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1535-]

THE KING EXCOMMUNICATED.

some kind of formal submission, and escaped abroad.

"So fell the monks of the London Charterhouse, splintered to pieces-for so only could their resistance be overcomeby the iron sceptre and the iron hand. which held it. The story claims from us that sympathy which is the due of their exalted courage."

The trial and death of the Carthusian monks sent a thrill of horror through Europe. The death of cardinal Fisher and More filled up the cup of indignation at Rome, and the insulting words of the acts directed against the supremacy of Rome, followed by the stern measures adopted by Henry to enforce the statutes, such as the erasure of the prayers in which the name of the Pope appeared, were avenged by Pope Paul III. in perhaps the most terrific instrument ever issued from the Roman chancery. The language of that bull of interdict and anathema, was indeed terrible. The king of England was pronounced accursed. When he died his body was to remain unburied; his soul, blasted with anathemas, would be cast into hell; while the lands of his subjects who remained faithful to him were laid under a interdict, their children were disinherited, their marriages illegal, their wills invalid. All the subjects

* Froude.

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of the king without exception were absolved from their allegiance. The entire nation, under the dread penalty of excommunication, was commanded no longer to acknowledge Henry as their sovereign. The clergy, leaving a few of their number to baptise the new-born infants, were to withdraw from the accursed land, and return no more till it had submitted. The awful anathema was for the time, owing, it is said, to the remonstrance or the intercession the intercession of Francis I., king of France, suspended. Three years later, however, in 1538, when by the continued destruction of monasteries, shrines, and sacred images, hereafter to be related, and above all by the outrage on Canterbury and its revered saint, St. Thomas Becket, the king of England had dared the worst, the dread bull of excommunication and deposition was finally launched. But it fell in strange silence. disregarded in England, and on the Continent no one seems to have paid much heed to it. The power of England was too great to be assailed by any faithful servant of Rome. So utterly did the scathing papal anathema fail in its purpose, so harmlessly fell the bolt from Rome, which was intended to wither Henry and his advisers, that men have even asked whether the instrument in question was ever formally promulgated at all!

It was

CHAPTER XLVI.

SUPPRESSION OF THE LESSER MONASTERIES.

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Iniquity of the Suppression as carried out by Henry VIII.-Cromwell's Visitation of the UniversitiesVisitation of the Lesser Monasteries in 1535-The Commissioners-The Vicar-General-The King -All the Lesser Monasteries granted to the Crown by the Parliament of 1536-The Charges of Immorality-The King's "Declaration or Black Book-The "Comperta "-Obvious Inconsistency of the Accusations-Absence of Confessions-Subservience of the Parliament-Testimony of the Pensions-The Act itself Vindicates the Large Houses--Political Motives for the Suppression -Its Method--Statistics-Popular Revolt in Lincolnshire-Suppression by the King-The "Pilgrimage of Grace"-Intrigues of Cardinal Pole-Henry's Vengeance.

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T would be impossible for the unbiassed historian to advance any convincing pleas for the purity of Henry VIII.'s motives in the carrying out of the suppression of the monastic orders in his realm. Those among us-and they form the large majority of the thoughtful and cultured in our land-who are thoroughly persuaded of the immense advantage which the Reformation as a whole brought to our church and country, look with the gravest disapprobation on the great confiscation which took place, and on the means used to bring this suppression and confiscation about. Reformation was imperatively needed in the church, in her doctrines and teaching, in her forms and ceremonies, in her government, and in the means she used to maintain and to spread her influence among the people. In the majority of cases, in the houses of the monastic orders reformation was even more imperatively needed than among the so-called secular clergy. More even than reformation was needed here; complete, changed conditions were required, new aims, new ideals, new work, were wanted, for it is indisputable that the mediaval monastery had outlived the period of its usefulness.

But reformation and change, adaptation to new conditions of society, are very different from destruction. And it was destruction, not reformation; it was utter ruin, not well-considered change and wise reconstruction, which passed over that mighty monastic system which had existed and flourished for so many centuries, which had conferred such enduring benefits upon society, especially during the earlier Middle Ages. earlier Middle Ages. Its possessions, most of its lordly buildings and priceless treasures, its ministers-very many of them devoted. and earnest servants of the church, very many of them men holy and humble of heart-were simply overwhelmed in that mighty wave of destruction called the suppression of the monastic orders, and appeared no more.

England and her church indisputably owes much to Henry VIII.-not a little, indeed, to some of his advisers. The fair historian must grant this, must acknowledge the great debt; but in the matter of the suppression and confiscation of the monasteries, as it was actually carried out, he can deal out little but words of condemnation and regret. The instruments he chose for his work were evil

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of the monastic orders was a useful contribution to their memoir, have without investigation repeated again and again the unhappy but often quite untrue recital; and so it has come to pass that the story of the supposed wrong-doing, and of the crushing punishment which followed the accumulated sin of the monks and nuns of England, has taken its place among the "Credenda," among the things taught as absolutely true to every English boy and girl. The writer of this history, while yielding to no one in his profound conviction of the inestimable benefits which the Reformation has brought to England and her most ancient church, feels that the grave recital, instead of suffering, will immeasurably gain in the estimation of all serious men, by the frank confession of this grave and irreparable error.

So deeply had the conviction of the guilt of the "Orders" sunk into men's hearts, that it is only in the last few years that the English monk has found defenders bold enough to speak a word in his defence. But recent study has at last stirred up among our countrymen a suspicion that a cruel injustice has been done. This suspicion has now found bold and open expression. Dr. Gasquet, the Roman Catholic historian, naturally a partisan, in glowing language denounces the cruel falseness of the charge, and the terrible. nature of the fatally destructive punishment; openly ascribing to the royal author of the charge, and the execution of the punishment, a miserable passion for plunder, as the ignoble motive alike of charge and punishment. The careful and painstaking nature of his work, and the historical weight of the evidence he brings

to bear on his important study of the monasteries and their suppression, will ever win for Dr. Gasquet the respectful attention of all serious historians of the Reformation period, even when they find it necessary to differ from some of his conclusions. Canon Dixon, an Anglican writer, in his exhaustive history of the period, after fresh examination of the evidence for and against the religious orders in the England of the sixteenth century, virtually comes. to the same conclusions respecting the unrighteousness of the cruel suppression as the Roman Catholic scholar, and in his summary asserts that even under the changed conditions of the age, they were doing fairly the work for which they had been founded. Mr. Green, who certainly cannot be suspected of any undue partiality for mediæval forms of religion, in his cold and measured language, writing on the suppression of the religious houses, and the charges upon which the great ruin was based, says: "The character of the visitors, the sweeping nature of their report, and the long debate (in Parliament) which followed on its reception, leaves little doubt that the charges were grossly exaggerated."

It is, indeed, difficult to credit Henry VIII. with lofty motives in this matter of the confiscation of the monastic property. As a statesman of no ordinary capacity, trained by his great minister Wolsey, the king could not help seeing that much of the monks' work was done. The education of the people was no longer in their hands. The conservation and multiplication of books had passed altogether from the monastics, since the invention and marvellous development of the printing press.

1535

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THE UNIVERSITIES VISITED.

Bishop Stubbs, indeed, does not hesitate to speak of the incurable uselessness of the monastic orders in the time of Wolsey." The perpetual danger which the presence of the "Orders," devoted heart and soul to Rome, would have been to England after the abolition of the Roman supremacy -a danger thoroughly understood by the statesmanlike Henry VIII., is discussed a little further on, and really constitutes the best apologia for the king's action. A complete recasting of the monastic system, of the monk's work and office, was indeed imperatively needed; and not improbably in the first instance Henry satisfied his conscience by purposing to employ the larger portion of the revenues he proposed to confiscate for urgent state purposes, such as national defence; for more practical religious objects, such as endowing new bishoprics; and for education, such as the establishment of colleges and schools. Some of these things Wolsey had planned in the day of his power. But the pitiful allotment for these purposes that the king eventually made of the vast property which fell into his hands from the plundered orders, compels us to see in the whole business only a miserable example of greed. The poor excuses for the suppression made in the days of the lesser and earlier confiscations, when he charged the dispossessed monks with nameless crimes and shameless profligacy, were all silently silently dropped as time went on; and the confiscation of all the greater monasteries and their vast revenues was carried out by the imperious sovereign with scarcely an effort to throw a flimsy veil of pretended justice over his arbitrary act. But the cruel and sweeping accusations made in the first

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instances instances against the smaller religious houses, and upon which the Act of Parliament legalising the suppression and confiscation of the lesser monasteries was based, have never been forgotten, and have served to blacken permanently the character of all the "religious," who suffered grievous wrong at the hands of Henry VIII. The wickedness of the monk and nun of the fifteenth century has become one of the articles of common belief among the English-speaking peoples.

Under the enormous powers granted him, the vicar-general, Cromwell, determined, before commencing a visitation of the monasteries, to inquire into the state of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He appointed for this purpose two commissioners, who afterwards obtained an unenviable notoriety in the great confiscation-Drs. Layton and Leigh. It does not seem that much scope was found for their reforming zeal in either Oxford or Cambridge. In the report on Oxford. we read that in several colleges Dr. Layton found lectures well kept and diligently frequented; but nevertheless, he suggested some alteration in the mode of study. A few new lectures were founded in Greek and Latin, while some stern regulations were made in the case of the students of the monastic colleges. From the first, in all his dealings with the monastic orders, a bitter and hostile spirit was unmistakably manifest on the part of the vicar-general, Cromwell. Some Greek and Hebrew lectures were also instituted at Cambridge. Generally, however, in spite of the visitation, the two universities were left practically unharmed.

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