A history of tithes

by Henry William Clarke

(5) In the reign of Henry IV. the House of Commons suggested, in 1404, that the clergy, including the religiosi, should be deprived of all their temporalities, in order to furnish funds for the defence of the kingdom and for the maintenance of a large army. A similar proposal was made in 1410, but the king, directly influenced by the Archbishop of Canterbury, would not listen to the suggestions. These facts indicate the growing unpopularity of the Church even at that early period of the life of the House of Commons. The Statute of Mortmain in 1279, the Statutes of Provisors in 1351 (25 Edward III. c. vi.), and 1353 (27 Edward III.), the Statute of Premunire in 1393, are all so many previous illustrations of the growing hostile feeling of Parliament towards the Church, monastic establishments, and the pope of Rome.

(6) In the reign of Henry V. another attack was made upon the property of the Church by the Parliament which met in 1415, but the tact of the Archbishop of Canterbury on this occasion, as well as in 1404 and 1410, saved the property. The Parliament granted the King, however, all the property of the alien priories, except those which were free and could elect their own priors. Henry V. built and endowed six colleges and three religious houses, principally out of the property of the suppressed priories.

(7) Henry VI. founded and endowed Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, out of the same suppressed property.

(8) Cardinal Wolsey, with the approval of King Henry VIII. and the Pope, suppressed over twenty small religious houses in A.D. 1523, in order to furnish funds to build and endow his college—Cardinal College, now Christ Church, Oxford—the richest in that University.

These are instructive and interesting facts. Large monastic endowments were devoted to building and richly endowing colleges and schools for the sons of the wealthy men of the country. In the Appendices will be found a complete account of the gross amounts of tithe-rent charges which the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and some of the public schools receive. I should also gladly give the monastic manors and glebe lands, quite separate from the vicarial glebe lands, which these colleges and schools also received, but I have not the information. But I supply the large patronage they have at their disposal. And I may state that of all Church patronage, the most objectionable is collegiate and public school patronage. Broken-down old dons, fellows, and teachers of schools, men full of eccentricities, totally unfit for parish work, are pensioned off with college livings, which are generally well endowed with glebe lands and tithes, and each with a rural population of a few hundreds. Here they end their days in ease and quietness, after giving the best and most active part of their lives to tutorial work in their respective colleges and schools. The wealthy parochial endowments of the collegiate and scholastic livings are out of all proportion to the population and parish work, which in their cases is nil. In purchasing advowsons, the colleges select country parishes with large endowments, small areas, and small populations.

I have stated eight cases for Henry VIII.’s guidance in dissolving the monasteries. I shall now state his own action in the matter.

In 1533 (24 Henry VIII. c. xii.) the Statute for the Restraint of Appeals to Rome was passed. In 1534 Parliament made him “Supreme head of the Church of England.” He therefore took the Pope’s place, and received the firstfruits and tenths. In 1535 Commissioners were appointed to take the value of all ecclesiastical benefices, in order to settle the firstfruits and tenths. In 1536 the valuation was completed. In 1535, by 27 Henry VIII. c. xx., for tithes to be paid throughout the realm. In 1536 (28 Henry VIII. c. xvi.), the power of the Pope over tithes in England was finally extinguished. The monks viewed the King’s conduct in taking the Pope’s place with the most bitter hostility. They constantly used their influence to excite the feelings of the people against the King. Henry knew all this, and that he could never alienate them from the Pope. The subsequent conduct of the King and his ministers was guided more by political expediency than on religious or moral grounds. There was but one course open to the King, and that was to dissolve all the religious houses. It was a bold, arduous, and dangerous step. The morality of these houses was the only vulnerable point in which he thought he could successfully carry out his plan. He first obtained an Act of Parliament empowering him “to visit, order, and reform all errors and abuses in religion.” This was the lever which Henry’s agents used to expose every real and imaginary immoral act, and thus create hostility in the minds of the people against them. A Royal Commission was issued in 1535 with unlimited power to visit the monasteries. In 1536 the report was finished. But the original was destroyed in Queen Mary’s reign. We must be careful as to what credence should be given to evidence taken down and reported upon by such Commissioners as Leigh and Leyton, who had not scrupled to suborn witnesses. An Act was passed in 1536 (27 Henry VIII. c. xxviii.), which dissolved every monastery with a revenue of less than £200 per annum, and transferred to the King all the monasteries, priories, and other religious houses, all the sites, circuits, churches, chapels, advowsons, patronage, manors, granges, lands, hereditaments, tithes, pensions, annuities, rights, etc., which belonged to such monasteries; and that “The king shall have them in as large and ample a manner as the governors of those houses possessed them. That he was to have and to hold them, his heirs and assigns, to do and use therewith his and their own wills, to the pleasure of God and to the honour and profit of this realm.” And the Act further states that “Those who take the above property from the king shall have, hold, and enjoy the same in like manner, form, and condition as before the Act of Dissolution.” Those who took the property were therefore subject to the same limitations, privileges, and burdens as the religiosi were. By this Act, 376 houses were dissolved and their properties vested in the Crown. The King received £32,000 per annum from the estates, and also he received jewels and personal effects valued at £100,000. He gave small pensions to some abbots, priors, and monks; others he transferred to larger monasteries. The houses were stripped of their lead, bells, glass, and materials, which were sold to the neighbouring gentry.

The conditions upon which all the vast monastic property was given by Parliament to the King were, “That they were to be used to the pleasure of God and to the honour and profit of this realm.” Did Henry VIII. or his successors carry out these conditions? They certainly did not. The property of the alien priories was insignificantly small as compared with the enormous properties which Parliament granted to Henry VIII. But there was this distinction between them. Almost all the former properties were devoted to religious and educational purposes. Laymen received little or nothing. But the case was very different with Henry VIII.’s confiscations. The courtiers and favourites were most eager to share, and did obtain, monastic estates and tithes, and also episcopal and capitular landed estates, which some of their successors still hold, others sold them, and thus much of the property has been handed down to the present time through a long line of purchasers.

Henry VIII. intended to create twenty-one new bishoprics, and out of the proceeds of the monastic properties to suitably endow them. But he created and endowed only six. The courtiers and favourites of Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, who received inferior monastic lands, induced these sovereigns to make certain of the archbishops, bishops, and chapters exchange their good lands for the inferior lands of the courtiers and favourites, and also to exchange impropriated tithes for lands of equal value belonging to episcopal and capitular corporations. These exchanges were very numerous in the reigns of Edward and Elizabeth. Hasted, in his “History of Kent,” makes the following remark, “Cranmer observing that his stately palaces excited the envy of the courtiers, passed them away with their estates to the King.” For example, Otford Palace and its beautiful parks. Archbishop Warham spent £33,000, an enormous sum in those days, in rebuilding the palace. Cranmer, in 1538, was ordered to surrender the palace and the manor of Otford and Sergeants Otford to Henry VIII. Edward VI. granted the Little Park of Otford on lease to Sir Henry Sidney. Elizabeth granted Sergeants Otford and the Little Park on lease to Sir Robert Sidney. James I. granted the palace and Greater Park to Sir Thomas Smith. Edward VI. granted the parsonage and advowson of Shoreham with the Chapel of Otford to Sir Anthony Denny, who exchanged them with the Dean and Chapter of Westminster for the advowson of Cheshunt in Herts. The Chapter had £702, tithe rent charge from Otford; there was no vicar; and £806 10s. from Shoreham; total £1,508 16s.

Hasted says of Knole manor and manor house: “Cranmer observing murmurings among the hungry courtiers of the archbishop’s palaces, compounded with Henry VIII. to give up the best and richest manors; therefore, in 1538, Cranmer gave to the King the manors of Otford, Wrotham, Bexley, Northflete, Maidstone, Knole, Sergeants Otford, Sevenoke, Shoreham, Chevening, Panters, and Brytains, with their appurtenances.” Here were twelve manors given in one swoop to satisfy Henry VIII.’s “hungry courtiers,” who were “murmuring” for the spoils. The reader will have to consult Hasted’s “Kent,” to know the courtiers and favourites to whom these manors were granted.