351. Execution of More and Fisher (1535).
Thomas Cromwell had been Cardinal Wolsey's private secretary; but he had now become chief counselor to the King, and in his crooked and cruel policy reduced bloodshed to a science. He first introduced the practice of condemning an accused prisoner without any form of trial (by Act of Attainder), and sending him to the block[1] without allowing him to speak in his own defense (S356). No one was now safe who did not openly side with the King.
[1] Act of Attainder. See Constitutional Documents in Appendix, p. xxxii.
Sir Thomas More, who had been Lord Chancellor (S339), and the aged Bishop Fisher were executed because they could not affirm that they conscientiously believed that Henry was morally and spiritually entitled to be the head of the English Church (S349).
Both died with Christian fortitude. More said to the governor of the
Tower with a flash of his old humor, as the steps leading to the
scaffold shook while he was mounting them, "Do you see me safe up, and
I will make shift to get down by myself."
352. Destruction of the Monasteries; Seizure of their Property, 1536-1539.
When the intelligence of the judicial murder of the venerable ex-chancellor reached Rome, the Pope issued a bull of excommunication and deposition against Henry (S194). It delivered his soul to Satan, and his kingdom to the first invader.
The King retaliated by the suppression of the monasteries. In doing so, he simply hastened a process which had already begun. Years before, Cardinal Wolsey had not scrupled to shut up several, and take their revenues to found Christ Church College at Oxford. The truth was, that, in most cases, monasticism "was dead long before the Reformation came to bury it" (S339, note 1). It was dead because it had done its work,—in many respects a great and good work, which the world could ill have spared (SS43, 45, 46, 60). The monasteries simply shared the fate of all human institutions, however excellent they may be.
"Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of Thee,
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they."[1]
[1] Tennyson's "In Memoriam."