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 naturally a cruel man, and he was now drunk with pride and power.

He had already beheaded his second wife Anne, and married his third, Jane Seymour; she bore to him in 1537 a son, afterwards Edward VI, and died a few days afterwards. In the last seven years of his life he married three more wives, one of whom he divorced, another he beheaded, and the third survived him.

In 1539 the remaining monasteries, even the greatest, were dissolved and, as a result, the great abbots ceased to attend Parliament. Some of their wealth was used to found schools and professorships at Oxford and Cambridge, and to create six new bishoprics; but most of it went to the nobles and gentlemen. Thus, within three years, nearly a quarter of the land of England had got new owners. All the great offices of state had been wholly taken away from churchmen, and were now in the hands of these new nobles. New ‘Confessions of Faith’ (declaring what was the true teaching of the Church of England) were published; first the ‘Ten Articles’, then the ‘Six Articles’; the former was a step in the direction of the German Protestantism; the latter was very nearly the old Catholic faith but without the Pope; and I must repeat that it was this midway position which, as late as Henrys own death, most people in England preferred.

But Henry had ordered an English translation of the Bible to be placed in every parish church for every one to read, and in 1544 he allowed the Litany to be said in English; this was really the beginning of our beloved Prayer Book. And, once lay Englishmen began to read the Bible for themselves, they would not long be content to believe in confession to a priest or in the miracle