Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/258

244 yearly maketh his hawks, and this year hath made him two which fly and kill their game very well, to his highness's singular pleasure and contentation. And for the pains which the said priest taketh about the same, His Majesty would that he should have one of Mr. Bedell's benefices, if there be any ungiven. And thus the blessed Trinity have your good lordship in his most blessed preservation!"

Such was the disgraceful seizure, and such the greedy grasp with which this fine public property was held by those who got it, that there was not left money enough to pay for the translation of Coverdale's Bible: Coverdale and his coadjutors in the translation were left in poverty and difficulty, and this grand work of the age, and the fountain of much of the knowledge of the Reformation, was checked in its circulation by the high price which the printers were obliged to put upon it.

Amongst the magnificent monastic buildings which were stripped and abandoned, were those of Canterbury, Battle Abbey, Merton in Surrey, Stratford in Essex, Lewes in Sussex, the Charter House, the Black, Grey, and White Friars in London, Furness and Whalley in Lancashire, Fountaines and Riveaux in Yorkshire, and many another noble pile, the ruins of which yet fill us with admiration. Many of the monastic houses had been the hospitals, dispensaries, and infirmaries of the poor, and not a penny of their proceeds was reserved by this strange royal reformer for the same purposes. Others, in wild and solitary districts, had supplied the want of inns and places of lodgings, and the doors being now closed by the inhospitable gentry who had been fortunate enough to get them from the improvident king, made the contrast severely felt by both rich and poor in their journeys. The Chancellor Audley who was as ready as any of the rest of the royal servants to have his share of this spoil, was so struck with the want of some such resorts in lonely and unhealthy districts, that he endeavoured to persuade Cromwell to leave two in Essex—the abbey of St. John's, near Colchester and St. Osyth's. He says there had been twenty houses, great and small, already dissolved in Essex, and that these stood in the end of the shire; St. John's, where water was very much wanted, and St. Osyth's, where it was so marshy that few would care to keep houses of entertainment. "These houses, like others in desolate and uncultivated neighbourhoods," says Blunt, "had been inns for the wayfaring man, who had heard from afar the sound of the vesper bell, at once inviting him to repose and devotion, and who might sing his matins with the morning star, and go on his way rejoicing." But Cromwell had an eye to St. Osyth's for himself, and would not listen to it.

But what every lover of literature and art must still lament over, was the ruthless destruction of so many superb specimens of the architecture and the paintings, the libraries and carved shrines, which were in them. The most beautiful and sublime specimens of architecture were stripped of their roofs, doors, and windows, and left exposed to the elements. Those glorious painted windows, of whose splendour and value we may form some idea by those of the same ages which remain on the Continent, were dashed to atoms by ignorant and brutal hands. The paintings were torn from the walls, or defaced where they could not be removed. The statues and carvings, many of them by great Italian masters, were demolished, thrown down, or mutilated. The mosaic pavements of the chapels were torn up. The bells were torn down, gambled for, and sold into Russia and other countries. The churches of the monasteries were turned into stables and cattle-stalls; horses were tethered to the high altar, and lewd vagabonds lodged in them as they tramped about the country. But most wofulwoeful [sic] was it to see the noble libraries destroyed—those libraries in which the treasures of antiquity had been preserved through many ages. "Some books," says Spelman, in his "History of Sacrilege," "were reserved to scour their candlesticks, some to rub their boots, some sold to grocers and soap-boilers, and some sent over sea to bookbinders, not in small numbers, but at times whole ships full, to the wondering of foreign nations; a single merchant purchasing at forty shillings a-piece two noble libraries, to be used as grey paper, and such as having sufficed for ten years, were abundant enough for many years more."

It is only justice to Cranmer to say, that he saw this miserable waste of the public property with grief and concern, and would have had it appropriated to the promotion of education and religion, and a proper fund for the relief of the poor; but he was far too timid to dare to put the matter plainly before the Royal prodigal. Yet the murmurs of the public induced Henry to think of establishing a number of bishoprics, deaneries, and colleges, with a portion of the lands of the suppressed monasteries. He had an Act passed through Parliament for the establishment of eighteen bishoprics; but it was found that the property intended for those was cleverly grasped by some of his courtiers, and only six out of the eighteen could be erected, namely, Westminster, Oxford, Peterborough, Bristol, Chester, and Gloucester; and some of those were so meagrely endowed, that the new prelates had much ado for a considerable time to live. At the same time, Henry converted fourteen abbeys and priories into cathedral and collegiate churches, attaching to each a deanery and a certain number of prebendaries. These were Canterbury, Rochester, Westminster, Winchester, Bristol, Gloucester, Worcester, Chester, Burton-upon-Trent, Carlisle, Durham, Thornton, Peterborough, and Ely. But he retained a good slice of the property belonging to them, and, at the same time, imposed on the chapters the obligations of paying a considerable sum to the repair of the highways, and another sum to the maintenance of the poor. Such was this wonderful revolution, produced, not by the love of a real reformation of religion, but by the selfish greediness of the king and his courtiers; yet most singularly, under the overruling hand of Providence, producing all the blessings for which these people took no care, establishing eventually the freedom of opinion, the diffusion of knowledge, and the recognition of the claims of the poor on the land.

At the same time that Henry had thus been squandering the monastic property, and had so falsified all his promises of making the crown independent of taxation, that within twelve months he was obliged to come to Parliament for a subsidy of two-tenths and two-fifteenths, he had all along been riveting the doctrines of the Church of Rome faster on the nation, and persecuting all those who dared to call them in question. At one time he had wished to unite with the Reformers of