced to take possession of some of the larger houses. These did not come within the scope of the Act of Parliament, and therefore were made the subject of special transactions. The abbots resigned, either from having been implicated in the late insurrections, or feeling that their evil lives would not bear investigation, or doubtless, in many cases, from a clear perception of the doom impending in the near future, which rendered it prudent to make the best terms possible while yet there was time. Thus in these cases the monks were generally pensioned with eight marks a year, while some of the abbots secured a revenue of 400 or 500 marks. In an agreement which has been preserved, the monks were to 3 1 Burnet, I. 227-34; Collect. 160.-Wilkins III. 784, 792, 812.-Rymer, XIV. 549. 2 28 Henry VIII. c. 10.-Parl. Hist. I. 533. Præmunire derives its name from the statues 27 Edward III. cap. 1, and 16 Richard II. cap. 2, against carrying to Rome actions cognisable in the royal courts. It was virtually equivalent to outlawry. 3 Burnet, I. 235-7. These pensions were not in all cases secured without difficulty, even after promises had been made and agreements entered into (Suppression of Monasteries, p. 126). receive pensions varying from 53s. 4d. to £4 a year, according to their age.1 In some cases, indeed, according to Bishop Latimer, in a sermon preached before Edward VI., the royal exchequer was relieved by finding preferment for most unworthy objects: "However bad the reports of them were, some were made bishops and others put into good dignities in the Church, that so the King might save their pensions that otherwise were to be paid them." 2 An effectual means, moreover, of inducing voluntary surrenders was by stopping their source of support, and thus starving them out. Richard, Bishop of Dover, one of the commissioners in Wales, writes to Cromwell, 23 May, 1538: "I thinke before the yere be owt ther schall be very fewe howsis abill to lyve, but schall be glade to giffe up their howseis and provide for them selvys otherwise, for their thei schall have no living." In anticipation of the impending doom, many of the abbots and priors had sold everything that was saleable, from lands and leases down to spits and kitchen utensils, leaving their houses completely denuded. The letters of the commissioners are full of complaints respecting this sharp practice, and of their efforts to trace the property. Another mode of compelling surrenders was by threatening the strict enforcement of the rules of the Order. Thus, in the official report of the surrender of the Austin Friars of Gloucester, we find the alternative given them, when “the seyd freeres seyed. as the worlde ys nowe they war not abull to kepe them and leffe in ther howseys, wherfore voluntaryly they gaffe ther howseys into the vesytores handes to the kynges use. The vesytor seyd to them, 'thynke nott, nor hereafter reportt nott, that ye be suppresseyd, for I have noo such auctoryte to suppresse yow, but only to reforme yow, wherfor yf ye woll be reformeyd, 1 Suppression of Monasteries, p. 170.—Strype's Eccles. Memor. I. 262. accordeyng to good order, ye may contynew for all me.' They seyd they war nott abull to contynew," whereupon they were ejected.1 In the year 1538 the work proceeded with increased rapidity, no less than 158 surrenders of the larger houses being enrolled. Many of the abbots were attainted of treason and executed, and the abbey lands forfeited. Means not of the nicest kind were taken to increase the disrepute of the monastic orders, and they retaliated in the same way. Thus, the Abbot of Crossed-Friars, in London, was surprised in the day time with a woman under the worst possible circumstances, giving rise to a lawsuit more curious than decent; while, on the other hand, the Abbess of Chepstow accused Dr. London, one of the visitors, of corrupting her nuns. Public opinion, however, did not move fast enough for the rapacity of those in power, and strenuous exertions were made to stimulate it. All the foul stories that could be found or invented respecting the abbeys were raked together; but these proving insufficient, the impostures concerning relics and images were investigated with great success, and many singular exposures 1 Suppression of Monast. pp. 194, 203. 2 A letter from John Bartelot to Cromwell shows that the abbot purchased secrecy by distributing thirty pounds to those who detected him, and promising them thirty more. This latter sum was subsequently reduced to six pounds, for which the holy man gave his note. This not being paid at maturity, he was sued, when he had the audacity to complain to Cromwell, and to threaten to prosecute the intruders for robbery and force them to return the money paid. Bartelot relates his share in the somewhat questionable transaction with great naïveté, and applies to Cromwell for protection.-Suppression of Monasteries, Letter XXV. 3 This may have been true, for Dr. London was one of the miserable tools who are the fitting representatives of the time. His desire to discover the irregularities of the monastic orders arose from no reverence for virtue, for he underwent public penance at Oxford for adultery with a mother and daughter (Strype, Eccles. Memor. I. 376), and his zeal in suppressing the monasteries was complemented with equal zeal in persecuting Protestants. In 1543 he made himself conspicuous, in conjunction with Gardiner, by having heretics burned under the provisions of the Six Articles. His eagerness in this good work led him to commit perjury, on conviction of which he was pilloried in Windsor, Reading, and Newbury, and thrust into the Fleet, where he died.-Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, Book 1. chap. 26, 27. In fact, Henry's capricious despotism rendered it almost impossible that he could be served by men of self-respect and honour. VOL. II. G were made which gave the King fresh warrant for his arbitrary measures, and placed the religious houses in a more defenceless position than ever.1 Despite all this, in the session of 1539 all the twentyeight parliamentary abbots had their writs, and no less than twenty sat in the House of Lords. Yet the influence of the court and the progress of public opinion were shown in an Act which confirmed the suppressions of the larger houses not embraced in the former Act, as well as all that might thereafter be suppressed, forfeited, or resigned,3 and 9 May, 1540, by special enactment, the ancient Order of the Knights of St. John was broken up, pensions being granted to the grand prior and some of the principal dignitaries. These measures consummated the ruin of the monastic system in England. Henceforth it was altogether at the King's mercy, and his character was not one to temper power with moderation. In 1539 there are upon record fifty-seven surrenders of the great abbeys,5 1 Burnet, I. 238-43.-See also Froude's Hist. Engl. III. 285 et seq. During his visitation (August 27, 1538) the Bishop of Dover writes to Cromwell, "I have Malkow's ere that Peter stroke of, as yt ys wrytyn, and a M. as trewe as that " (Suppression of Monasteries, p. 212). In a report of December 28, 1538, Dr. London observes, with dry humour, "I have dyvers other propre thinges, as two heddes of seynt Ursula, wich bycause ther ys no maner of sylver abowt them, I reserve tyll I have another hedd of herse, wich I schall fynd in my waye within theese xiiii. days, as I am creadably informyd" (Ibid. p. 234). Dr. Layton writes in the same spirit to Cromwell: "Yee shall also receive a Bag of Relicks wherein ye shall see Stranger Things as shall appear by the Scripture. As God's Coat, or Ladie's Smock; Part of God's Supper, In cœna Domini; Pars petræ super qua natus erat Jesus in Bethlehem. Besides there is in Bethlehem plenty of Stones and sometimes Quarries, and maketh their mangers of Stone. The scripture of every thing shall declare you all. And all these of Mayden Bradley. Where is a holy Father Prior; and hath but six Sons and one Daughter married yet of the goods of the Monastery: And he thanketh God, he never meddled with married women; but all with Maidens, the fairest could be gotten. And always married them right well. The Pope, considering his fragility, gave him licence to keep a w: and hath good writing, sub Plumbo, to discharge his conscience" (Strype, Eccles. Memor. I. 253).—Nicander Nucius (op. cit. pp. 5162) relates some of the stories current at the time of the miracles engineered by the monks to stave off their impending doom. 2 Parl. Hist. I. 535. 3 31 Henry VIII. c. 13 (Parl. Hist. I. 537). 4 32 Henry VIII. c. 24 (Ibid, 543–44), 5 Burnet I. 262-3, |