The parliament, which, by successive prorogations, had sat for the unprecedented term of six years, was now dissolved; and Henry, after all their passive obedience, appears to have been disgusted at this their last and feeble effort at opposition. He now named other commissioners to take possession of the suppressed monasteries, and to prepare measures for the seizure of others. If these men, mostly the friends of Cromwell or of Cranmer, had a better religion before their eyes, they certainly were not blind to the charms of lucre, and the temptations of fair houses and fat glebes; as many of them made a harvest for themselves, out of the spoils of the monks and nuns.[115]
The superiors of the suppressed houses were promised small pensions for life, which were very irregularly paid. All the monks not twenty-four years of age were absolved from their vows, and turned loose upon the world without any kind of provision; the rest, if they wished to continue in the profession, were divided among the greater houses that were still left standing. The poor nuns were turned adrift to beg or starve; having nothing given to them, save one common gown for each.[116] “These things,” says Godwin, “were of themselves distasteful to the vulgar sort, of whom each one did, as it were, claim a share in the goods of the church; for many being neither monks, nor allied to monks, did, notwithstanding, conceive that it might hereafter come to pass that either their children, friends, or kindred, might obtain their share; whereas, when all their property was once confiscated, they could never hope for any such advantages. But the popular commiseration for the thousands of monks and nuns who were, almost without warning given, thrust out of doors, and committed to the mercy of the world, became a more forcible cause of discontent. There were not wanting desperate men to take advantage of this state of public feeling; and it was diligently rumoured in all parts, that this was but the beginning of greater evils and more general spoliations—only a trial of their patience; that, as yet, the shrubs and underwood were but touched; but unless a speedy remedy were applied, the end would be with the fall of the lofty oaks.” At the same time, the crowds of poor, who, by an ancient but defective system, had derived their support from the monastic establishments, became furious at finding their resources cut off, and at seeing the monks who had fed them now begging like themselves by the roadsides.
In the midst of these general discontents, Cranmer and Cromwell issued certain doctrinal injunctions to the clergy, which were too novel to find immediate favour with the multitude; and certain Protestant reformers, who had more courage than they, ventured to print books about Iconolatria, image-worship, auricular confession, transubstantiation, and other fundamental tenets and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. The king, who assumed all the authority in matters of dogmas that had ever been claimed by the popes, and much more than they had ever put in practice in England, pronounced rewards and sentences which irritated both parties alike, and all these questions were referred to him—thus occupying a good deal of his time, and keeping in dangerous activity his old political bile.[117] We find the Lord Chancellor Audley writing in great perturbation to Cromwell, telling him that “there is a book come forth in print, touching the taking away of images, and begging to know whether he was privy to the publishing thereof,” which Cranmer probably was,[118] though, had such a fact been known to his master at that moment, his neck would have been in jeopardy. The chancellor says, “I assure you, in the parts where I have been, some discord there is, and diversity of opinion among the people, touching the worshipping of saints and images; and for creeping, kneeling at cross, and such like ceremonies heretofore used in the church, which discord it were good should be put to silence; and this book will make much business in the same, if it should go forth. Wherefore,” he continues, “I pray you, I may be advised whether you know it or no, for I intend to send for the printers and stop them; but there may be many abroad. It were good that the preachers and people abstained from opinions of such things, till such time as by the report of such as the king’s highness hath appointed for the searching and ordering of laws of the church, his grace may put a final order on such things, how his people and subjects shall use themselves without contention. And if the people were thus commanded by proclamation to abstain till that time, such proclamation, drawn in honest terms, would do much good to avoid contention.”[119]
The king was by no means backward in issuing his final orders and decrees spiritual; and the reformers herein concealing their ulterior views, he was led to reduce the number of sacraments from seven to three—Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and Penance; to forbid the direct adoration of images; to abrogate a number of saints’ days or holidays, especially such as fell in harvest time; to declare the Scriptures, with the Apostolic, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds, the sole standards of faith; to order every parish priest to expound these to his parishioners in plain English; and to direct the printing and distribution of an English translation of the Bible, one copy of which was to be kept in every parish church. The king, in his wisdom, insisted on the necessity of auricular confession, and denounced any questioning of the ‘real presence’ in the eucharist as a damnable heresy, to be punished with fire and faggot. Purgatory, he confessed, puzzled him; steering a middle course, he declared himself to be uncertain on this head; and kindly permitted his subjects to pray for the souls of their departed friends, provided only that they fell into none of the old abuses of enriching religious houses and shrines for this object.[120]
“Meanwhile,” says the historian, “the king continued much prone to reformation, especially if anything might be gotten by it.” Nothing was more easy than to prove that all the monastic orders had been engaged in the late insurrection;[121] and as many of the richest abbeys and priories remained as yet untouched, there was no want of wise counsellors, all anxious to share in the spoil, who recommended their total suppression. In some cases, out of a dread of martial law, or, what was equally bad, a prosecution for high treason, the Abbots surrendered, gave, and granted their abbeys unto the king, his heirs and assigns for ever; but still many replied, like the prior of Henton, “that they would not be light and hasty in giving up those things which were not theirs to give, being dedicated to the Almighty for service to be done to his honour continually, with other many good deeds of charity which be daily done in their houses to their Christian neighbours.”[122] “These recusants were treated with great severity; the prisons were crowded with priors and monks, who died so rapidly in their places of confinement, as to excite a dreadful suspicion.”
Without waiting for a “needless act of parliament, the king suppressed many other houses; and soon after, with the full consent of Lords and Commons, finished the business, by seizing all the abbeys without exception, with all the other religious houses, except a very few, which, at the earnest petition of the people, were spared or given up to the representatives of their original founders.” Before proceeding to the “final suppression, under the pretence of checking the superstitious worshipping of images, he had laid bare their altars, and stripped their shrines of everything that was valuable; nor did he spare the rich coffins and the crumbling bones of the dead.” At the distance of four hundred years—exasperated at that extraordinary man’s opposition to the royal prerogative—he determined to execute vengeance on the bones and relics of
Thomas a Becket.—The Martyr’s tomb was broken open; and by an insane process, worthy of a Nero or a Caligula, a criminal information was filed against him as “Thomas Becket, some time Archbishop of Canterbury;” and he was formally cited to appear in court, and answer to the charges. Thirty days were allowed the saint; but we need hardly inform our readers that his dishonoured relics rested quietly at Canterbury, and did not appear to plead in Westminster Hall. With due solemnity the court opened its proceedings.[123] The attorney-general eloquently exposed the case for the prosecution, and the advocates of the saint—who no doubt spoke less boldly—were heard in defence; and that being over, sentence was pronounced, that “Becket” had been guilty of rebellion, treason, and contumacy; that his bones should be burnt as a lesson to the living not to oppose the royal will; and that the rich offerings with which many generations of men, native and foreign, had enriched his shrine, should be forfeited to the crown as the personal property of the traitor. “In the month of August,” continues the historian, “Cromwell, who must have smiled at the course pursued, sent down some of his commissioners to Canterbury, who executed their task so well, that they filled two immense coffers with gold and jewels, each of them so heavy that it required eight strong men to lift it.” “Among the rest,” says Godwin, “was a stone of especial lustre, called the Royal of France, offered by King Louis VII., in the year 1179; together with a great massive cup of gold, at what time he also bestowed an annuity on the monks of that church of an hundred tuns of wine. This stone was afterwards highly prized by the king, who did continually wear it on his thumb.” A few months after, the king, by proclamation, stated to his people, that forasmuch as it now clearly appears Thomas Becket had been killed in a riot provoked by his own obstinacy and insolence, and had been canonized by the Bishop of Rome merely because he was champion of that usurped authority, he now deemed it proper to declare that he was no saint whatever, but a rebel and traitor to his prince: and that, therefore, he, the king, strictly commanded that he should not be any longer esteemed or called a saint; that all images and pictures of him should be destroyed; and that his name and remembrance should be erased out of all books, under pain of his majesty’s indignation, and imprisonment at his grace’s pleasure.[124]
The revenues of Tinterne Abbey, though far inferior to others of the same order, particularly those in Yorkshire, were still sufficient for the maintenance of the brotherhood, the repairs and decoration of the buildings, and the exercise of hospitality, which formed so important a feature in the monastic code. The estimate recorded by Dugdale is probably under the mark; while that of Speed may possibly exceed, by a few pounds, the actual rental of the abbey lands. The former has computed it at £192. 1s. 3d., the latter at £252. 11s. 6d., sums which, taking into account the value of money in those times, give no mean idea of its annual resources. This sum, however, is exclusive of the daily tribute received from the pious hands of pilgrims, and the donations of many distinguished guests, who, from time to time, sat at the Abbot’s table, or found refuge in its sanctuary.
The details of the first endowments[125] of Tinterne Abbey, as well as various later benefactions, down to the seventh year of Henry the Third, are contained in a charter of confirmation from William Marshall, grandson of Walter de Clare, the founder.
“Herein,” says Tanner, “were thirteen religious about the time of the dissolution, when the estates belonging to this monastery were rated at £256. 11s. 6d. in the gross, and £192. 1s. 4-1/2d. per annum, clear income.”