“§ 13. Yea, and what do they more? Truly, nothing but apply themselves by all the sleights they may to have to do with every man’s wife, every man’s daughter, and every man’s maid; that cuckoldry should reign over all among your subjects; that no man should know his own child; that their bastards might inherit the possessions of every man, to put the right-begotten children clean beside their inheritance, in subversion of all estates and godly order.
Ҥ 16. Who is she that will set her hands to work to get three-pence a day, and may have at least twenty-pence a day to sleep an hour with a friar, a monk, or a priest? Who is he that would labour for a groat a day, and may have at least twelve-pence a day to be a bawd to a priest, a monk, or a friar?
“§ 31. Wherefore, if your grace will set their sturdy loobies abroad in the world, to get them wives of their own, to get their living with their labour, in the sweat of their faces, according to the commandment of God, Gen. iii., to give other idle people, by their example, occasion to go to labour; tye these holy, idle thieves to the carts to be whipped naked about every market-town, till they will fall to labour, that they may, by their importunate begging, not take away the alms that the good Christian people would give unto us sore, impotent, miserable people your bedemen.”
[1160] Articles devised by the Kinges Highnes Majestie, ann. 1536 (Formularies of Faith, Oxford, 1856 p. xxxi.).
[1161] Burnet I. 193-4, 222-4;—Parl. Hist. I. 526-7. To our modern notions, there is something inexpressibly disgusting in the openness with which bribes were tendered to Cromwell by those who were eager to obtain grants of abbey lands (Suppression of Monasteries, passim). On the other hand, the abbots and abbesses who feared for their houses had as little scruple in offering him large sums for his protection. Thus the good Bishop Latimer renders himself the intermediary (Dec. 16th, 1536) of an offer from the Prior of Great Malvern of 500 marks to the king and 200 to Cromwell to preserve that foundation; while the Abbot, of Peterboro’ tendered the enormous sum of 2500 marks to the king and £300 to Cromwell (Ibid. 150, 179). The liberal disposition of the latter seems to have made an impression, for, though he could not save his abbey, he was appointed the first Bishop of Peterboro’—a see erected upon the ruins of the house.
[1162] “They be very pore, and can have lytyll serves withowtt ther capacytes. The bischoyppys and curettes be very hard to them, withowtt they have ther capacytes.”—The Bishop of Dover to Cromwell, March 10th, 1538 (Suppression of Monasteries, p. 193). These “capacities” empowered them to perform the functions of secular priests. The good bishop pleads that certain poor monks may obtain them without paying the usual fee.
[1163] 27 Henry VIII. c. 25, renewed by 28 Hen. VIII. c. 6.—Parliament. Hist. I. 574.
[1164] Burnet I. 227-34; Collect. 160.—Wilkins III. 784, 792, 812.—Rymer XIV. 549.
[1165] 28 Henry VIII. c. 10.—Parl. Hist. I. 533.
[1166] 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).