The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (224 page)

PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

168

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/790

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 3

On the whole, the king, at different times, suppressed six hundred and forty-five monasteries: Of which twenty-eight had abbots, that enjoyed a seat in parliament.

Ninety colleges were demolished in several counties; two thousand three hundred and seventy-four chantries and free chapels: A hundred and ten hospitals. The whole revenue of these establishments amounted to one hundred and sixty-one thousand one hundred pounds.
r
It is worthy of observation, that all the lands and possessions and revenue of England had, a little before this period, been rated at four millions a year; so that the revenues of the monks, even comprehending the lesser monasteries, did not exceed the twentieth part of the national income: A sum vastly inferior to what is commonly apprehended. The lands belonging to the convents, were usually let at very low rent; and the farmers, who regarded themselves as a species of proprietors, took always care to renew their leases before they expired.
NOTE [L]

Great murmurs were every where excited on account of these violences; and men much questioned, whether priors and monks, who were only trustees or tenants for life, could, by any deed, however voluntary, transfer to the king the entire property of their estates. In order to reconcile the people to such mighty innovations, they were told, that the king would never thenceforth have occasion to levy taxes, but would be able from the abbey lands alone, to bear, during war as well as peace, the whole

charges of government.t
While such topics were employed to appease the populace, Henry took an effectual method of interesting the nobility and gentry in the success of

his measures:u
He either made a gift of the revenues of convents to his favourites and courtiers, or sold them at low prices, or exchanged them for other lands on very disadvantageous terms. He was so profuse in these liberalities, that he is said to have given a woman the whole revenue of a convent, as a reward for making a pudding, which happened to gratify his palate.
w
He also settled pensions on the abbots and priors, proportioned to their former revenues or to their merits; and gave each monk a yearly pension of eight marks: He erected six new bishoprics, Westminster, Oxford, Peterborow, Bristol, Chester, and Gloucester; of which five subsist at this day: And by all these means of expence and dissipation, the profit, which the king reaped by the seizure of church lands, fell much short of vulgar opinion. As the ruin of convents had been foreseen some years before it happened, the monks had taken care to secrete most of their stock, furniture, and plate; so that the spoils of the great monasteries bore not, in these respects, any proportion to those of the lesser.

Beside the lands, possessed by the monasteries, the regular clergy enjoyed a considerable part of the benefices of England, and of the tythes, annexed to them; and these were also at this time transferred to the crown, and by that means passed into the hands of laymen: An abuse which many zealous churchmen regard as the most criminal sacrilege. The monks were formerly much at their ease in England, and enjoyed revenues, which exceeded the regular and stated expence of the house. We read of the abbey of Chertsey in Surrey, which possessed 744 pounds a year, though it contained only fourteen monks: That of Furnese, in the county of Lincoln, was valued at 960 pounds a year, and contained but thirty.
x
In order to dissipate their revenues, and support popularity, the monks lived in a hospitable manner; and besides the poor, maintained from their offals, there were many decayed gentlemen, who passed their lives in travelling from convent to convent, and were entirely subsisted at the tables of the friars. By this hospitality, as much as by their own inactivity, did the convents PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

169

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/790

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 3

prove nurseries of idleness; but the king, not to give offence by too sudden an innovation, bound the new proprietors of abbey lands, to support the ancient hospitality. But this engagement was fulfilled in very few places, and for a very short time.

It is easy to imagine the indignation, with which the intelligence of all these acts of violence was received at Rome; and how much the ecclesiastics of that court, who had so long kept the world in subjection by high sounding epithets, and by holy execrations, would now vent their rhetoric against the character and conduct of Henry.

The pope was at last incited to publish the bull, which had been passed against that monarch; and in a public manner he delivered over his soul to the devil, and his dominions to the first invader. Libels were dispersed, in which he was anew compared to the most furious persecutors in antiquity; and the preference was now given to their side: He had declared war with the dead, whom the pagans themselves respected; was at open hostility with heaven; and had engaged in professed enmity with the whole host of saints and angels. Above all, he was often reproached with his resemblance to the emperor Julian, whom, it was said, he imitated in his apostacy and learning, though he fell short of him in morals. Henry could distinguish in some of these libels the stile and animosity of his kinsman, Pole; and he was thence incited to vent his rage, by every possible expedient, on that famous cardinal.

Reginald de la Pole, or Reginald Pole, was descended from the Cardinal Pole.

royal family, being fourth son of the countess of Salisbury, daughter of the duke of Clarence. He gave in early youth indications of that fine genius, and generous disposition, by which, during his whole life, he was so much distinguished; and Henry, having conceived great friendship for him, intended to raise him to the highest ecclesiastical dignities; and, as a pledge of future favours, he

conferred on him the deanry of Exeter,y
the better to support him in his education.

Pole was carrying on his studies in the university of Paris, at the time when the king solicited the suffrages of that learned body in favour of his divorce; but though applied to by the English agent, he declined taking any part in the affair. Henry bore this neglect with more temper than was natural to him; and he appeared unwilling, on that account, to renounce all friendship with a person, whose virtues and talents, he hoped, would prove useful, as well as ornamental, to his court and kingdom. He allowed him still to possess his deanry, and gave him permission to finish his studies at Padua: He even paid him some court, in order to bring him into his measures; and wrote to him, while in that university, desiring him to give his opinion freely, with regard to the late measures taken in England, for abolishing the papal authority. Pole had now contracted an intimate friendship with all persons eminent for dignity or merit in Italy, Sadolet, Bembo, and other revivers of true taste and learning; and he was moved by these connections, as well as by religious zeal, to forget, in some respect, the duty which he owed to Henry, his benefactor, and his sovereign. He replied, by writing a treatise of
the unity of the church,
in which he inveighed against the king’s supremacy, his divorce, his second marriage; and he even exhorted the emperor to revenge on him the injury done to the Imperial family, and to the catholic cause. Henry, though provoked beyond measure at this outrage, dissembled his resentment; and he sent a message to Pole, desiring him to return to England, in order to explain certain passages in his book, which he found somewhat obscure and PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

170

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/790

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 3

difficult. Pole was on his guard against this insidious invitation, and was determined to remain in Italy, where he was universally beloved.

The pope and emperor thought themselves obliged to provide for a man of Pole’s eminence and dignity, who, in support of their cause, had sacrificed all his pretensions to fortune in his own country. He was created a cardinal; and though he took not higher orders than those of a deacon, he was sent legate into Flanders about the year 1536.
z
Henry was sensible, that Pole’s chief intention in chusing that employment, was to foment the mutinous disposition of the English catholics; and he therefore remonstrated in so vigorous a manner with the queen of Hungary, regent of the Low Countries, that she dismissed the legate, without allowing him to exercise his functions. The enmity, which he bore to Pole, was now as open, as it was violent; and the cardinal, on his part, kept no farther measures in his intrigues against Henry. He is even suspected of having aspired to the crown, by means of a marriage with the lady Mary; and the king was every day more alarmed by informations, which he received, of the correspondence maintained in England by that fugitive. Courtney, marquis of Exeter, had entered into a conspiracy with him; Sir Edward Nevil, brother to the lord Abergavenny, Sir Nicholas Carew, master of horse, and knight of the garter; Henry de la Pole, lord Montacute, and Sir Geoffrey de la Pole, brothers to the cardinal. These persons were indicted, and tried, and convicted, before lord Audley, who presided in the trial, as high steward, they were all executed, except Sir Geoffrey de la Pole, who was pardoned; and he owed this grace to his having first carried to the king secret intelligence of the conspiracy. We know little concerning the justice or iniquity of the sentence pronounced against these men: We only know, that the condemnation of a man, who was, at that time, prosecuted by the court, forms no presumption of his guilt; though, as no historian of credit mentions, in the present case, any complaint occasioned by these trials, we may presume, that sufficient evidence was produced

against the marquis of Exeter, and his associates.a

PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

171

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/790

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 3

[Back to Table of Contents]

XXXII

Disputation with Lambert — A Parliament — Law of the six articles — Proclamations
made equal to laws — Settlement of the succession — King’s projects of marriage —

He marries Anne of Cleves — He dislikes her — A Parliament — Fall of Cromwel —

His execution — King’s divorce from Anne of Cleves — His marriage with Catherine
Howard — State of affairs in Scotland — Discovery of the Queen’s dissolute life — A
Parliament — Ecclesiastical affairs

The rough hand of Henry seemed well adapted for rending asunder those bands, by which the ancient superstition had fastened itself on the kingdom; and though, after renouncing the pope’s supremacy and

1538.

suppressing monasteries, most of the political ends of

reformation were already attained, few people expected that he would stop at those innovations. The spirit of opposition, it was thought, would carry him to the utmost extremities against the church of Rome; and lead him to declare war against the whole doctrine and worship, as well as discipline, of that mighty hierarchy. He had formerly appealed from the pope to a general council; but now, when a general council was summoned to meet at Mantua, he previously renounced all submission to it, as summoned by the pope, and lying entirely under subjection to that spiritual usurper.

He engaged his clergy to make a declaration to the like purpose; and he had prescribed to them many other deviations from ancient tenets and practices. Cranmer took advantage of every opportunity to carry him on in this course; and while queen Jane lived, who favoured the reformers, he had, by means of her insinuation and address, been successful in his endeavours. After her death, Gardiner, who was returned from his embassy to France, kept the king more in suspence; and by feigning an unlimited submission to his will, was frequently able to guide him to his own purposes. Fox, bishop of Hereford, had supported Cranmer in his schemes for a more thorough reformation; but his death had made way for the promotion of Bonner, who, though he had hitherto seemed a furious enemy to the court of Rome, was determined to sacrifice every thing to present interest, and had joined the confederacy of Gardiner, and the partizans of the old religion. Gardiner himself, it is believed, had secretly entered into measures with the pope, and even with the emperor; and in concert with these powers, he endeavoured to preserve, as much as possible, the ancient faith and worship.

Henry was so much governed by passion, that nothing could have retarded his animosity and opposition against Rome, but some other passion, which stopped his career, and raised him new objects of animosity. Though he had gradually, since the commencement of his scruples with regard to his first marriage, been changing the tenets of that theological system, in which he had been educated, he was no less positive and dogmatical in the few articles which remained to him, than if the whole fabric had continued entire and unshaken. And though he stood alone in his opinion, the flattery of courtiers had so enflamed his tyrannical arrogance, that he thought himself entitled to regulate, by his own particular standard, the religious faith of the whole nation. The point, on which he chiefly rested his orthodoxy, happened to be the PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

172

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/790

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 3

real presence; that very doctrine, in which, among the numberless victories of superstition over common sense, her triumph is the most signal and egregious. All departure from this principle he held to be heretical and detestable; and nothing, he thought, would be more honourable for him, than while he broke off all connexions with the Roman pontiff, to maintain, in this essential article, the purity of the catholic faith.

There was one Lambert,
b
a school-master in London, who had Disputation with

been questioned and confined for unsound opinions by