Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/235

] a wench, also painted on cloth, pinned upon it," the said wench holding a pair of scales in her hand, in which were, in one scale, a pair of hands united, and on the other a feather with a "scripture over the wench's head, 'Love is lighter than a feather,'" at which the people made great jeering and laughter, uttering the most opprobrious words against Queen Anne. Nor did Anne escape reproach even from her own savage lord. When the announcement of More's execution was brought to Henry, he was playing at tables with Anne, whereupon he cast his eyes reproachfully at her, and saying, "Thou art the cause of this man's death," he rose up, leaving his game unfinished, and shut himself up in his chamber, in great perturbation of spirit. Nor were there wanting already the prophetic declarations of the sorrowful reward she would reap for her encouragement of the fell tyrant. When the beloved daughter of More, Margaret Roper, visited her father in the Tower one day, he asked her how Queen Anne did. "In faith, father," she replied, "never better; there is nothing else in the Court but dancing and sporting." "Never better!" said he; "alas, Meg! alas! it pitieth me to think into what misery, poor soul, she will shortly come. These dances of hers will prove such dances, that she will spurn our heads off like footballs; but it will not be long ere her head will dance the like dance." Queen Catherine felt the same certain conviction of Anne's own troubles, for both she and More knew the fickle, unrestrainable nature of the man in whose hand her fate was. "At the time of her sorest troubles," says Dr. Harpfield, "one of her gentlewomen began to curse Anne Boleyn. The queen dried her streaming eyes, and said, earnestly, 'Hold your peace! Curse not—curse her not, but rather pray for her; for even now is the time fast coming when you shall have reason to pity her and lament her case.'" Yet how little could even they guess how near that day was!

But it was not merely in lopping the heads of honest statesmen and prelates that Henry VIII. now displayed the powers of supreme head over the Church. There was a more tempting prey which allured his avaricious soul, and promised to recruit his exhausted treasury. These were the monasteries, convents, and abbeys. These institutions had grown excessively corrupt through time. Without depending on the reports of Henry's commissioners, whoso business it was to make out a case for him against them, there is abundant evidence in contemporary writings that the monks, nuns, and friars were grown extremely sensual and corrupt. They had become wealthy, and wealth and indolence had produced their natural consequences—luxury, voluptuousness, and decay of real religious zeal. In the poets of still earlier days—in Chaucer of England, and Sir David Lindsay of Scotland—we have ample proof of this state of things. Possibly, by reducing their property and enforcing a strict discipline, a tolerable reform might have been introduced into these houses, but Henry was not dreaming of reform, but of confiscation. The clergy of every description were imprudent enough to irritate the lawless king, by denying his supremacy and attacking his conduct. Rage and cupidity alike urged him to imitate the Reformers of Germany, and seize the spoils of this affluent body. Cromwell—whom he had appointed Vicar-General, a strange office for a layman—went the whole length with him in those views; nay, he was the man who first turned his eyes on this great attractive mass of wealth, and hallooed him to the spoil. He had told him that, if once he was established by Parliament as head of the Church, all that opulence was his. There can be no doubt that it was to carry out this seizure that Cromwell was put into that very office of vicar-general, as the only man to do the business, and he went to work upon it with right good will.

The first thing was to appoint a commission, and to obtain such a report as should induce Parliament to pass an act of suppression of all the religious houses, and the forfeiture of all their property to the Crown. The Bishop of Paris, years before, had confidently affirmed, that whenever Wolsey should fall, the spoliation of the Church would quickly follow. To expedite this matter as much as possible, the whole kingdom was divided into districts, and to each district was appointed a couple of commissioners, who were armed with eighty-six questions to propound to the monastic orders. As the supremacy of the king, and approbation of his marriage, were made absolute requisites of compliance, there was little chance of escape for any monastery, be its morals what they might. With creatures selected by Cromwell, and who had the terror of that head-severing king before them, the result was pretty certain; and we have a proof, in a letter of Dr. Layton, one of those commissioners, with what eagerness this office was solicited. He writes to Cromwell:—"Pleaset yowe to understand, that whereas ye intende shortly to visite, and belike shall have many suitors unto yowe for the same, to be your commissioners, if hit might stand with yowr pleasure that Dr. Lee and I might have committed unto us the north contre, and to begyn in Lincoln dioces northwardo here from London, Chester dioces, Yorke, and so forth to the border of Scotlande, to rydo downe one side, and come up the other. Ye shall be well and faste assurrede that ye shall nother fyudo monke, chanone, etc., that shall do the king's highness so good servys, nother be so trusty, trewe, and faithful to yowe. There is nother monasterie, sell, priorie, nor any other religiouse howse in the northe, but other Dr. Lee or I have familiar acquaintance within X. or XII. mylls of hyt, so that no knaverie can be hyde from us. We knowe and have experience both of the fassion of the contre and rudeness of the pepul."

The visitors had secret instructions to seek, in the first place, the lesser houses, and to exhort the inmates voluntarily to surrender them to the king, and, where they did not succeed, to collect such a body of evidence as should warrant the suppression of those houses; but after zealously labouring at this object through the winter, they could only prevail on seven small houses to surrender. A report was then prepared, which considerably surprised the public, by stating that the lesser houses were abandoned to the most shameful sloth and immorality, but that the large and more opulent ones, contrary to all human experience, were more orderly. The secret of this representation was, that the abbots and priors of the great houses were lords of Parliament, and were, therefore, present to expose any false statement.

On the 4th of March, 1536, a bill was passed hastily through both Houses, transferring to the king and his heirs all monastic establishments the clear value of which