Note L, [P. 232].—Demolition of Abbeys.
The reader may wonder that men should have been found, so ready to plunder the house of God; so greedy, as the country people everywhere showed themselves, to share in the plunder of the Church.
The following extract from “Ellis’ Original Letters,” is much to the point, and will at least enlighten us as to their motives, which were of the earth, earthy:—
“I demanded of my father thirty years after the suppression, (that would be in the time of Elizabeth) which had bought part of the timber of the Church, and all the timber in the steeple, with the bell frame, with others his partners therein (in the which steeple hung eight or nine bells, whereof the least but one could not be bought at this day for twenty pounds, which bells I did see hang there myself, more than a year after the suppression), whether he thought well of the religious persons, and of the religion then used, and he told me ‘yea,’ for he said, ‘I did see no cause to the contrary.’ ‘Well,’ said I then, ‘how came it to pass, you were so ready to destroy and spoil the thing that you thought well of?’ ‘What should I do,’ said he, ‘might I not, as well as others, have some profit of the spoil of the abbey? for I did see all moved away, and therefore I did as others did.’ Thus you may see, as well as they who thought well of the religion then used, as they which thought otherwise, could agree well enough, and too well, to spoil them. Such an evil is covetousness and mammon, and such is the providence of God to punish sinners in making themselves instruments to punish themselves and all their posterity, from generation to generation. For no doubt there have been millions that have repented the thing since, but all too late.”
FOOTNOTES
[59] The Canterbury folk denied this and said they had still got them; nay, in the days of King Henry VII. the Archbishop of Canterbury threatened to excommunicate those who venerated the “pretended relics” at Glastonbury.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
Fairleigh Hall. A Tale of the Neighbourhood of Oxford during the Civil Wars. Cloth, 3/6.
Æmilius. A Story of the Decian and Valerian Persecution. Cloth, 3/6.