Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/171

Rh the country during the past ten centuries had likewise been ruined, till out of some two hundred and fifty religious houses, not one was at the last left in England. True, the inmates had for the most part lost much of their old enthusiasm and religious fervour: luxury and wealth had bred vice and immorality within their walls, but to the King of England they were "garrisons of the Pope" within his realm, stout upholders of the traditions that he wished to set aside, and strong opponents to his wishes. Moreover, they had rich lands and stores of treasure which were sorely needed to meet the King's increasing expenditure. Though for the most part men succumbed to what they deemed the Inevitable, and, "stupid in their despair," left their monasteries at the King's command, yet there were those who were ready to die for the faith they held to be more precious than life itself. Amid the prevailing gloom we see "gallant men whose high forms, the sunset of the old faith, stand transfigured on the horizon, tinged with the light of its dying glory." The old Abbot of Glastonbury—infirm and broken—hangs on the gallows erected on the Tor overlooking his once famous Abbey on a bleak November morning in 1539, strong in his