[494] The traditions of severity connected with this reign are explained by these exceptional efforts of rigour. The years of licence were forgotten; the seasons recurring at long intervals, when the executions might be counted by hundreds, lived in recollection, and when three or four generations had passed, became the measure of the whole period.
[495] “These three abbots had joined in a conspiracy to restore the Pope.”—Traherne to Bullinger: Original Letters on the Reformation, second series, p. 316.
[496] “Yesterday I was with the Abbot of Colchester, who asked me how the Abbot of St. Osith did as touching his house; for the bruit was the king would have it. To the which I answered, that he did like an honest man, for he saith, I am the king’s subject, and I and my house and all is the king’s; wherefore, if it be the king’s pleasure, I, as a true subject, shall obey without grudge. To the which the abbot answered, the king shall never have my house but against my will and against my heart; for I know, by my learning, he cannot take it by right and law. Wherefore, in my conscience, I cannot be content; nor he shall never have it with my heart and will. To the which I said beware of such learning; for if ye hold such learning as ye learned in Oxenford when ye were young ye will be hanged; and ye are worthy. But I will advise you to confirm yourself as a good subject, or else you shall hinder your brethren and also yourself.”—Sir John St. Clair to the Lord Privy Seal: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XXXVIII. The abbot did not take the advice, but ventured more dangerous language.
“The Abbot of Colchester did say that the northern men were good men and mokell in the mouth, and ‘great crackers’ and nothing worth in their deeds.” “Further, the said abbot said, at the time of the insurrection, ‘I would to Christ that the rebels in the north had the Bishop of Canterbury, the lord chancellor, and the lord privy seal amongst them, and then I trust we should have a merry world again.’”—Deposition of Edmund ——: Rolls House MS. second series, No. 27.
But the abbot must have committed himself more deeply, or have refused to retract and make a submission; for I find words of similar purport sworn against other abbots, who suffered no punishment.
[497] Lords Journals, 28 Henry VIII.
[498] “The Abbot of Glastonbury appeareth neither then nor now to have known God nor his prince, nor any part of a good Christian man’s religion. They be all false, feigned, flattering hypocrite knaves, as undoubtedly there is none other of that sort.”—Layton to Cromwell: Ellis, third series, Vol. III. p. 247.
[499] Confession of the Abbot of Barlings: MS. Cotton. Cleopatra, E 4.
[500] “And for as much as experience teacheth that many of the heads of such houses, notwithstanding their oaths, taken upon the holy evangelists, to present to such the King’s Majesty’s commissioners as have been addressed unto them, true and perfect inventories of all things belonging to their monasteries, many things have been left out, embezzled, stolen, and purloined—many rich jewels, much rich plate, great store of precious ornaments, and sundry other things of great value and estimation, to the damage of the King’s Majesty, and the great peril and danger of their own souls, by reason of their wilful and detestable perjury; the said commissioners shall not only at every such house examine the head and convent substantially, of all such things so concealed or unlawfully alienated, but also shall give charge to all the ministers and servants of the same houses, and such of the neighbours dwelling near about them as they shall think meet, to detect and open all such things as they have known or heard to have been that way misused, to the intent the truth of all things may the better appear accordingly.”—Instructions to the Monastic Commissioners: MS. Tanner, 105, Bodleian Library.
[501] Pollard, Moyle, and Layton to Cromwell: Burnet’s Collectanea, p. 499.