The rise of Protestantism accelerated the decline and final ruin of the monasteries. The enthusiasm of the Mendicants and the culture of the Jesuits failed to convince the governments of Europe that monasticism was worthy to survive the destruction awaiting so many medieval institutions. The spread of reformatory opinions resulted in a determined and largely successful attack upon the monasteries, which were rightly believed to constitute the bulwark of papal power. So imperative were the popular demands for a change, that popes and councils hastened to urge the members of religious orders to abolish existing abuses by enforcing primitive rules. But while Rome practically failed in her attempted reformations, the Protestant reformers in church and state were widely successful in either curtailing the privileges and revenues of the monks or in annihilating the monasteries.
Since the sixteenth century the leading governments of Europe, even including those in Catholic countries, have given tangible expression to popular and political antagonism to monasticism, by the abolition of convents, or the withdrawal of immunities and favors, for a long time a source of monastic revenue and power. The results of this hostility have been so disastrous, that monasticism has never regained its former prestige and influence. Several of the older orders have risen from the ruins, and a few new communities have appeared, some of which are distinguished by their most laudable ministrations to the poor and the sick, or by their educational services. Yet notwithstanding the modifications of the system to suit the exigencies of modern times, it seems altogether improbable that the monks will ever again wield the power they possessed before the Reformation,
In the present chapter attention will be confined to the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII., in England. The suppression in that country was occasioned partly by peculiar, local conditions, and was more radical and permanent than the reforms in other lands, yet it is entirely consistent with our general purpose to restrict this narrative to English history. Penetrating beneath the varying externalities attending the ruin of the monasteries in Germany, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, and other countries, it will be found that the underlying cause of the destruction of the monasteries was that the monastic ideal conflicted with the spirit of the modern era. A conspicuous and dramatic example of this struggle between medievalism, as embodied in the monastic institution, and modern political, social and religious ideals, is to be found in the dissolution of the English monasteries. The narrative of the suppression in England also conveys some idea of the struggle that was carried on throughout Europe, with varying intensity and results.
There is no more striking illustration of the power of the personal equation in the interpretation of history than that afforded by the conflicting opinions respecting the overthrow of monasticism in England. Those who mourn the loss of the monasteries cannot find words strong enough with which to condemn Henry VIII., whom they regard as "unquestionably the most unconstitutional, the most vicious king that ever wore the English crown." Forgetting the inevitable cost of human freedom, and lightly passing over the iniquities of the monastic system, they fondly dwell upon the departed glory of the ancient abbeys. They recall with sadness the days when the monks chanted their songs of praise in the chapels, or reverently bent over their books of parchment, bound in purple and gold, not that they might "winnow the treasures of knowledge, but that they might elicit love, compunction and devotion." The charming simplicity and loving service of the cloister life, in the days of its unbroken vows, appeal to such defenders of the monks with singular potency.
Truly, the fair-minded should attempt to appreciate the sorrow, the indignation and the love of these friends of a ruined institution. Passionless logic will never enable one to do justice to the sentiments of those who cannot restrain their tears as they stand uncovered before the majestic remains of a Melrose Abbey, or properly to estimate the motives and methods of those who laid the mighty monastic institution in the dust.
The Character of Henry VIII
Before considering the actual work of suppression, it may be interesting to glance at the royal destroyer and his times. The character of Henry VIII. is utterly inexplicable to many persons, chiefly because they do not reflect that even the inconsistencies of a great man may be understood when seen in the light of his times. A masterly and comprehensive summary of the virtues and vices of the Tudor monarch, who has been described as "the king, the whole king, and nothing but the king," may be found in "A History of Crime in England," by Luke Owen Pike. The distinguished author shows that in his brutality, his love of letters, his opposition to Luther, his vacillation in religious opinions, King Henry reflects with remarkable fidelity the age in which he lived, both in its contrasts and its inconsistencies. "It is only the previous history of England which can explain all the contradictions exhibited in his conduct,--which can explain how he could be rapacious yet sometimes generous, the Defender of the Faith yet under sentence of excommunication, a burner of heretics yet a heretic himself, the pope's advocate yet the pope's greatest enemy, a bloodthirsty tyrant yet the best friend to liberty of thought in religion, an enthusiast yet a turncoat, a libertine and yet all but a Puritan. He was sensual because his forefathers had been sensual from time immemorial, rough in speech and action because there had been but few men in Britain who had been otherwise since the Romans abandoned the island. He was superstitious and credulous because few were philosophical or gifted with intellectual courage. Yet he had, what was possessed by his contemporaries, a faint and intermittent thirst for knowledge, of which he himself hardly knew the meaning." Henry was shrewd, tenacious of purpose, capricious and versatile. In spite of his unrestrained indulgences and his monstrous claims of power, which, be it remembered, he was able to enforce, and notwithstanding any other vices or faults that may be truthfully charged against him, he was, on the whole, a popular king. Few monarchs have ever had to bear such a strain as was placed upon his abilities and character. Rare have been the periods that have witnessed such confusion of principles, social, political and religious. Those were the days when liberty was at work, "but in a hundred fantastical and repulsive shapes, confused and convulsive, multiform, deformed." Blind violence and half-way reforms characterized the age because the principles that were to govern modern times were not yet formulated.
Judged apart from his times Henry appears as an arrogant, cruel and fickle ruler, whose virtues fail to atone for his vices. But still, with all his faults, he compares favorably with preceding monarchs and even with his contemporaries. If he had possessed less intelligence, courage and ambition, he would not now be so conspicuous for his vices, but the history of human liberty and free institutions, especially in England, would have been vastly different. His praiseworthy traits were not sufficiently strong to enable him to control his inherited passions, but they were too regnant to permit him to submit without a struggle to the hierarchy which had dominated his country so many centuries. Such was