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When the Commissioners sent by King Henry VII. visited the monasteries, the guilt of the inmates was so overwhelmingly evident that hardly any attempt at denial was made. The Confession of the Prior and Benedictines of St. Andrew's in Northampton is yet of record, and it is a fair example. They confessed that they "had lived in idleness, gluttony, and sensuality, for which the Pit of Hell was ready to swallow them up."
(Burnett, Book III., p. 227.)
Among the false "relics" that were found and which had long been used to swindle ignorant believers out of their money, were a Wing of the Angel that had brought to England the Spear which pierced Christ's side; some of the coals that had roasted the Most Blessed Saint Anthony; numerous pieces of "the true Cross;" a small bottle filled with Christ's blood; a Crucifix which would sometimes bow its head, sometimes roll its eyes and sometimes move its lips.
(All this fraudulent rubbish was seized, taken to London, and publicly destroyed.)
Bishop Burnett says—
"But for the lewdness of the confessors of the Nunneries, and the great corruption of that state, whole houses being found almost all with child."
That was in the year 1535, in England! In the year 1910, when the nunneries were suddenly broken up in Spain, exactly the same state of affairs was discovered! Some of the nuns came out leading their children: some were so far advanced in pregnancy that their condition was evident to all—and as to how many little bones were left in the underground vaults, God alone knows.
Bishop Burnett continues—
"The dissoluteness of Abbots, and the other monks, and the friars, not only with whores, but married women, and their unnatural lusts and other brutal practices, these are not fit to be spoken of, much less enlarged on, in a work of this nature." ...