25 Hen. VIII. “The King appointed that Convocations should be assembled by his Writ, and that no Canons or Constitutions should be contrary to his Prerogative or the Laws of the Land.”
“In the same Year an Act passed to restrain the Payment of First Fruits to the Court of Rome.”
“In the next Year, 26 Hen. VIII., An Act passed by which the First Fruits of all Spiritual Livings were given to the King.”
In the same Year, “an Act passed, prohibiting Investitures of Archbishops or Bishops by the Pope; but that in a Vacancy the King should send his Letters-missive to a Prior or Convent, Dean or Chapter, to choose another.”
“Likewise, in the same Year, all Licenses and Dispensations from the Court of Rome were prohibited, and that all Religious Houses should be under the Visitation of the King.”
And by an Act passed the same Year (viz., 1534), The King was “declared to be Supream Head of the Church.”
“But he did not exercise any act of that Power till a year afterwards, by appointing Sir Thomas Cromwell to be his Vicar General in Ecclesiastical Matters, and Visitor of all the Monasteries and other Privileged Places in the Kingdom.”
In 27 Hen. VIII. (1536) “all the lesser Monasteries, under the number of twelve Persons, and whose Revenues were not of the Value of £200 per annum, were given to the King, his Heirs and Successors; and a Court was erected on purpose for collecting the Revenues belonging to these Monasteries, which was called The Court of Augmentation of the King’s Revenue, who had full power to dispose of those Lands for the Service of the King.”
The officers of this Court had, among its other duties, that of inquiring “into the Number of Religious in the House, and what Lives they led; how many would go into other Religious Houses, and how many into the World, as they called it.”
The whole of the goods thus confiscated were valued at £100,000, and the rents of these small Monasteries came to £32,000 per annum.