The soul of "religion,"[482] however, had died out of it for many generations before the Reformation. At the close of the fourteenth century, Wycliffe had cried that the rotting trunk cumbered the ground, and should be cut down. It had not been cut down; it had been allowed to stand for a hundred and fifty more years; and now it was indeed plain that it could remain no longer. The boughs were bare, the stem was withered, the veins were choked with corruption; the ancient life-tree of monasticism would blossom and bear fruit no more. Faith had sunk into superstition; duty had died into routine; and the monks, whose technical discipline was forgotten, and who were set free by their position from the discipline of ordinary duty, had travelled swiftly on the downhill road of human corruption.

Only light reference will be made in this place to the darker scandals by which the abbeys were dishonoured. Such things there really were, to an extent which it may be painful to believe, but which evidence too abundantly proves. It is better, however, to bury the recollection of the more odious forms of human depravity; and so soon as those who condemn the Reformation have ceased to deny what the painfulness of the subject only has allowed to remain disputed, the sins of the last English monks will sleep with them in their tombs. Here, in spite of such denials, the most offensive pictures shall continue to be left in the shade; and persons who wish to gratify their curiosity, or satisfy their unbelief, may consult the authorities for themselves.[483] Political and administrative abuses. I shall confine my own efforts rather to the explanation of the practical, and, in the highest sense of the word, political abuses, which, on the whole, perhaps, told most weightily on the serious judgment of the age.

The abbeys, then, as the State regarded them, existed for the benefit of the poor. The occupants for the time being were themselves under vows of poverty; they might appropriate to their personal use no portion of the revenues of their estates; they were to labour with their own hands, and administer their property for the public advantage. The surplus proceeds of the lands, when their own modest requirements had been supplied, were to be devoted to the maintenance of learning, to the exercise of a liberal hospitality, and to the relief of the aged, the impotent, and the helpless. Fraudulent neglect of duty. The popular clamour of the day declared that these duties were systematically neglected; that two-thirds, at least, of the religious bodies abused their opportunities unfairly for their own advantage; and this at a time when the obligations of all property were defined as strictly as its rights, and negligent lay owners were promptly corrected by the State whenever occasion required. The monks, it was believed, lived in idleness, keeping vast retinues of servants to do the work which they ought to have done themselves.[484] Illegal division of profits. They were accused of sharing dividends by mutual connivance, although they were forbidden by their rule to possess any private property whatever, and of wandering about the country in the disguise of laymen in pursuit of forbidden indulgences.[485] They were bound by their statutes to keep their houses full, and if their means were enlarged, to increase their numbers; they were supposed to have allowed their complement to fall to half, and sometimes to a third, of the original Dishonest administration of the lands.

Neglect of hospitality. Neglect of the poor.

Simony and profligacy. foundation, fraudulently reserving the enlarged profits to themselves. It was thought, too, that they had racked their estates; that having a life-interest only, they had encumbered them with debts, mortgages, and fines; that in some cases they had wholly alienated lands, of which they had less right to dispose than a modern rector of his glebe.[486] In the meantime, it was said that the poor were not fed, that hospitality was neglected, that the buildings and houses were falling to waste, that fraud and Simony prevailed among them from the highest to the lowest, that the abbots sold the presentations to the benefices which were in their gift, or dishonestly retained the cures of souls in their own hands, careless whether the duties of the parishes could or could not be discharged; and that, finally, the vast majority of the monks themselves were ignorant, self-indulgent, profligate, worthless, dissolute.

These, in addition to the heavier accusations, were the charges which the popular voice had for more than a century brought against the monasteries, which had led Wycliffe to denounce their existence as intolerable, the House of Commons to petition Henry IV. for the secularization of their A hundred houses suppressed by Henry V. property, and Henry V. to appease the outcry, by the suppression of more than a hundred, as an ineffectual warning to the rest.[487] At length, in the year 1489, at the instigation of Cardinal Morton, then Archbishop of Canterbury, a commission was issued by Innocent VIII. for a general investigation throughout England into the behaviour of the regular clergy. The pope said that he had heard, from persons worthy of credit, that abbots and monks in many places were systematically faithless to their vows; he Visitation of 1489. conferred on the archbishop a special power of visitation, and directed him to admonish, to correct, to punish, as might seem to him to be desirable.[488] On the receipt of these instructions, Morton addressed the following letter to the superior of an abbey within a few miles of London,—a peer of the realm, living in the full glare of notoriety,—a person whose offences, such as they were, had been committed openly, palpably, and conspicuously in the face of the world:—

"John, by Divine permission, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, Legate of the Apostolic See, to William, Abbot of the Monastery of St. Alban's, greeting.

"We have received certain letters under lead, the copies whereof we herewith send you, from our most holy Lord and Father in Christ, Innocent, by Divine Providence Pope, the eighth of that name. We therefore, John, the archbishop, the visitor, reformer, inquisitor, and judge therein mentioned, in reverence for the Apostolic See, have taken upon ourselves the burden of enforcing the said commission; and have determined that we will proceed by, and according to, the full force, tenour, and effect of the same.

"And it has come to our ears, being at once publicly notorious and brought before us upon the testimony of many witnesses worthy of credit, that you, the abbot aforementioned, have been of long time noted and diffamed, and do yet continue so noted, of Simony, of usury, of dilapidation and waste of the goods, revenues, and possessions of the said monastery, and of certain other enormous crimes and excesses hereafter written. In the rule, custody, and administration of the goods, spiritual and temporal, of the said monastery, you are so remiss, so negligent, so prodigal, that whereas the said monastery was of old times founded and endowed by the pious devotion of illustrious princes of famous memory, heretofore kings of this land, the most noble progenitors of our most serene Lord and King that now is, in order that true religion might flourish there, that the name of the Most High, in whose honour and glory it was instituted, might be duly celebrated there;

"And whereas, in days heretofore the regular observance of the said rule was greatly regarded, and hospitality was diligently kept;

"Nevertheless, for no little time, during which you have presided in the same monastery, you and certain of your fellow monks and brethren (whose blood, it is feared, through your neglect, a severe Judge will require at your hand) have relaxed the measure and form of religious life; you have laid aside the pleasant yoke of contemplation, and all regular observances; hospitality, alms, and those other offices of piety which of old time were exercised and ministered therein have decreased, and by your faults, your carelessness, your neglect and deed, do daily decrease more and more, and cease to be regarded—the pious vows of the founders are defrauded of their just intent; the antient rule of your order is deserted; and not a few of your fellow monks and brethren, as we most deeply grieve to learn, giving themselves over to a reprobate mind, laying aside the fear of God, do lead only a life of lasciviousness—nay, as is horrible to relate, be not afraid to defile the holy places, even the very churches of God, by infamous intercourse with nuns.

"You yourself, moreover, among other grave enormities and abominable crimes whereof you are guilty, and for which you are noted and diffamed, have, in the first place, admitted a certain married woman, named Elena Germyn, who has separated herself without just cause from her husband, and for some time past has lived in adultery with another man, to be a nun or sister in the house or Priory of Bray, lying, as you pretend, within your jurisdiction. You have next appointed the same woman to be prioress of the said house, notwithstanding that her said husband was living at the time, and is still alive. And finally, Father Thomas Sudbury, one of your brother monks, publicly, notoriously, and without interference or punishment from you, has associated, and still associates, with this woman as an adulterer with his harlot.

"Moreover, divers other of your brethren and fellow monks have resorted, and do resort, continually to her and other women at the same place, as to a public brothel or receiving house, and have revived no correction therefor.

"Nor is Bray the only house into which you have introduced disorder. At the nunnery of Sapwell, which you also contend to be under your jurisdiction, you change the prioresses and superiors again and again at your own will and caprice. Here, as well as at Bray, you depose those who are good and religious; you promote to the highest dignities the worthless and the vicious. The duties of the order are cast aside; virtue is neglected; and by these means so much cost and extravagance has been caused, that to provide means for your indulgence you have introduced certain of your brethren to preside in their houses under the name of guardians, when in fact they are no guardians, but thieves and notorious villains; and with their help you have caused and permitted the goods of the same priories to be dispensed, or to speak more truly to be dissipated, in the above-described corruptions and other enormous and accursed offences. Those places once religious are rendered and reputed as it were profane and impious; and by your own and your creatures' conduct are so impoverished as to be reduced to the verge of ruin.

"In like manner, also, you have dealt with certain other cells of monks, which you say are subject to you, even within the monastery of the glorious proto-martyr, Alban himself. You have dilapidated the common property; you have made away with the jewels; the copses, the woods, the underwood, almost all the oaks and other forest trees, to the value of eight thousand marks and more, you have made to be cut down without distinction, and they have by you been sold and alienated. The brethren of the abbey, some of whom, as is reported, are given over to all the evil things of the world, neglect the service of God altogether. They live with harlots and mistresses publicly and continuously, within the precincts of the monastery and without. Some of them, who are covetous of honour and promotion, and desirous therefore of pleasing your cupidity, have stolen and made away with the chalices and other jewels of the church. They have even sacrilegiously extracted the precious stones from the very shrine of St. Alban; and you have not punished these men, but have rather knowingly supported and maintained them. If any of your brethren be living justly and religiously, if any be wise and virtuous, these you straightway depress and hold in hatred.... You...."

But this overwhelming document need not be transcribed further. It pursues its way through mire and filth to its most lame and impotent conclusion. The abbot was not deposed; he was invited merely to reconsider his conduct, and, if possible, amend it.

Offences similar in kind and scarcely less gross were exposed at Waltham, at St. Andrew's, Northampton, at Calais, and at other places.[489] Again, a reprimand was considered to be an adequate punishment.

Evils so deep and so abominable would not yield to languid treatment; the visitation had been feeble in its execution and limited in extent. In 1511 a second was attempted by Archbishop Warham.[490] This inquiry was more partial than the first, yet similar practices were brought to light: women introduced to religious houses; nuns and abbesses accusing one another of incontinency; the alms collected in the chapels squandered by the monks in licentiousness. Once more, no cure was attempted beyond a paternal admonition.[491] A third effort was made by Wolsey twelve years later: again exposure followed, and again no remedy was found.

If the condition of the abbeys had appeared intolerable before investigation, still less could it be endured when the justice of the accusations against them had been ascertained. But the church was unequal to the work of self-reformation. Parliament alone could decide on the measures which the emergency made necessary; and preparatory to legislation, the true circumstances and present character of the religious bodies throughout the whole country were to be ascertained accurately and completely.

Accordingly, in the summer of 1535, directly after Sir Thomas More's execution, Cromwell, now "vicegerent of the king in all his ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the realm,"[492] issued a commission for a general visitation of the religious houses, the universities, and other spiritual corporations. The persons appointed to conduct the inquiry were Doctors Character of the commissioners. Legh, Leyton, and Ap Rice, ecclesiastical lawyers in holy orders, with various subordinates. Legh and Leyton, the two principal commissioners, were young, impetuous men, likely to execute their work rather thoroughly than delicately; but, to judge by the surviving evidence, they were as upright and plain-dealing as they were assuredly able and efficient. It is pretended by some writers that the inquiry was set on foot with a preconceived purpose of spoliation; that the duty of the visitors was rather to defame roundly than to report truly; and that the object of the commission was merely to justify an act of appropriation which had been already determined. The commission of Pope Innocent, with the previous inquiries, puts to silence so gratuitous a supposition; while it is certain that antecedent to the presentation of the report, an extensive measure of suppression was not so much as contemplated. The directions to the First intention of the crown to reform and not to destroy. visitors,[493] the injunctions they were to carry with them to the various houses, the private letters to the superiors, which were written by the king and by Cromwell,[494] show plainly that the first object was to reform and not to destroy; and it was only when reformation was found to be conclusively hopeless, that the harder alternative was resolved upon. The report itself is no longer extant. Bonner was directed by Queen Mary to destroy all discoverable copies of it, and his work was fatally well executed. We are able, however, to replace its contents to some extent, out of the despatches of the commissioners.

Their discretionary powers were unusually large, as appears from the first act with which the visitors commenced operations. On their own responsibility, they issued an inhibition against the bishops, forbidding them to exercise any portion of their jurisdiction while the visitation was in progress. The sees themselves were to be inspected; and they desired to make the ground clear before they moved. When the amazed bishops exclaimed against so unheard-of an innovation, Doctor Legh justified the order by saying, that it was well to compel the prelates to know and feel their new position; and in the fact of their suspension by a royal commission, to "agnize" the king as the source of episcopal authority.[495]

Truly it was an altered world since the bishops sent in their answer to the complaints of the House of Commons. The visitors, in this haughty style, having established their powers, began work with the university of Oxford. Their time was short, for parliament was to meet early in the spring, when their report was to be submitted to it; and their business meanwhile was not only to observe and inquire, but any reforms which were plainly useful and good, they were themselves to execute. They had no time for hesitation, therefore; and they laid their hands to the task before them with a promptitude at which we can only wonder. The heads of houses, as may be Condition of the University.

Efforts of the heads of houses. supposed, saw little around them which was in need of reform. A few students of high genius and high purposes had been introduced into the university, as we have seen, by Wolsey; and these had been assiduously exiled or imprisoned. All suspected books had been hunted out. There had been fagot processions in High-street, and bonfires of New Testaments at Carfax. The daily chapels, we suppose, had gone forward as usual, and the drowsy lectures on the Schoolmen; while "towardly young men" who were venturing stealthily into the perilous heresy of Greek, were eyed askance by the authorities, and taught to tremble at their temerity. All this we might have looked for; and among the authorities themselves, also, the Parish clergy idling at the colleges under pretence of study. world went forward in a very natural manner. There was comfortable living in the colleges: so comfortable, that many of the country clergy preferred Oxford and Cambridge to the monotony of their parishes, and took advantage of a clause in a late act of parliament, which recognised a residence at either of the universities as an excuse for absence from tedious duties. "Divers and many persons," it was found, "beneficed with cure of souls, and being not apt to study by reason of their age or otherwise, ne never intending before the making of the said act to travel in study, but rather minding their own ease and pleasure, colourably to defraud the same good statute, did daily and commonly resort to the said universities, where, under pretence of study, they continued and abode, living dissolutely; nothing profiting themselves in learning, but consumed the time in idleness and pastimes and insolent pleasures, giving occasion and evil example thereby to the young men and students within the universities, and occupying such rooms and commodities as were instituted for the maintenance and relief of poor scholars."[496] These persons were not driven away by the heads of houses as the Christian Brothers had been; they were welcomed rather as pleasant companions. In comfortable conservatism they had no tendencies to heresy, but only to a reasonable indulgence of their five bodily senses. Doubtless, therefore, the visitors found Oxford a pleasant The disturbers of order and quiet.

Revolution of studies. place, and cruelly they marred the enjoyments of it. Like a sudden storm of rain, they dropt down into its quiet precincts. Heedless of rights of fellows and founders' bequests, of sleepy dignities and established indolences, they re-established long dormant lectures in the colleges. In a few little days (for so long only they remained) they poured new life into education. They founded fresh professorships—professorships of Polite Latin, professorships of Philosophy, Divinity, Canon Law, Natural Sciences—above all of the dreaded Greek; confiscating funds to support them. For the old threadbare text-books, some real teaching was swiftly substituted. The idle residents were noted down, soon to be sent home by parliament to their benefices, under pain of being compelled, like all other students, to attend lectures, and, in their proper persons, "keep sophisms, problems, disputations, and all other exercises of learning."[497]

The discipline was not neglected: "we have enjoined the religious students,"[498] Leyton wrote to Cromwell, "that none of them, for no manner of cause, shall come within any tavern, inn, or alehouse, or any other house, whatsoever it be, within the town and suburbs. [Each offender] once so taken, to be sent home to his cloyster. Without doubt, this act is greatly lamented of all honest women of the town; and especially of their laundresses, that may not now once enter within the gates, much less within the chambers, whereunto they were right well accustomed. I doubt not, but for this thing, only the honest matrons will sue to you for redress."[499] These were sharp measures; we lose our breath at their rapidity and violence. The saddest vicissitude was that which befell the famous Memorable fate of Duns Scotus. Duns—Duns Scotus, the greatest of the Schoolmen, the constructor of the memoria technica of ignorance, the ancient text-book of à priori knowledge, established for centuries the supreme despot in the Oxford lecture-rooms. "We have set Duns in Bocardo," says Leyton. He was thrown down from his high estate, and from being lord of the Oxford intellect, was "made the common servant of all men;" condemned by official sentence to the lowest degradation to which book can be submitted.[500] Some copies escaped this worst fate; but for changed uses thenceforward. The second occasion on which the visitors came to New College, they "found the great Quadrant Court full of the leaves of Duns, the wind blowing them into every corner; and one Mr. Greenfield, a gentleman of Buckinghamshire, gathering up part of the same book leaves, as he said, to make him sewers or blawnsheres, to keep the deer within his wood, thereby to have the better cry with his hounds."[501]

To such base uses all things return at last; dust unto dust, when the life has died out of them, and the living world needs their companionship no longer.

On leaving Oxford, the visitors spread over England, north, south, east, and west. We trace Legh in rapid progress through Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Lincoln, Yorkshire, and Northumberland; Leyton through Middlesex, Kent, Sussex, Hants, Somersetshire, and Devon. They appeared at monastery after monastery, with prompt, decisive questions; and if the truth was concealed, with expedients for discovering it, in which practice soon made them skilful. All but everywhere the result was the same. At intervals a light breaks through, and symptoms appear of some efforts after decency; but in the vast majority of the smaller houses, the previous results were repeated, the popular suspicions were more than confirmed. Wolsey, when writing to the pope of his intended reformation, had spoken of the animus improbus, and the frightful symptoms which existed of it. He was accused, in his attempted impeachment, of having defamed the character of the English clergy. Yet Wolsey had written no more than the truth, as was too plainly discovered. I do not know what to say on this matter, or what to leave unsaid. If I am to relate the suppression of the monasteries, I should relate also why they were suppressed. If I were to tell the truth, I should have first to warn all modest eyes to close the book, and read no further. It will perhaps be sufficient if I introduce a few superficial stories, suggestive rather than illustrative of the dark matter which remains in the shade.

I have spoken more than once of the monastery of Sion. It was the scene of the Nun of Kent's intrigues. It furnished more than one martyr for the Catholic cause; and the order was Carthusian—one of the strictest in England. There were two houses attached to the same establishment—one of monks, another of nuns. The confessors of the women were chosen from the friars, and they were found to have abused their opportunities in the most infamous manner. With a hateful mixture of sensuality and superstition, the The confessional, and the fruits of it. offence and the absolution went hand-in-hand. One of these confessors, so zealous for the pope that he professed himself ready to die for the Roman cause, was in the habit of using language so filthy to his penitents, that it was necessary to "sequester him from hearing ladies' confessions." The nuns petitioned the visitors, on the exposure of the seduction of a sister, that he and his companion might come to them no more; and the friar was told that his abominable conduct might be the occasion that "shrift should be laid down in England."[502]

This is one instance of an evil found fatally prevalent.

Again, the clergy were suspected of obtaining dispensations from their superiors indulging in a breach of their vows. The laxity of the church courts in dealing with clerical delinquents had perhaps given rise to this belief; but the accusation was confirmed by a discovery at Maiden Bradley, in Wiltshire. The prior of this house had a family of illegitimate children, whom he brought up and provided for in a very comfortable manner;[503] and the visitor wrote that "the pope, considering his fragility," had granted him a licence in this little matter; that he had, in fact, "a good writing sub plumbo, to discharge his conscience." I do not easily believe that authentic dispensations of such a kind were obtained from Rome, or were obtainable from it; but of forged dispensations, invented by reverend offenders or fraudulently issued by the local ecclesiastical authorities, to keep appearances smooth, there were probably enough, and too many.[504]

The more ordinary experiences of the commissioners may be described by Leyton himself, in an account which he wrote of his visit to Langden Abbey, near Dover. The style is graphic, and the picture of the scene one of the most complete which remains. The letter is to Cromwell.

"Please it your goodness to understand that on Friday, the 22nd of October, I rode back with speed to take an inventory of Folkstone, and from thence I went to Langden. Whereat immediately descending from my horse, I sent Bartlett, your servant, with all my servants, to circumspect the abbey, and surely to keep all back-doors and starting-holes. I myself went alone to the abbot's lodging, joining upon the fields and wood, even like a cony clapper, full of starting-holes. [I was] a good space knocking at the abbot's door; nec vox nec sensus apparuit, saving the abbot's little dog that within his door fast locked bayed and barked. I found a short poleaxe standing behind the door, and with it I dashed the abbot's door in pieces, ictu oculi, and set one of my men to keep that door; and about the house I go, with that poleaxe in my hand, ne forte, for the abbot is a dangerous desperate knave, and a hardy. But for a conclusion, his gentlewoman bestirred her stumps towards her starting-holes; and then Bartlett, watching the pursuit, took the tender damoisel; and, after I had examined her, [brought her] to Dover to the mayor, to set her in some cage or prison for eight days; and I brought holy father abbot to Canterbury, and here in Christchurch I will leave him in prison. In this sudden doing ex tempore, to circumspect the house, and to search, your servant John Antony's men marvelled what fellow I was, and so did the rest of the abbey, for I was unknown there of all men. I found her apparel in the abbot's coffer. To tell you all this comedy (but for the abbot a tragedy), it were too long. Now it shall appear to gentlemen of this country, and other the commons, that ye shall not deprive or visit, but upon substantial grounds. The rest of all this knavery I shall defer till my coming unto you, which shall be with as much speed as I can possible."[505]

Towards the close of the year, Leyton went north to join Legh; and together they visited a nunnery at Lichfield. The religious orders were bound by oaths similar to those which have recently created difficulty in Oxford. They were sworn to divulge nothing which might prejudice the interests of the houses. The superior at Lichfield availed herself of this plea. When questioned as to the state of the convent, she and the sisterhood refused to allow that there was any disorder, or any irregularity, which could give occasion for inquiry. Her assertions were not implicitly credited; the inspection proceeded, and at length two of the sisters were discovered to Two of the sisterhood found "not barren." be "not barren"; a priest in one instance having been the occasion of the misfortune, and a serving-man in the other. No confession could be obtained either from the offenders themselves, or from the society. The secret was betrayed by an "old beldame"; "and when," says Leyton, "I objected against the prioresses, that if they could not show me a cause reasonable of their concealment, I must needs, and would, punish them for their manifest perjury,—their answer was, that they were bound by their religion never to confess the secret faults done amongst them, but only to a visitor of their own religion, and to that they were sworn, every one of them, on their first admission."[506]

A little later the commissioners were at Fountains Abbey; and tourists, who in their daydreams among those fair ruins are inclined to complain of the sacrilege which wasted the houses of prayer, may study with advantage the following account of that house in the year which preceded its dissolution. The outward beautiful ruin was but the symbol and consequence of a moral ruin not so beautiful. "The Abbot of Fountains," we read in a joint letter of Legh and Leyton, had "greatly dilapidated his house, [and] wasted the woods, notoriously keeping six women. [He is] defamed here," they say, "a toto populo, one day denying these articles, with many more, the next day Theft and sacrilege committed by the abbot. confessing the same, thus manifestly incurring perjury." Six days before the visitors' access to his monastery "he committed theft and sacrilege, confessing the same. At midnight he caused his chaplain to seize the sexton's keys, and took out a jewel, a cross of gold with stones. One Warren, a goldsmith in the Chepe, was with him in his chamber at that hour, and there they stole out a great emerald, with a ruby. The said Warren made the abbot believe the ruby to be but a garnet, so that for this he paid nothing. For the emerald he paid but twenty pounds. He sold him also the plate without weight or ounces; how much the abbot was deceived therein he cannot tell, for he is a very fool and miserable idiot."[507]

Under an impression that frauds of this description were becoming frequent, the government had instructed the commissioners to take inventories of the plate and jewels; and where they saw occasion for suspicion, to bring away whatever seemed superfluous, after leaving a supply sufficient for the services of the house and chapel. The misdemeanour of the Abbot of Fountains was not the only justification of these directions. Sometimes the plate was secreted. The Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, was accused of having sent in a false return,[508] keeping back gold and precious stones valued at a thousand pounds. Information was given by some of the brethren, who professed to fear that the prior would poison them in revenge.

Occasionally the monks ventured on rougher methods to defend themselves. Here is a small spark of English life while the investigation was in progress, lighted by a stray letter from an English gentleman of Cheshire. The lord chancellor was informed by Sir Piers Dutton, justice of the peace, that the visitors had been at Norton Abbey. They had concluded their inspection, had packed up such jewels and plate as they purposed to remove, and were going away; when, the day being late and the weather foul, they changed their minds, and resolved to spend the night where they were. In the evening, "the abbot," says Sir Piers, "gathered together a great company, to the number of two or three hundred persons, so that the commissioners were in fear of their lives, and were fain to take a tower there; and therefrom sent a letter unto me, ascertaining me what danger they were in, and desiring me to come and assist them, or they were never likely to come thence. Which letter came to me about nine of the clock, and about two o'clock on the same night I came thither with such of my tenants as I had near about me, and found divers fires made, as well within the gates as without; and the said abbot had caused an ox to be killed, with other victuals, and prepared for such of his company as he had there. I used some policy, and came suddenly upon them. Some of them took to the pools and water, and it was so dark that I could not find them. Howbeit I took the abbot and three of his canons, and brought them to the king's castle of Hatton."[509]

If, however, the appropriation of the jewels led to occasional resistance, another duty which the commissioners were to discharge secured them as often a warm and eager welcome. It was believed that the monastic institutions had furnished an opportunity, in many quarters, for the disposal of inconvenient members of families. Children of both sexes, it was thought, had been forced into abbeys and convents at an age too young Monks under 24, and nuns under 21, set free from their vows. to have allowed them a free choice in the sacrifice of their lives. To all such, therefore, the doors of their prison house were thrown open. On the day of visitation, when the brethren, or the sisterhood, were assembled, the visitors informed everywhere such monks as were under twenty-four, and such nuns as were under twenty-one, that they might go where they pleased. To those among them who preferred to return to the world, a secular dress was given, and forty shillings in money, and they were restored to the full privileges of the laity.

The opportunity so justly offered was passionately embraced. It was attended only with this misfortune, that the line was arbitrarily drawn, and many poor wretches who found themselves condemned by the accident of a few more days or months of life to perpetual imprisonment, made piteous The monks at Fordham petition for release. entreaties for an extension of the terms of freedom. At Fordham, in Cambridgeshire, Dr. Legh wrote to Cromwell, "the religious persons kneeling on their knees, instantly with humble petition desire of God and the king and you, to be dismissed from their religion, saying they live in it contrary to God's law and their consciences; trusting that the king, of his gracious goodness, and you, will set them at liberty out of their bondage, which they are not able to endure, but should fall into desperation, or else run away." "It were a deed of charity," he continued, fresh from the scene where he had witnessed the full misery of their condition, "that they might live in that kind of living which might be most to the glory of God, the quietness of their consciences, and most to the commonwealth, whosoever hath informed you to the contrary."[510] Similar expressions of sympathy are frequent in the visitors' letters. Sometimes the poor monks sued directly to the vicar-general, and Cromwell must have received many petitions as strange, as helpless, and as graphic, as this which follows. The writer was a certain Brother Beerley, a Benedictine monk of Pershore, in Worcestershire. It is amusing to find him addressing the vicar-general as his "most reverend lord in God." I preserve the spelling, which, however, will with some difficulty be found intelligible.

"We do nothing seyrch," says this good brother, "for the doctryn of Chryst, but all fowloys owr owne sensyaly and plesure. Also most gracyus Lord, there is a secrett thynge in my conchons whych doth move mee to go owt of the relygyon, an yt were never so perfytt, whych no man may know but my gostly fader; the wych I supposs yf a man mothe guge [is] yn other yong persons as in me selfe. But Chryst saye nolite judicare et non judicabimini, therefore y wyll guge my nowne conschons fyrst—the wych fault ye shall know of me heyrafter more largyously—and many other fowll vycys done amonckst relygyus men—not relygyus men, as y thynck they owt not to be cald, but dyssemblars wyth God.

"Now, most gracyus Lord and most worthyst vycytar that ever cam amonckes us, help me owt of thys vayne relygyon, and macke me your servant handmayd and beydman, and save my sowlle, wych shold be lost yf ye helpe yt not—the wych ye may save wyth one word speking—and mayck me wych am nowe nawtt to cum unto grace and goodness.

"Now y wyll ynstrux your Grace sumwatt of relygyus men, and how the Kyng's Gracis commandment is keyp yn puttyng forth of bockys the Beyschatt of Rome's userpt pour. Monckes drynke an bowll after collatyon tyll ten or twelve of the clok, and cum to matyns as dronck as myss—and sum at cardys, sum at dycys, and at tabulles; sum cum to mattyns begenying at the mydes, and sum wen yt ys almost dun, and wold not cum there so only for boddly punyshment, nothyng for Goddis sayck. Also abbettes, monckes, prests, dun lyttyl or nothyng to put owtte of bockys the Beyschatt of Rome's name—for y myself do know yn dyvers bockys where ys name ys, and hys userpt powor upon us[511]."

In reply to these and similar evidences of the state of the monasteries, it will be easy to say, that in the best ages there were monks impatient of their vows, and abbots negligent of their duties; that human weakness and human wickedness may throw a stain over the noblest institutions; that nothing is proved by collecting instances which may be merely exceptions, and that no evidence is more fallacious than that which rests upon isolated facts.

It is true; and the difficulty is felt as keenly by the accuser who brings forward charges which it is discreditable to have urged, if they cannot be substantiated, as by those who would avail themselves of the easy opening to evade the weight of the indictment. I have to say only, that if the extracts which I have made lead persons disposed to differ with me to examine the documents which are extant upon the subject, they will learn what I have concealed as well as what I have alleged; and I believe that, if they begin the inquiry (as I began it myself) with believing that the religious orders had been over-hardly judged, they will close it with but one desire—that the subject shall never more be mentioned.

Leaving, then, the moral condition in which the visitors found these houses, we will now turn to the regulations which they were directed to enforce for the future. When the investigation at each of the houses had been completed, when the young monks and nuns had been dismissed, the accounts audited, the property examined, and the necessary inquiries had been made into the manners and habits of the establishment, the remaining fraternity were then assembled in the chapter-house, and the commissioners delivered to them their closing directions. No differences were made between the orders. The same language was used everywhere. The statute of supremacy was first touched upon; and the injunction was repeated for the detailed observance of it. Certain broad rules of moral obedience were then laid down, to which all "religious" men without exception were expected to submit.[512]