Strengthened by these triumphs over the disaffected, Henry proceeded, in 1537, to make the acknowledgment of papal authority a crime liable to the penalties of a præmunire;[1165] and, as resistance was no longer to be dreaded, he commenced to take possession of some of the larger houses. These did not come within the scope of the act of Parliament, and therefore were made the subject of special transactions. The abbots resigned, either from having been implicated in the late insurrections, or feeling that their evil lives would not bear investigation, or doubtless, in many cases, from a clear perception of the doom impending in the near future, which rendered it prudent to make the best terms possible while yet there was time. Thus, in these cases, the monks were generally pensioned with eight marks a year, while some of the abbots secured a revenue of 400 or 500 marks.[1166] In an agreement which has been preserved, the monks were to receive pensions varying from 53s. 4d. to £4 a year, according to their age.[1167] In some cases, indeed, according to Bishop Latimer, in a sermon preached before Edward VI., the royal exchequer was relieved by finding preferment for most unworthy objects—“however bad the reports of them were, some were made bishops and others put into good dignities in the church; that so the king might save their pensions that otherwise were to be paid them.”[1168] An effectual means, moreover, of inducing voluntary surrenders was by stopping their source of support, and thus starving them out. Richard, Bishop of Dover, one of the commissioners in Wales, writes to Cromwell, May 23d, 1538: “I thinke before the yere be owt ther schall be very fewe howsis abill to lyve, but schall be glade to giffe up their howseis and provide for them selvys otherwise, for their thei schall have no living.” In anticipation of the impending doom, many of the abbots and priors had sold everything that was salable, from lands and leases down to spits and kitchen utensils, leaving their houses completely denuded. The letters of the commissioners are full of complaints respecting this sharp practice, and of their efforts to trace the property. Another mode of compelling surrenders was by threatening the strict enforcement of the rules of the order. Thus, in the official report of the surrender of the Austin friars of Gloucester, we find the alternative given them, when “the seyd freeres seyed ... as the worlde ys nowe they war not abull to kepe them and leffe in ther howseys, wherfore voluntaryly they gaffe ther howseys into the vesytores handes to the kynges use. The vesytor seyd to them, ‘thynke nott, nor hereafter reportt nott, that ye be suppresseyd, for I have noo such auctoryte to suppresse yow, but only to reforme yow, wherfor yf ye woll be reformeyd, accordeyng to good order, ye may contynew for all me.’ They seyd they war nott abull to contynew,” whereupon they were ejected.[1169]
In the year 1538 the work proceeded with increased rapidity, no less than 158 surrenders of the larger houses being enrolled. Many of the abbots were attainted of treason and executed, and the abbey lands forfeited. Means not of the nicest kind were taken to increase the disrepute of the monastic orders, and they retaliated in the same way. Thus, the Abbot of Crossed-Friars, in London, was surprised in the day time with a woman under the worst possible circumstances, giving rise to a lawsuit more curious than decent;[1170] while, on the other hand, the Abbess of Chepstow accused Dr. London, one of the visitors, of corrupting her nuns.[1171] Public opinion, however, did not move fast enough for the rapacity of those in power, and strenuous exertions were made to stimulate it. All the foul stories that could be found or invented respecting the abbeys were raked together; but these proving insufficient, the impostures concerning relics and images were investigated with great success, and many singular exposures were made which gave the king fresh warrant for his arbitrary measures, and placed the religious houses in a more defenceless position than ever.[1172]
Despite all this, in the session of 1539 all the twenty-eight parliamentary abbots had their writs, and no less than twenty sat in the House of Lords.[1173] Yet the influence of the court and the progress of public opinion were shown in an act which confirmed the suppressions of the larger houses not embraced in the former act, as well as all that might thereafter be suppressed, forfeited, or resigned,[1174] and May 9th, 1540, by special enactment, the ancient order of the Knights of St. John was broken up, pensions being granted to the grand prior and some of the principal dignitaries.[1175] These measures consummated the ruin of the monastic system in England. Henceforth it was altogether at the king’s mercy, and his character was not one to temper power with moderation. In 1539 there are upon record fifty-seven surrenders of the great abbeys,[1176] and a large number in 1540, the good house of Godstow being the last of the great monasteries to fall. Of the old monastic system this left only the chantries, free chapels, collegiate churches, hospitals, &c., which were gradually absorbed during the succeeding years;[1177] until the necessities of the king prompted a sweeping measure for their destruction. Accordingly in 1545 a bill was brought in placing them all at his disposition. There were some indications of opposition, but the king pleaded the expenditures of the French and Scottish wars, and solemnly promised his Parliament “that all should be done for the glory of God and common profit of the realm,” whereupon it was passed.[1178] It is computed that the number of monasteries suppressed by these various measures was 645; of colleges, 90; of chantries and free chapels, 2374; and of hospitals, 110.[1179]
A vast amount of property thus passed into the hands of the court. The clear yearly rental of the suppressed houses alone was rated at £131,607 6s. 4d.—an immense sum in those days; but Burnet states that in reality it was almost tenfold the amount.[1180] Small as may have been the good effected by these enormous possessions in the hands of the monks, it was even more worthless under the management of its new masters. Henry admitted the heavy responsibility which he assumed in thus seizing the wealth which had been dedicated to pious uses, and he entertained magnificent schemes for devoting it to the public benefit, but his own necessities and the grasping avarice of needy courtiers wrought out a result ridiculously mean. Thus he designed to set aside a rental of £18,000 for the support of eighteen “Byshopprychys to be new made.”[1181] For this purpose he obtained full power from Parliament in 1539,[1182] and in 1540 he established one on the remains of the Abbey of Westminster. Those of Chester, Gloucester, and Peterboro’ were established in 1541, and in 1543 those of Oxford and Bristol,[1183] and one of them, that of Westminster, was suppressed in 1550, leaving only five as the result. The people were quieted by assurances that taxes would be abrogated forever and the kingdom kept in a most efficient state of defence; but subsidies and benevolences were immediately exacted with more frequency and energy than ever.[1184] Splendid foundations were promised for institutions of learning, but little was given; a moderate sum was expended in improving the sea-ports, while broad manors and rich farms were granted to favorites at almost nominal prices; and the ill-gotten wealth abstracted from the church disappeared without leaving traces except in the sudden and overgrown fortunes of those gentlemen who were fortunate or prompt enough to make use of the golden opportunity, and who to obtain them had no scruple in openly tendering bribes and shares in the spoil to Cromwell, the omnipotent favorite of the king.[1185] The complaints of the people, who found their new masters harder than the old, may be estimated from some specimens printed by Strype.[1186]
If it be asked what became of the “holy idle thieves” and “sturdy loobies” whom the Beggars’ Petition so earnestly desired to be thrown upon the world, the answer may be found in the legislation of Edward VI. A poor-law, the commencement of a series which to this day has pressed upon England with ever-increasing weight, was enacted in 1552.[1187] This tells its own story, but even more suggestive was another bill for the suppression of vagabondage, the provisions of which mark not only the inhumanity of the age, but the magnitude of the evil caused by the violent acts of Henry. Every able-bodied man loitering in any place for three days without working or offering to work was held to be a vagabond. He was thereupon to be branded on the breast with a letter V, and adjudged as a slave for two years to any one who might bring him for that purpose before a justice of the peace.[1188] Such was the ignominious end of the powerful and wealthy monastic orders of England.
The monastic establishments of Ireland shared the same fate. Rymer[1189] gives the text of a commission for the suppression of a nunnery of the diocese of Dublin, in 1535. The insubordination of the island, however, rendered it difficult to carry out the measure everywhere, and finally, in 1541, it was accomplished by virtually granting their lands to the native chieftains. These were good Catholics, but they could not resist the temptation. They joined eagerly in grasping the spoil, and the desirable political object was effected of detaching them, for the time, from the foreign alliances with the Catholic powers which threatened serious evils.[1190]
It is a striking proof of Henry’s strength of will and intense individuality of character, that, in thus tearing up by the roots the whole system of monachism, he did not yield one jot to the powerful section of his supporters who had pledged themselves to the logical sequence of his acts, the abrogation of sacerdotal celibacy in general. While every reason of policy and statesmanship urged him to grant the privilege of marriage to the secular clergy, whom he forced to transfer to him the allegiance formerly rendered to Rome; while his chief religious advisers at home and his Protestant allies abroad used every endeavor to wring from him this concession, he steadily and persistently refused it to the end, and we can only guess whether his firmness arose from conscientious conviction or from the pride of a controversialist.
Notwithstanding his immovable resolution on this point, his power seemed ineffectual to stay the progress of the new ideas. An assembly held by his order in May, 1530, to condemn the heretical doctrines disseminated in certain books, shows how openly the advocates of clerical marriage had promulgated their views while yet Wolsey was prime minister and Henry gloried in the title of Defender of the Faith. Numerous books were denounced in which celibacy was ridiculed, its sanctity disproved, and its evil influences commented upon in the most irreverent manner.[1191] These doctrines were sometimes carried into practice, and the orthodox clergy had little ceremony in visiting them with the sharpest penalties of the canons. It was about this time that Stokesley, Bishop of London, condemned to imprisonment for life Thomas Patmore, the incumbent of Hadham in Hertfordshire, for encouraging his curate to marry and permitting him subsequently to officiate; and the unfortunate man actually lay for three years in gaol, until released by the intercession of Cranmer.[1192] This severity offers a significant contrast to the lenity which punished priestly incontinence with trifling fines and penalties, or sold licenses to sin almost openly.[1193]
If the reforming polemics were thus bold while Henry was yet orthodox, it may readily be imagined how keenly they watched the progress of his quarrel with the pope, and how loud became their utterances as he gradually threw off his allegiance to Rome and persecuted all who hesitated to follow in his footsteps. He soon showed, however, that he allowed none to precede him, and that all consciences were to be measured by the royal ell-wand. Thus his proceedings against the Carthusians and Franciscans in 1534 were varied by a proclamation directed against seditious books and priestly marriages. As we have seen, some unions had taken place, and all who had committed the indiscretion were deprived of their functions and reduced to the laity, though the marriages seem to have been recognized as valid. Future transgressions, moreover, were threatened with the royal indignation and further punishment—words of serious import at such a time and under such a monarch.[1194]