350. Subserviency of Parliament. But as Luther said, Henry had a pope within him. The King now proceeded to prove the truth of Luther's declaration. We have already seen (§ 328) that since the Wars of the Roses had destroyed the power of the barons, there was no effectual check on the despotic will of the sovereign. The new nobility were the creatures of the Crown, hence bound to support it; the clergy were timid, the Commons anything but bold, so that Parliament gradually became the servile echo and ready instrument of the throne.

That body twice released the King from the discharge of his just debts. It even exempted him from paying certain forced loans which he had extorted from his people. Parliament also repeatedly changed the laws of succession to the Crown to please him. Moreover it promptly attainted and destroyed such victims as he desired to put out of the way (§ 351). Later (1539) it declared that proclamations, concerning religious doctrines, when made by the King and Council, should have the force of acts of Parliament. This new power enabled Henry to pronounce heretical many opinions which he disliked and to punish them with death.

351. Execution of More and Fisher (1535). Thomas Cromwell had been Cardinal Wolsey's private secretary; but he had now become chief counselor to the King, and in his crooked and cruel policy reduced bloodshed to a science. He first introduced the practice of condemning an accused prisoner without any form of trial (by Act of Attainder), and sending him to the block without allowing him to speak in his own defense (§ 356). No one was now safe who did not openly side with the King.

Sir Thomas More, who had been Lord Chancellor (§ 339), and the aged Bishop Fisher were executed because they could not affirm that they conscientiously believed that Henry was morally and spiritually entitled to be the head of the English Church ($ 349).

Both died with Christian fortitude. More said to the governor of the Tower with a flash of his old humor, as the steps leading to the scaffold shook while he was mounting them, "Do you see me safe up, and I will make shift to get down by myself."

1 Act of Attainder. See Constitutional Documents in Appendix, p. xxxii.

1509-1547] DESTRUCTION OF THE MONASTERIES

197

352. Destruction of the Monasteries; Seizure of their Property, 1536-1539. When the intelligence of the judicial murder of the venerable ex-chancellor reached Rome, the Pope issued a bull of excommunication and deposition against Henry (§ 194). It delivered his soul to Satan, and his kingdom to the first invader.

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The King retaliated by the suppression of the monasteries. In doing so, he simply hastened a process which had already begun. Years before, Cardinal Wolsey had not scrupled to shut up several, and take their revenues to found Christ Church College at Oxford. The truth was, that, in most cases, monasticism was dead long before the Reformation came to bury it" (§ 339, note 1). It was dead because it had done its work, in many respects a great and good work, which the world could ill have spared (§§ 43, 45, 46, 60). The monasteries simply shared the fate of all human institutions, however excellent they may be.

"Our little systems have their day;

They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of Thee,

And Thou, O Lord, art more than they." 1

Henry, however, had no such worthy object as Wolsey had. His pretext was that these institutions had sunk into a state of ignorance, drunkenness, and profligacy. This may have been true of some of the smaller monasteries, though not of the large ones. But the vices of the monasteries the King had already made his own. It was their wealth which he now coveted. The smaller religious houses were speedily swept out of existence (1536). This caused a furious insurrection in the North, called the "Pilgrimage of Grace" (1537); but the revolt was soon put down.

Though Parliament had readily given its sanction to the extinction of the smaller monasteries, it hesitated about abolishing the greater ones. Henry, it is reported, sent for a leading member of the House of Commons, and, laying his hand on the head of the kneeling representative, said, "Get my bill passed by to-morrow, little man, or else to-morrow this head of yours will come off." The next day the bill passed, and the work of destruction began

1 Tennyson's "In Memoriam."

anew (1539). Property worth millions of pounds was confiscated, and abbots like those of Glastonbury and Charter House, who dared to resist, were speedily hanged.1

The magnificent monastic buildings throughout England were now stripped of everything of value, and left as ruins. (See map opposite.) The beautiful windows of stained glass were wantonly broken; the images of the saints were cast down from their niches ; the chimes of bells were melted and cast into cannon; while the valuable libraries were torn up and sold to grocers and soap boilers for wrapping paper.

At Canterbury, Becket's tomb (§ 170) was broken open, and after he had been nearly four centuries in his grave, the saint was summoned to answer a charge of rebellion and treason. The case was tried at Westminster Abbey, the martyr's bones were sentenced to be burned, and the jewels and rich offerings of his shrine were seized by the King.

Among the few monastic buildings which escaped was the beautiful abbey church, now the cathedral of Peterborough, where Catharine of Aragon ($ 345), who died soon after the King's marriage with her rival, was buried. Henry had the grace to give orders that on her account it should be spared, saying that he would leave to her memory one of the goodliest monuments in Christendom."

The great estates thus suddenly acquired by the Crown were granted to favorites or thrown away at the gambling table. "It is from this date," says Hallam, "that the leading families of England, both within and without the peerage, became conspicuous through having obtained possession of the monastery lands." These were estimated to comprise about one fourth of the whole area of the kingdom.

353. Effects of the Destruction of the Monasteries. The sweeping character of this act had a twofold effect. First, it made the King more absolute than before, for, since it removed the abbots, who had held seats in the House of Lords, that body was made just so much smaller and less able to resist the royal will.

1 The total number of religious houses destroyed was 645 monasteries, 2374 chapels, 90 collegiate churches, and 110 charitable institutions. Among the most famous of these ruins are Glastonbury, Kirkstall, Furness, Netley, Tintern, and Fountains abbeys.

Next, the abolition of so many religious institutions necessarily caused much misery, for the greater part of the monks and all of the nuns were turned out upon the world destitute of means. In the end, however, no permanent injury was done, since the monasteries, by their profuse and indiscriminate charity, had undoubtedly encouraged much of the very pauperism which they had relieved.

354. Distress among the Laboring Classes. An industrial revolution was also in progress at this time, which was productive of widespread suffering. It had begun early in Henry's reign through the great numbers of discharged soldiers, who could not readily find work.

Sir Thomas More had given a striking picture of their miserable condition in his "Utopia," a book in which he urged the government to consider measures for their relief; but the evil had since become much worse. Farmers, having discovered that wool growing was more profitable than the raising of grain, had turned their fields into sheep pastures; so that a shepherd with his dog now took the place of several families of laborers.

This change brought multitudes of poor people to the verge of starvation; and as the monasteries no longer existed to hold out a helping hand, the whole realm was overrun with beggars and thieves. Bishop Latimer, a noted preacher of that day, declared that if every farmer should raise two acres of hemp, it would not make rope enough to hang them all. Henry, however, set to work with characteristic vigor and made away, it is said, with great numbers, but without materially abating the evil (§ 403).

355. Execution of Anne Boleyn; Marriage with Jane Seymour (1536). Less than three years after her coronation, the new Queen, Anne Boleyn (§§ 343, 349), for whom Henry had "turned England and Europe upside down," was accused of unfaithfulness. She was sent a prisoner to the Tower. A short time after, her head rolled in the dust, the light of its beauty gone out forever.

The next morning Henry married Jane Seymour, Anne's maid of honor. Parliament passed an act of approval, declaring that it was all done" of the King's most excellent goodness." It also declared Henry's two previous marriages, with Catharine and with Anne Boleyn, void, and affirmed that their children, the Princesses