Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/332

312 to accomplish unmixed evil be to fail. It has been mentioned that the year before the death of Henry, the remaining property of all ecclesiastical and semi-ecclesiastical foundations, the lands, the rentcharges, the miscellaneous donations for the support of universities, colleges, schools, hospitals, alms-houses, or parochial charities, for chantries, trentals, obits, masses, for stipendiary priests in family or other chapels, for religious services of different kinds, for candles, offerings, ornaments of churches, and other useful or superstitious purposes, were placed by Parliament in the hands of the King, to receive such 'alterations' as the change of times required. The task of dealing with complicated property where the use and the abuse were elaborately interwoven, was at once a difficulty and a temptation. What was good ought to be maintained and extended; increased provision should be made for the poor, for the students at the Universities, for all general objects which the interests of the commonwealth required: endowments for purposes wholly effete or mischievous might be confiscated, and the funds applied to redeem the expenses of the late war. The Parliament had hesitated before they placed so large a trust in the hands of Henry VIII., who had specially thanked the two Houses for so signal an evidence of confidence. But the grant was to himself alone. He had power to appoint commissioners to take possession of the property and make the desired changes, but for the term 'of his natural life' only.