THE MONASTERIES
The suppression of the English monasteries, though in one sense but a single branch of Cromwell’s internal administration, still deserves to be considered in a separate chapter. Of all the changes that followed the breach with Rome, none bears as plainly as this the stamp of Cromwellian origin. The sinister genius of the King’s minister particularly fitted him for this task of destruction, and his title of malleus-monachorum is thoroughly well deserved. Cromwell’s intent in suppressing the monasteries was obviously, like that of all the rest of his internal administration, the strengthening of the Crown: how far his measures were successful in accomplishing what was expected of them must be determined not only from their immediate effects, but also from the developments which later resulted from them.
It has been pointed out in an earlier chapter that the state of the lesser monasteries was far from satisfactory in Cromwell’s time; but that in spite of this, when Wolsey’s agents suppressed a few of them in order to convert their revenues to the use of the Cardinal’s cherished colleges, a loud cry of indignation was immediately raised among the rural population. During his first few years in Wolsey’s service Cromwell had acquired sufficient experience to master at least the elementary principles of monastic confiscation, but before he had gone half as far as he had probably intended, his master’s attainder and his own consequent change of life had temporarily interrupted the work. We have seen that as soon as the King had arbitrarily assumed the Headship of the Church of England, Cromwell immediately cast about for means to secure him in his new position. To this end he had weakened the bishops and also the lesser clergy; the dissolution of the monasteries immediately presented itself to him as a consistent method of following up these measures. It all tended in the same direction of severing England’s connexion with Rome and of establishing the Royal Supremacy. The scheme of suppressing the monasteries also promised great things from a financial point of view; Cromwell could have hit upon no better plan than this to aid him to fulfil his promise to make Henry ‘the richest King that ever was in Christendom.’ If the idea of dissolving the religious houses in order to increase the wealth of the Crown, had occurred to Henry during Wolsey’s administration, he would hardly have dared to carry it out while there was any chance of avoiding a breach with the Pope; but now the course of events had converted the only objection to the plan into an argument in its favour. There was certainly nothing in the conscience of the King or of his minister to deter them from such a step, when so much advantage both political and financial promised to result from it.
In January, 1535, two documents appeared—the first, a royal commission to Thomas Cromwell authorizing him as the King’s Vicar-general to undertake a general visitation of churches, monasteries, and clergy, and to depute others to act as his agents; the second consisting of a series of formal inquiries to be made concerning the state of the religious houses, and royal injunctions for their reform. The latter is written in a strange hand, copiously interlined and corrected by that of the King’s minister[387]. The decrees were quickly put in operation. By the month of August in the same year Cromwell’s two agents, Legh and Ap-Rice, were hard at work among the Wiltshire monasteries, and sent in their reports to their master full of ludicrously pathetic lamentations, when unable to trump up any plausible charges against the monks[388]. Doctor Richard Layton, who had come under Cromwell’s notice at the time of the trials of More and Fisher, sent him a request for employment on the same mission, and eventually got permission to go to Gloucestershire[389]. He had made a preliminary visitation at Bath and Farley, and while there had aroused the jealousy and hatred of Legh, who wrote to Cromwell complaining that he was not sufficiently severe, and urging the necessity of uniformity of action[390]. A great many grumbling letters of this kind were sent to Cromwell by his visitors. Layton and Ap-Rice were not slow to revenge themselves on Legh by reporting to the Vicar-general the pride, arrogance, ‘sumptuus vsage, and roughe fasshyon’ of their hated colleague[391].
The bad character of Cromwell’s agents, and the devices to which they were forced to have recourse in order to extort from the monks the information they desired, furnish ample proof of the unfairness of many of the reports which they made. The ‘Commissioners found means,’ as it has been significantly stated, ‘to make divers monasteries obnoxious[392].’ Cromwell had taken special pains that the efforts of his agents should not be hindered by any external interference: it was to this end that he had issued the Prohibitory Letter to the bishops in the month of September[393]. Legh, Layton, and Ap-Rice were left a perfectly clear field, and devoted themselves to examining into the monastic discipline, and to inducing discontented monks to accuse their fellows. The arrogant Legh was especially efficient in this particular, as is shown by the letters Cromwell received from the monasteries he had visited. One monk wrote to the Vicar-general that the inmates of his house cared nothing for true religion, but came to mattins ‘as dronck as myss and [played] sume at cardes, sume at dyyss[394]’—and finally imparted the significant piece of information that Cromwell’s visitors had ordered him to write these opinions to head quarters. Another, John Placett by name, sent cringing letters to the Vicegerent, begging that his zeal in advancing the new doctrines and in reporting those who opposed them, might be rewarded by official exemption from rising at midnight and from observing the customary fasts[395]. Epistles of this sort form the bulk of Cromwell’s correspondence during the years 1535 and 1536. The chief reason why the Vicar-general did not protest against this flood of defamatory information, which through the efficiency of the zealous Legh continually poured in upon him, lay probably in the fact that along with these reports there came also letters of a somewhat different nature which afforded him excellent opportunities for private gain. ‘I submytt myselfe,’ wrote the Abbot of Rewley, ‘fulle and holle to your mastershipp, as all my refuge, helpe, and socor is yn yow, glad of my voluntarye mynde to be bounde in obligacion of one hunderd powndes to be payed to your mastershipp, so that our house may be savyd[396].’ We may well believe that this proposal did not fall on deaf ears. Though we do not possess the reply of Cromwell in this particular case, the letters which he sent to the Priors of St. Faith’s and of Coxford in the same year, indicate that he was as willing to accept bribes from the heads of monasteries as from any one else[397].
Less crafty but scarcely less efficient than the untiring Legh was his brutal colleague Layton. The Sussex monasteries which he visited in October, 1535, were so unfortunate as to incur his particular displeasure. He does not appear to have troubled himself, like Legh, with devising means to make the monks accuse one another: he reported everything to head quarters on his own responsibility, and wrote to Cromwell how at one place he found the abbot the ‘varaste hayne betle and buserde and the aranttes chorle’ he ever saw, while at another he swore that his master would scarcely believe ‘quanta sit spurcities.’ He concluded with two philosophic reflections that ‘sacerdotes omnes non creati ex natura angelica, sed humana,’ and ‘that the blake sort of dyvelisshe monkes . . . be paste amendment[398].’ He possibly bore a personal grudge against these southern houses; at least this seems a likely explanation of the fact that later investigation showed them to be no worse than ordinary, and especially popular with their neighbours[399]. Layton, however, found willing listeners to his accusations in the King and Cromwell, and a commission was sent down to confiscate the property of the monasteries of Dover, Langdon, and Folkestone, and to take the surrender of these houses into the King’s hands. It was the first step of the great devastation which was to ensue during the following four years.
The next scene of the visitors’ operations was in the northern counties. Early in 1535 Layton had taken occasion to inform Cromwell that he and Legh were particularly competent to carry on the work there. ‘Ther ys nother monasterie, selle, priorie, nor any other religiouse howse in the north,’ he wrote, ‘but other doctor Lee or I have familier acqwayntance within x or xii mylles of hit. . . . We knowe and have experiens bothe of the fassion off the contre and the rudenes of the pepull . . . ther is matter sufficient to detecte and opyn all coloryde sanctitie, all supersticiouse rewlles of pretensyde religion, and other abusys detestable of all sorttes[400].’ Cromwell certainly had no reason to be dissatisfied with the results which his agents had already accomplished, and doubtless welcomed their zeal to continue their labours in a new field. With most astounding rapidity the visitation was carried through: all the houses in the north had been reported on by the end of February. There was certainly an object in having the work completed so quickly, for Parliament had already met, and was prepared to take action on the ‘comperta’ or catalogue of offences sent in by Cromwell’s agents. The extraordinary hurry in which the latter part of their task was accomplished, and the suspicious uniformity of the offences reported, furnish a last and most cogent reason for doubting the truth of the statements of the visitors. There must of course have been some immorality in the monasteries: the abbots and heads of houses were elected by the monks themselves, who were sure to have an eye to their own ease, and would tend to choose those whose discipline was lax. But it must be a prejudiced person indeed who will accept word for word the catalogues of the religious persons reported guilty of the lowest and most degrading forms of vice, which Legh and Layton seemed to delight in sending to their master. Parliament, however, was too completely in Cromwell’s hands fairly to judge of the character of the visitors, or of the circumstances under which they drew up their ‘comperta,’ and the report was strong and clear; so it was not long before the first Act for the dissolution of the smaller monasteries was passed. The statute declared that ‘all Relygeous Houses of Monkes Chanons and Nonnes, whiche may not dyspend Manors, Landes, Tenementes, & Heredytamentes above the clere yerly Value of ij C li. are geven to the Kinges Highnes, his heires and successours for ever[401].’ Another Act was passed at the same time establishing a Court of Augmentations of the King’s revenue[402]. Power was given to this court to collect the spoils, lands, and buildings of the suppressed abbeys, and dispose of them in the way most profitable to the Crown. It consisted of a chancellor, treasurer, solicitor, and thirty subordinates. The chief persons in it were friends and hirelings of Cromwell’s. In April commissions were sent to the principal men in every county[403], authorizing them to inquire further into the state of each house, to make inventories and estimates of their property, and to ascertain the number of monks who desired ‘capacities’ for entering secular life, and the number who intended to remove to some other religious house. It is significant that the reports of these men, concerning the character and morality of the inmates, are uniformly of a more favourable description than those of Layton and Legh.
The process of the surrender immediately followed the first visit of the Commissioners. They sent in their report to the Court of Augmentations, which then issued its final orders for the dissolution of the house, and its conversion to the King’s use. A ‘receiver’ was appointed to plunder the church, and sell the lead, bells, &c. An interesting letter, from an agent of Cromwell’s to his master, sheds some light on the usual methods of these officials. ‘We ar pluckyng down an hygher vaute,’ writes the receiver, ‘borne up by fower thicke and grose pillars xiiij fote fro syde to syde, abowt in circumference xlv fote . . . we browght from London xvij persons, 3 carpentars, 2 smythes, 2 plummars, and on that kepith the fornace. Euery of these attendith to hys own office: x of them hewed the walles abowte, amonge the whych ther were 3 carpentars: thiese made proctes to undersette wher the other cutte away, thother brake and cutte the waules[404].’ Coupled with reports like this, came curiously confused accounts of the saleable articles of the house, which had been disposed of, such as
Item ij brasse pottes sold to Edward Scudamor | iiijs | ||
Item a vestment and ij tynakles of old prest velvet sold to Johan Savage baylyf | xiijs | iiijd | |
Itemij pannes | vid | ||
Itema cope of tawny damaske | xijd | ||
Item a image of Seynt Katerine sold to Lee | vjd | ||
Item sold to John Webbe the tymber worke of the hyegh quyer, and a auter of alablaster in the body of the churche | ixs | viijd | [405]. |
It will be noticed that the sums for which these articles were sold, were very small. It is said that not more than £100,000 were obtained from the sale of the jewels, plate, lead, bells, and other valuables, which were seized in the first suppression of the monasteries. The annual incomes of the three hundred and seventy-six houses which were suppressed, however, probably amounted to about £32,000, a sum which was quite sufficient to render the measure a successful one from a financial point of view.