| 1. To the various Orders of Friars for 1250–1350 | 20 |
| 1350–1450 | 12 |
| 1450–1540 | 4 |
| 2. To the Charter House for the 1st period, not founded. | |
| 2nd „ | 31 |
| 3rd „ | 14 |
| 3. To the Grey Friars for the 1st period, bequests included among the various Orders. | |
| 2nd „ | 20 |
| 3rd „ | none |
| 4. To the Black Friars 1st period, included among various Orders. | |
| 2nd „ | 10 |
| 3rd „ | 1 |
| 5. To the Holy Trinity Priory for the 1st period | 17 |
| 2nd „ | 46 (?) |
| 6. To Eastminster for the 1st period, not yet founded. | |
| 2nd „ | 7 |
| 3rd „ | 2 |
| 7. To St. Helen’s for the 1st period | 18 |
| 2nd „ | 12 |
| 3rd „ | none |
| 8. Crutched Friars for the 1st period | 13 |
| 2nd „ | 10 |
| 3rd „ | 1 |
| 9. Carmelite or White Friars, 1st period | 15 |
| 2nd „ | 11 |
| 3rd „ | 1 |
| 10. Austin Friars for 1st period | 13 |
| 2nd „ | 13 |
| 3rd „ for masses | 2 |
| 11. St. Bartholomew’s for 1st period | 14 |
| 2nd „ | 13 |
| 3rd „ | 2 |
| 12. Haliwell for 1st period | 12 |
| 2nd „ | 20 |
| 3rd „ | 2 |
| 13. Minoresses for 1st period | 9 |
| 2nd „ | 18 |
| 3rd „ | 3 |
These figures show most unmistakably that the monastic life was no longer regarded as it had been by the people of London. By the friars especially, i.e. by those who could read the signs of the time, it must have been understood that the end was very near. Not the alleged immorality of the Religious, but the decay of their numbers, the wasting of their property, the withdrawal of support by the laity, might have warned those under vows that a change was nigh at hand. I do not suppose that many of them heard this warning. Who could believe, standing in the great church, glittering with lights, with gold and silver, rich with colour, splendid with carved work, that the axe was already laid to the root?
The people of London were not, it is true, consulted. Henry was not the kind of man to consult the illiterate on points of Theology or Spiritual Government. They were, however, filled with a vague unrest of new ideas; we know not what survivals of the old Lollardry lingered and were whispered about, or spoken openly; we know not how widely the ballads and satirical verses against monks and friars were repeated and sung and made the subject of merriment in the taverns. We do know, however, that the King ordered and that the people of London obeyed. I think it incredible that even the most masterful of English kings should have dared to force changes so radical upon an unwilling city. London was never remarkable for meekness, and in matters religious was never uncertain. The King must have known that the people of London, at least, would be with him. London, therefore, obeyed; the people looked on while the Pope of Rome vanished; they made no protest when they saw Monks, Nuns, and Friars turned out of doors and their Houses closed; they looked on without a murmur even when the Carthusians were dragged to a horrible doom. Was this callousness? Was it fear? Was it acquiescence in the Revolution, with the hope of larger things to follow? For my own part, looking at the attitude of the citizens during the successive reigns of Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, I think there can be no doubt as to the general opinion at the time, and that it was from the outset in favour of the Dissolution of the Houses and the Dispersion of the Religious; in favour of denying the authority of the Pope; eager for the free readings of the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongue and for the right of that private interpretation which seems so easy to the illiterate. As regards ritual, the changes, as will be explained later, were gradual; the introduction of distinctive Protestant doctrine was not brought about in a day; the genesis of the Puritanic spirit does not belong to the Revolution under Henry.
MARTYRS AT SMITHFIELD
E. Gardner’s Collection.
Let us endeavour to realise something of the extraordinary change which the Suppression of the Houses brought about in London. Fortunately the work was carried on by successive Acts, covering a period of fifteen years or so; it was not until 1548, for instance, that the whole of the chantries, colleges, etc., were suppressed.
The point of departure is, naturally, the expulsion and the dispersion of the Religious of all Orders. At this point most historians stop. Yet this was only the beginning.
Consider, then, the number of those turned out of the London Houses. We may arrive at an approximation of the number by the following considerations. There were 202 Houses, not counting Friaries, dissolved in 1538–1540.
They contained, in all, 3221 Monks and Canons. This gives an average of 16 Brethren to each House. Now there were in London some twenty Houses great and small—say from St. Peter’s, Westminster, to Jesus Commons. In the same proportion there would thus be 300 Monks and Canons. In the same proportion, also, there would be about a fourth of that number of Nuns. Now, these monks and nuns were not sent out into a cold world empty-handed. Not at all. They received pensions. The nuns of St. Helen’s, for instance, received pensions of £2:14:4 each. The chantry priests of the same place, whose stipends had been £6:13:4 and £7 respectively, obtained pensions of £5 each. We must, in fact, put aside altogether the generally received notion of the Dissolution as an Act which drove thousands of holy men and women out of their homes—abodes of piety and virtue—to starve. There was no starvation at all: the pensions though small were intended to be sufficient; we have therefore the fact that some 400 Religious of London were made to lay down the habit of their Profession and to go forth into the world on pensions large enough to maintain them. What became of them? Many of the older monks and nuns doubtless felt acutely the change of habit; the loss of the former life—its quiet, its self-centred interests, its community; some of the younger men, we cannot doubt, willingly turned themselves to secular pursuits; some lived quietly, keeping up privately, two or three together, some manner of religious life; some were concealed in the country and a few, perhaps, in town, and led the life of the Rule in a clandestine manner; some, again, the restraint of their vows being withdrawn, ran into excesses and fell into the mire; some haunted taverns, to the disgrace of their former calling. But of suffering or privation I cannot discover that there was much, if any, either for monks or nuns. It is pretended that the pensions were irregularly paid. The evidence seems to me insufficient; in regard to the nuns of St. Helen’s, we have positive evidence pointing in the opposite direction.
The greatest sufferers were, as we have seen, the friars. For them there was no pity; for them there were no pensions; no one believed in them any longer; their day was done. There appeared, a short time ago, a book written by one who had been for twelve years a friar: he came out of the House; he laid down his frock and renounced his vows; and he wrote a book in which he described the life of his late brethren. It is not an exaggerated or an ill-natured book; it is simply a plain statement of the manner of life led by the friars of these days. Looking through its pages one begins unconsciously to consider the friars of the early sixteenth century—the friars in their last days—by the light of this revelation. Now the modern friar is a man of some education and some culture. Take away his education and his culture in order to get at the friar of the Tudor time. Place him in a time much rougher and coarser in manners; give him nothing to do: no work either of mental or physical kind; and to the general futility and unreality of life in a modern friary add the temptations, almost irresistible to the uneducated mind of the ordinary friar, of the world around him. In this way one may succeed, perhaps, in understanding the reasons for the unpopularity of the friars.