supreme head ;" and because Thomas Crumwell is hindered by his affairs, the king gives to those appointed by him “"license to visit, both in head and members, the see being full or vacant, as often and at what time they shall think fit, all and singular churches, even metropolitan churches, cathedral and collegiate churches, hospitals, and monasteries, both of men and women, etc., ecclesiastical places, exempt or non-exempt; and to make inquiry concerning the state of the same, both in spirituals and temporals, the life, manners, and conversation of their presidents and prelates, of whatever name and dignity, even if it be archiepiscopal or episcopal; to correct, punish, and restrain those whom they shall find culpable, and, if necessary, to remove them altogether from their benefices, or to suspend them; to sequestrate the revenues of the church or place, and keep them in safe ward; to make statutes, ordinances, and injunctions for the government of religious houses; to call synods, chapters, and convocations for any cause which may appear to them necessary; to hold courts, and summon before them any of the king's subjects; receive resignations and cessions of churches, and deal in any way with the ecclesiastical property; preside at and direct the elections of prelates, confirm those rightly made, and annul the contrary; institute and induct into possession of churches."

"2

1

§ 21. By this instrument the whole liberties, powers, privileges of the Church of England, would seem to be swept away at one blow. The fitting pendant to it was that which immediately followed—namely, the suspension of the jurisdiction of the bishops: "Pending our visitation, none of them shall presume to visit the monasteries, the churches, and other aforesaid places, or the clergy of his diocese, or to exercise any jurisdiction, or in any way to interfere with our general visitation." Some of Crumwell's advisers had written to him to suggest "that if the king made a temporary seizure of all spiritual jurisdiction, it would confirm the subject in the belief of this right, and prove a serviceable precedent." If there was any matter in which it was necessary for the bishops to act during the royal visitation, they should act in it "as the king's commissaries and Crumwell's." The bishops thus rudely superseded exhibited no unwillingness to have their jurisdiction restored to them under the royal license. This singular document ran as follows:-" Forasmuch as all authority for exercising jurisdiction, and all jurisdiction of every kind, as well that which is called ecclesiastical as secular, has emanated in the first place from the king's majesty as from its supreme head, and the fountain and source of all magistracies within the kingdom, it 1 Wilkins, iii. 784; Collier, Ch. Hist. Records, Nos. 30, 31. 2 Letter from Legh and Ap-Rice to Crumwell.-MS. Cotton Library.

behoves those who have beforetime exercised these jurisdictions only by sufferance, to recognise with grateful minds the favour thus granted to them by the royal liberality, and to attribute it only to the royal bounty, and readily to quit and give it up as often as it shall seem good to the royal majesty : . . . We, being moved by your humble prayers, have determined to commit and depute to you our office in the manner and form described below, and to license you to ordain those within your diocese whom you shall have found, by previous diligent and strict examination, to be suitable; also to collate to benefices, to grant probate of wills, and to perform all and singular things, whether in matters of necessity or fitness, beyond and besides those which are distinguished as being divinely committed to you in the sacred writings, which are to be performed in our stead, in our name and by our authority." 1

§ 22. The fundamental error which runs through the whole of these proceedings is, that the king's supremacy conferred on him a power of originating and exercising jurisdiction above and beside the law. The Act of Parliament had given him the power of visiting the monasteries;2 he assumed an extension of this power to all churches. This was an invasion. But a more serious one still was the interpretation which was put upon the visitatorial power. This, rightly understood, is nothing more than an inquiry as to how far the laws which govern the body visited have been obeyed, and, where they have been disobeyed, the obliging them to be observed. But the interpretation of the visitatorial power adopted by the king and Crumwell was, that it gave an absolute right over the body visited into the hands of the visitor; to order it, control it, reform it, or destroy it, as to the visitor should seem good. This at least would appear to be the claim made in these documents; but, as a matter of fact, this overweening power was never exercised towards the Church up to the extent of the claims made for it. The license granted to the bishops was specially confined to those matters in which their jurisdiction was connected with civil rights, an express reservation being made as to purely spiritual matters. There was no visitation made of the churches; and the visitation of the monasteries which immediately took place, though it was claimed as a right belonging to the royal supremacy, was nevertheless guarded by an Act of Parliament, while no attempt at dealing with these houses was made until an express authorisation had been granted by the legal executive. The overweening claims made for the supremacy would seem there fore to have been made in terrorem, rather than for actual use. 1 From Stokesley's Register; Collier, Records, No. 41.

2 25 Henry VIII. c. 21.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES

1536-1539.

1. The King had long meditated the spoiling of the Monasteries. § 2. Difficulties in the way. § 3. Debate in the Council. § 4. A visitation of them decided upon. § 5. The various Visitations. § 6. Points illustrated by the notices of the visitations: (a) The alleged immorality of the monastic orders; (b) Their financial condition; (c) Their state of discipline; (d) Whether the visitors were clean-handed. § 7. The Act founded on the report. § 8. Character of the Act. § 9. Its special injustice. § 10. Previous suppressions of religious houses. § 11. The first resignation. § 12. The Court of Augmentations. § 13. The surrender of Furness. § 14. Commissioners sent to the dissolved Monasteries. § 15. Nature of their certificate. § 16. The work of the Receivers. § 17. Pillaging of the goods of the houses. § 18. Pensions assigned to the religious. § 19. Amount of revenue obtained from smaller houses. 20. Immediate effect of the Dissolution. § 21. The Visitation of 1537. § 22. Exposure of pretended relics. § 23. Rapid resignation of abbeys. § 24. Act to confirm the surrenders. § 25. Means taken to dispose of the last abbots. § 26. Abbot Whiting of Glastonbury. § 27. Wealth poured into the Exchequer from the monasteries. § 28. Change in the status of the House of Lords. § 29. Impropriations not restored to the parochial clergy. § 30. The policy of granting the abbey lands to the country gentlemen. § 31. Funds appropriated to Church purposes. § 32. The hardships of the disinherited religious persons. § 33. The effect of the Dissolution on learning. § 34. General estimate of the effect of the Dissolution of Monasteries.

§ 1. FROM the time when the strong-minded policy of Wolsey towards the monasteries opened the king's eyes to the possibility of gathering a huge spoil with very little trouble, Henry probably never ceased to speculate as to the best way to compass this. He was greatly in want of money. Ever in dread of some dangerous attack from the powerful emperor, who might at any time assume the aggressive as the redresser of the grievances of his aunt, or the executor of the sentence of the Church, Henry was aware that his ports were unfortified, his navy deficient, his preparations to resist external aggression very small. Every source of revenue, then, was welcome to him; and if at the same time he could increase his revenues and inflict a serious wound on his great internal foe the papal influence in England-so much the better. The temptation, therefore, to grasp at the riches of the monasteries was very great. And Crumwell, skilled in the work, was at hand to encourage him in the project, and to suggest the means.

§ 2. Yet the king evidently dreaded to make a move. These great ecclesiastical castles dotted the whole land, and exerted an influence in every place. It is true that their religious character had long since almost died out, and that all enthusiasm for them had long since ceased, yet they were deeply rooted in the social framework of the land. There was scarce a man of weight in the kingdom who was not in some way connected with them. Either they had been founded by his ancestors, or he himself was a patron, or he held leases under some of them, or some of his family were buried within their churches. It is true that the exemptions of the monasteries entailed a grievous burden on their lay neighbours; but then these establishments, scattered over the country to the number of upwards of six hundred, exercised hospitality and gave doles to the poor. So that all classes might be expected to defend them. How then should the king act?

§ 3. The matter was brought before his council. Lord Herbert gives us a sketch of what was said, or might have been said, on the occasion.1 It was determined to have a strict visitation of the monasteries. At the same time the king protested that he would suppress none without the consent of Parliament. This, says Lord Herbert, he did politicly, "seeing that there were many in the Parliament who were against the Romish religion, and many more who objected to the charges of a war, and thought it might well be borne by the monasteries." So that, though the king and his councillors might not openly speak of it to one another, visitation in fact meant suppression, and inquiry was simply for the object of getting up a case which might furnish a decent excuse to Parliament, and palliate the matter with the nation. For the visitation thus determined on, Crumwell chose the instruments. Of these, Doctors Leighton, Leigh, London, and Ap-Rice, were the principal employed about the monks and nuns, and Richard Thornton, Bishop-suffragan of Dover, the chief "visitor of the friars." There were, however, many others employed who are found acting sometimes separately from these, who appear to be the chief, and sometimes in conjunction with them. Some of the reports are signed by six or seven names.

§ 5. The period of visitation embraces upwards of three years, beginning October 1535, and ending towards the close of 1538. It may be divided into three main portions—(1.) The first visitation in the autumn of 1535, in order to get up the case which formed the foundation of the Act of Suppression, passed February 1536. (2.) The second visitation, by commissioners acting under the Court of Augmentations established by the Act, carried out Herbert's Henry VIII. p. 185 (ed. Kennett).

during 1536, to accomplish the demolition of the abbeys suppressed by the Act of Parliament, to pension off their inmates, and to encourage and promote, if possible, by the detection of scandals, the resignation of the greater abbeys, which, in case of their resignation, were given to the king by the preceding Act. (3.) The third visitation, beginning in the summer of 1537, after the suppression of the northern rebellion, to inquire into any complicity the monastery might have had in the rising, to search for and seize upon any pretended relics or sacred images, and, generally, to intimidate the monks into resignation, in which it was almost completely successful.

§ 6. A great number of the letters and notices relating to these visitations being without dates, it is almost impossible to assign to them all their proper places. It will be better, therefore, to group some of these interesting notices under various heads, rather than attempt to arrange them chronologically. Treated thus they will serve to illustrate-(a.) The alleged immorality of the monastic orders; (b.) Their financial condition; (c.) Their state of discipline; (d.) They will throw some light on the point as to how far the commissioners acted fairly, and how far Crumwell's hands were clean in the matter. (a.) First, as to the alleged immorality of the orders.-Out of the vast number of monks and nuns at that time professed in England, it would be simply ridiculous to suppose that no cases of immorality would be forthcoming when carefully sought for. Many of the “religious" were professed young, before they knew their own powers of restraint; many were professed against their will, with no desire to keep their rule, and ready to seize any opportunity for license. And as

to the abbots, against whom the charges of immorality seem to preponderate. As the societies often elected their own heads, the most lax and indulgent of the body would no doubt be frequently chosen by the monks, and the same sort of persons would, as a rule, recommend themselves to lay patrons for promotion to the headship. The abbots also had more license to go abroad in the world than the monks, so that it is nothing more than would naturally be looked for, if we find the abbots oftener charged with immorality than others. There is, therefore, no reason entirely to discredit the stories against the morals of the monks reported in the letters of the visitors to Crumwell. It is à priori certain that there must have been immoralities. The chief, and in fact the only, question is as to what proportion these cases of immorality bore to the whole number of the religious. Now, the actual bill of indictment against the monks being the report laid before Parliament after the first visitation, which is known by the name of