Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/261

1539.] The Abbot was absent at a country house a mile and a half distant. They followed him, informed him of the cause of their coming, and asked him a few questions. His answers were 'nothing to the purpose;' that is to say, he confessed nothing to the visitors' purpose. He was taken back to the abbey; his private apartments were searched, and a book of arguments was found there against the King's divorce, pardons, copies of bulls, and a Life of Thomas à Becket—nothing particularly criminal, though all indicating the Abbot's tendencies. The visitors considered their discoveries 'a great matter.' The Abbot was again questioned; and this time his answers appeared to them 'cankered and traitorous.' He was placed in charge of a guard, and sent to London to the Tower, to be examined by Cromwell himself, when it was discovered that both he and the Abbot of Reading had supplied the northern insurgents with money. The occasion of his absence was taken for the dissolution of the house; and, as the first preliminary, an inventory was made of the plate, the furniture, and the money in the treasury. Glastonbury was one of the wealthiest of the religious houses. A