In speaking of the Dissolution of the Religious Houses it must be understood that I am considering this momentous step with reference to London only. The influences of the Continental movement; the lessons of history; the turn taken by theological controversy; the unedifying spectacle of Rome in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the talk of scholars; the strength of the conservatism which rallied about the Church at first; the apparent power of the Church, which seemed, indeed, able to crush every opponent, whatever his rank and station;—these things moved not, consciously at least, the man of London. He became acquiescent in the changes imposed upon him by other considerations. And I believe that had not his acquiescence been understood as certain to follow, these changes would not have been attempted. Henry VIII. was the most masterful sovereign of his time; but a king cannot outrage and trample upon the settled religious faith of his subjects. The Old Faith had gone to pieces when Constantine proclaimed the New. The New, in its turn, now grown old and incrustated, and hidden by a thousand additions, superstitions, and superfluities, was in its turn ready for departure, in Northern Europe at least, when Henry effected the separation from Rome which began the Reformation in England.

Among an ignorant and an uncritical people the ancient Faith passed unquestioned—was it not the Faith of all those in authority? Its doctrines were supported less by teaching than by outward forms, ceremonies, pageants, splendours and traditional conventions. In every church the story of the Gospels was partly represented, but overlaid with stories of the Saints; the Christian virtues were never, even at the lowest point of Church History, forgotten, yet their practice had become crystallised; almsgiving was part of the Rule of every Religious Order, but it was indiscriminate; mercy towards the criminal had become a refuge for those who continued in their evil practices under cover of Sanctuary; the tradition of austerity no longer brought respect to the Benedictine; the tradition of self-sacrifice no longer brought love to the Franciscan: to the former, as to the College of All Souls, Oxford, the members were bene nati, and, I believe, for the most part bene morati and moderate docti; in the more secluded religious communities discipline was relaxed and scandals had crept in; for a hundred years and more the people had been gradually ceasing to endow the Religious Houses with bequests. At the commencement of the sixteenth century they had wholly ceased the practice, formerly universal. Monk and Nun; Friar and Sister; Hermit, Anchorite, Anchress, now received no more bequests; of all the Religious Orders none had fallen into disrepute so hopelessly as the Franciscans: they were selling the lead off the roofs of their stately churches; they were selling their sacred vessels of silver gilt; their boxes, hung up in the shops—if the shopkeepers admitted them—received no more offerings; they were insulted in the streets; their numbers were dwindling daily. Now all these things were like an open book in which those who passed along the way might read daily, and did read unconsciously, so that their minds were moulded and directed, they could not tell why or how.

As for the spread of the ideas called Lollardry, one knows not how far they survived the persecution under Henry V. and the disturbances of the Civil Wars. But such ideas, whose strength lies in the exercise of reason, so far as men can reason, do not easily die; the case of Richard Hun (p. 32) shows that they were still alive. The socialistic side of Lollardry had vanished, but some, at least, of the religious side survived.

Yet the old things went on apparently undisturbed. Nothing could surpass the external splendour of a Cardinal Archbishop: no authority was greater in appearance than his. The rich endowments of the greater Abbeys made the Houses magnificent and the Brethren proud, generous, and profuse in hospitality and in alms. Who could be more dignified than the Abbot of St. Peter’s, Westminster? Still the Church seemed to rule in everything: the Fraternities continued; they still attracted members; they still marched in procession, each with its chaplain and its singing men, its banners and its brethren, through the streets on its appointed day; the City Companies were incorporated as Religious as well as Trade Societies; the Manger and the Holy Tomb still adorned the churches on the great Festivals; the Angel still flew over the people from the roof on the Day of Pentecost; the pictures on the wall in every church recorded the martyrdom of the Saint of Dedication and the miracles which commanded his canonisation. No one could have dreamed, no one could have prophesied, when the scholarly young King thundered against Luther that the old order was drawing to its allotted end, and that for Rome, as well as Northern Europe, Reform was at hand.

In many ways the Church had long lost its former hold. No longer were the architects Churchmen; no longer were the bridge builders a distinct fraternity; the lawyers were clerks, indeed, but not in Holy Orders; the King’s Ministers were no longer necessarily of the Clergy; scholars were no longer of necessity ordained priests or deacons; physicians were laymen; the clergy were allowed to practise surgery, provided that they did not use fire or steel—in other words, did not conduct operations; in trade the lending of money—formerly in the hands of the Jews and afterwards in those of the so-called “Caursini,” Italians licensed by the Popes—was now recognised as necessary, and was carried on more or less openly by merchants; in a word, the daily life of the world, which had been shot through and through, like a piece of silk with its coloured threads, by Religion, had long been emancipating itself, by slow and gradual steps, from the control of the Church and the interference of the priest.

How much these things were understood at the time it is not necessary to inquire. Probably the people, who knew no history, had been unconsciously moulded and changed, and were far from realising the great gulf which now divided them from their ancestors.

Yet there were other signs of change, could they have been rightly interpreted. Scholars, like Erasmus, openly derided the adoration of relics; some of them, under new Pagan influence, denied the Christian faith itself; the scholars of France, like Rabelais and Étienne Dolet, scoffed at the Pope and the Papal pretensions; yet Rabelais did not dare to publish in his lifetime the most daring and the most deadly part of his work.

Add to these things the long-standing disaffection towards the Roman authority. For centuries the Pope had been attempting fresh encroachments, claiming new powers, demanding more contributions. All travellers to Rome brought back the same story of corruption and laxity; men asked themselves why they should submit to the oppression of an Italian prince. In 1529 the House of Commons drew up a petition in which, while they did not ask for a change of doctrine, they complained of the independent legislation claimed by Convocation, the number of officers, the exorbitant fees of ecclesiastical courts, the granting of benefices to children, pluralities, non-residence and other grievances. Surely such a man as Wolsey must have discerned in all these symptoms a warning, clear and loud, that their house must be set in order. Perhaps not, however: nothing is more difficult than for the ecclesiastical mind to see, outside its fences of doctrine and usage, the questioning people, and to hear and understand the awakened mind.

The action of Henry, which, on the face of it, seems the most masterful thing ever attempted by a king, was, on the contrary, approved and accepted by the great mass of the people; especially by the people of London, by the scholars, and by the clergy. There were few who emulated the constancy of the unfortunate Carthusians or the martyrdom of More and Fisher; the old order crumbled and fell to pieces at a touch; out of the débris, among the fallen monarchs of the forest, rose up a tangled mass of vegetation, from which the nobler kinds had to be separated by trial and proof, by persecution and by cultivation.

The first direct step towards the Reformation was, assuredly, not considered as such. It was the suppression by Cardinal Wolsey of certain small houses with whose revenues he endowed his Colleges.

The second direct step was the Petition of the House of Commons, which also passed the Upper House, in 1529.

In January 1531 the House of Commons, in demanding of the clergy the payment of £118,000—an enormous sum, representing more than a million of our money—gave Henry the title of Head of the Church. This was before the break with Rome; so far it meant only that the civil power should be superior to the ecclesiastical.

Then followed the Bill for the abolition of annales or payment to the Pope of the first year’s income of benefice or see. This was at first held in terrorem over the head of the Pope.

The divorce of Katherine and the King’s marriage with Anne Boleyn in spite of the opposition of the Pope completed the separation. Henceforth the King was Head of the Church within his own realm.

It was to show to the whole world that he was in earnest and that he meant indeed to be Head of the Church, that Henry caused the execution of the Carthusian monks, of Bishop Fisher, and Sir Thomas More. All Christendom shuddered when those holy men were dragged forth to suffer the degrading and horrible death of traitors; yet all Christendom recognised that there was a King in England who would brook no interference, who knew his own mind, and would work his own will.

I need not follow the course and the development of the Reformation, for its history belongs to the whole country. As regards London, two or three points present themselves for consideration: as, for instance, the condition of the Houses; the manners and morality of the Religious; and the mind of the people.

Let us consider these points from the position of a contemporary Londoner, so far as is possible. First, as to the condition of the Houses.

The enormous wealth of the Church could not fail to impress every one with the incongruity of ecclesiastical professions and practices. The sight of those scores of able-bodied men, most of them with no pretensions to be considered scholars, or divines, or even gentlemen—a qualification which, at the time, might have been sufficient justification for living on the work of others—but men of low origin and of narrow attainments, lounging about the streets and in the taverns—some, as the friars, with no apparent duties at all; some, like the chantry priests, with half an hour’s work every day; many of them without the least pretence to piety or virtue—could not but become a powerful aid in the popular approval of the Dissolution. In London alone, a very large part of the City belonged to the Church. The streets swarmed with ecclesiastics who, in the midst of a busy and industrial population, seemed idle and useless.

In the Italian Relations of England the writer speaks of the vast wealth of the Church and the power of the ecclesiastics. “I for my part,” he says, “believe that the English priests would desire nothing better than what they have got, were it not they are obliged to assist the Crown in time of war, and also to keep many poor gentlemen, who are left beggars in consequence of the inheritance devolving to the eldest son. And if the Bishops were to decline this expense they would be considered infamous, nor do I believe that they would be safe in their own churches.”

There is surely some confusion here. It is true that younger sons attached themselves to the following of the great Lords Spiritual as well as Temporal, but I have nowhere else found it stated that it was the duty of the Church to keep them. Also many of them, as we have seen, had City connections and embarked in trade. For “Church” we should perhaps read “the Monastic Houses.”

If we come to consider the condition of the Religious on the score of morality, all that can be said concerning those of London is that we hear nothing against them. It is true that the details of the Visitations of London have not been revealed. But there could not have been anything very bad, or it would have been laid hold of and enlarged upon, and pointed out for the execration of the people, by the preachers of the new religion.

Froude, in his paper on the Dissolution of the Monasteries, argues that the evidence of immorality on the part of certain Religious Houses is overwhelming. His case against that of St. Albans is certainly convincing, so far as that House alone is concerned. And it is difficult not to believe that in other cases about the country the evidence of the visitors, even granting that their own private character left a good deal to be desired, is much too detailed for pure invention.

But, as regards the Religious of London, I am not aware that there is any evidence to prove that they were either notoriously or secretly corrupt or luxurious. Considering the pristine standard of the Rule, they were doubtless degenerate, just as in a College of Oxford or Cambridge fifty years ago, the Fellows who should have carried on the lamp of learning spent their time in the study of Port and the practice of Whist. Father Gasquet argues in favour of the whole body of nuns—London or country—when he cites the case of Sister Joan. In the year 1535 the Archbishop of York visited a certain convent in his diocese and learned that one of the nuns had been guilty of unchastity. He inflicted upon her a sentence of great severity: she was to be kept in prison for two years, without speaking to any one but the Prioress; she was to fast altogether on Wednesday and Friday; and on every Friday she was to be taken to the Chapter House, there to receive discipline—i.e. to be whipped. Is it possible, Father Gasquet asks, that the nunneries of England could be grossly and openly immoral—even secretly immoral—when such a severe punishment was meted out to an offender by the visiting archbishop? One might point out that a severe punishment may tell of two things: either of horror at a rare and heinous offence, or of a determination, by severe measures, to put down a too frequent breaking of the vows of chastity.

Concerning, therefore, the morals of the London Religious, there has been no special charge, so far as I know, brought against the whole body. We may remember, however, that the number of persons bound by vows of celibacy was very large; that even at the present time, when there is certainly more self-restraint, it would be impossible for these vows to be kept by so large a proportion of the people; and that the clergy, in morals and in practice, have never been more than a little in advance of the laity.

The many acts of unchastity of which one reads in the books were perhaps scattered and solitary instances. I refer, however, to certain documents which prove, not the common prevalence of vice, but relaxation of the Rule. They are a collection of papers, the charges of Langland, Bishop of Lincoln, early in the sixteenth century, published in Archæologia (vol. xlvii.). They point to laxity, not to vice.

The first is a charge to the Abbess and Convent of Elstow, near Bedford. In this House the Sisters, instead of assembling in the Fratry for their meals, were accustomed to gather together in what they called their “Households”; apparently messes of two or more, at which secular men, women, and children were allowed to be present. This has to be amended. Henceforth they may repair to the Misericorde, but only one or two at a time, and then under charge of an elderly sister. Their attendance at the services in the “Quire” has become irregular, henceforth they are all to attend every service; they are not to look about the church upon the people during service, for which purpose a door is to be constructed shutting off the choir. They had become irregular about their dress, henceforth they are not to wear their dresses cut low. As for the Lady Abbess, she herself is ordered to get up and attend matins with the rest, and not to break her fast nor to sup with the steward or any secular man.

Clearly, a House requiring reformation, yet not blameworthy of the grosser sins.

There was the Priory of Studley, a Benedictine Nunnery in the Parish of Beckley, Oxfordshire, the burial-place of the British Saint Donanverdh, and one of the residences of Richard of Almayn, brother of Henry. The Prioress is warned to dismiss a certain steward, named Marten Whighill; she is not to suffer her ladies to become godmothers, nor to go out on visits to their kinsfolk “onles it be for their comforte in tyme of ther syknesse, and yett nott then onlesse it shal seme to you, ladye priores, to be behoveful and necessarye, seeing that undre such pretence muche insolency have bene used in religion.” Considering, further, that the House is in great debt, the Prioress is to grant no more corrodies, i.e. right of board and lodging in the House; to have fewer servants; and to live “in a scarcer manour.” She is to look more carefully after the food of the Sisters; she is to see that they wear their robes; and she is to admit more ladies.

The Prioress of Cotham, in Lincolnshire, is to see that there is more order in the singing of the novices. This House has grown very lax. The kinsfolk of the Sisters were no longer to be admitted; the Chaplain was not to be allowed the key of the church; the Lord of Misrule was not to be admitted at Christmas. Then, some of the Sisters had been allowed to go out into the world under pretence of pilgrimage, which license had caused great scandals. Henceforth they were not to be allowed out of the House for the night, nor out of the House at all unless accompanied by a devout Sister. Again, the Sisters had been allowed to go on visits to Thornton, Newsome, Hull (where there were other nunneries), and the Bishop speaks strongly of the reproach, rebuke, and shame which the rumours of their conduct had brought upon them. This House is the worst case of the four. Certain persons named are absolutely forbidden within the walls. Sir John Warde, Sir Richard Calverley, Sir William Johnson, the Parson of Skotton, and Sir William Sele, are those who have brought upon themselves by their misconduct this prohibition. Lastly, since the House had been reduced to miserable poverty, the Prioress must diminish her servants, grant no more corrodies, sell no more plate, and get the necessary repairs effected as speedily as possible.

The last of the charges is one to the Abbot of Missenden, in Buckinghamshire. This House, also, has fallen into poverty; there must be a diminished number of servants and a simpler table; there must be no more granting of corrodies; the House must be put into repair. There was no school for the novices; a man learned in grammar must be appointed at once; the boys must be kept apart; in future the monks must not be allowed to wander about outside, day and night, as had been the case. And no women were to be admitted either by day or by night. John Compton was to be turned out of the monastery at once—he was probably the steward; and Dom John Slithurst was to be put in prison and kept there.

These accounts indicate very clearly the decay of discipline in the Houses. The Prioress eats and drinks with her steward; the Sisters entertain their kinsfolk within the walls; the church plate is sold to pay debts; the Sisters get outside on any pretext—then come scandals. Certain persons are so much mixed up with these scandals that they must never be allowed within the House at all; the Sisters adopt as much of the fashions of the world as they can; they shirk the services; they relieve the monotony of their lives by going on pilgrimages. As to the monks they get out alone, all night long. What scandals made the Bishop so determined upon keeping women out of the House altogether? And what had Dom Slithurst done, more than his fellows, that he was to be clapped into prison and kept there?

It will be replied that these are all Houses in the country. That is quite true; yet I think that, considering the attacks on the Religious; the decay of the Friars; the withdrawal of bequests from monks and friars alike,—the London Houses must have been open at least to charges of laxity; and I would not press against them anything more severe. In the admonition of the Dean of St. Paul’s to the Nuns of St. Helen’s, laxity, not vice, was the principal complaint. Those who believe that graver charges might be brought may read the famous accusation against the Abbot of St. Albans—a thing, to my mind, impossible to get over. True, St. Albans is not London, which is a saving clause.

Enough about the condition of the Houses and the morality of the Religious. I hear certain whispers where men congregate: they murmur—tacenda. I have no proof that they are true; but I understand that the holiness of the Religious is no longer accepted as a matter of course; it is enough for one that this is so. The work of the Houses is done when the people no longer desire the prayers of brethren inclusi, and sisters immured; and no longer expect the pristine devotion of the Friars.

The suppression of the Religious Houses and its immediate effects in London are passed over by Stow, in his Survey, with great brevity. It is a pity; we should like so much to have a clear understanding of how the people at large received these measures. Now this historian was born in 1525; he could remember, therefore, not only the Dissolution, but also the condition of the City under the old régime. It is much to be lamented, further, that though he could find time and space to give whole pages to the Coronation of Anne Boleyn, he could not give more than a brief note on the suppression of one House after another. He remembered the Franciscans going in and about everywhere in their grey gowns; the Dominicans in black; the Carmelites in white; he remembered the riding apparel of the monks; he remembered—he notices, in fact—the hospitality of the richer houses; he remembered the stately churches towering above the humble parish churches, as Westminster above St. Margaret’s; St. Augustine’s over Peter le Poor; the Holy Trinity over St. Catherine Cree; their peals of bells; their organs; their treasures of gold and silver plate; their church furniture, sumptuous with cloth of gold and velvet. He remembered the splendour, wealth, authority, and power of the old ecclesiastics. Their authority seemed rooted in the solid rock, never to be destroyed; and he remembered how this substantial ecclesiastical structure vanished at a word, at a touch, leaving behind it nothing but ruined cloisters; churches desecrated; carvings and marbles broken up. In his old age he sat alone and marvelled over these things. But he spoke not. Perhaps it was dangerous, even for a historian, to speak—Stow had already been accused of being a favourer, at least, of the old Order; regrets were accounted traitorous; sympathy with the outcast monk was heresy—or, which was as dangerous, was lèse Majesté. Not every one desired the crown of martyrdom: to most people it was disagreeable to be burned—one would avoid this method of extinction if possible; almost as disagreeable was it to be dragged on a hurdle, half hanged, cut down, and then quartered. So Stow wrote nothing about the old time as compared with that which followed.

In a single passage, however, Stow does allow us to understand something of his opinion as to the whole business. No doubt many people looked about for some mark of the Divine displeasure upon those who took an active part in the Dissolution. To this day, certain persons whisper about the families which succeeded to the monastic houses; if anything happens to them it is put down to the vengeance which must be expected to follow upon the sacrilegious occupation of monastic property; nothing is said, of course, as to the long prosperity which has attended most of the families which still occupy the old monastic lands.

“About such time as Cardinall Wolsey was determined to erect his new Colledges in Oxford and Ipswich, he obtayned licence and authoritie of Pope Clement the Seventh to suppresse about the number of fortie Monasteries of good fame, and bountifull hospitalitie, wherin the King bearing with all his doings, neyther Bishop nor temporall Lorde in this Realme durst saye any worde to the contrarie.

In the executing of this business, five persons were his chiefe instruments, who on a time made a demaunde to the Prior and Convent of the Monasterie of Daintrie, for occupying of certayne of theyr groundes, but the Monkes refusing to satisfie their requests, streightway they picked a quarrel agaynst the house, and gave information to the Cardinall agaynste them, who taking a small occasion, commaunded the house to bee dissolved, and to bee converted to hys new Colledge, but of thys irreligious robberie, done of no conscience, but to patch up pride, whiche private wealth coulde not furnishe, what punishmente hath since ensued at God’s hande (sayeth myne Author) partly ourselves have seene, for of those fyve persons, two fell at discorde betweene themselves, and the one slewe the other, for the which the survivor was hanged; the thirde drowned himselfe in a well; the fourth beeing well knowne, and valued worth two hundred pounde, became in three yeares so poore, that hee begged to hys dying day; and the fifth called Doctor Allane, beeyng chiefe executor of these doyngs, was cruelly maymed in Irelande, even at suche tyme as hee was a Bishop; the Cardinall falling after into the King’s greevous displeasure, was deposed, and dyed miserably; the Colledges whiche hee meante to have made so glorious a building, came never to good effect; and Pope Clement himselve, by whose authoritie these houses were throwne downe to the ground was after enclosed in a dangerous siege within the Castell of Saint Angell in Rome by the Emperialles; the Citie of Rome was pitifully sacked; and himselfe narrowly escaped with his life.”

I have repeatedly spoken of the falling off in bequests to the various Religious Orders during the hundred years preceding the Reformation. The fact, indeed, seems to be most important in considering the attitude of the citizens. That it is a fact may be proved by the following table, compiled from the Calendar of Wills. I have already made some extracts from the Wills in proof of the change of popular opinion in this respect; this table considers the fact from another point of view.

Of course we have not, in these pages, all the Wills, nor anything more than a small fraction of the Wills made by the Citizens during the centuries covered by the contents of these two volumes. But they may be taken as representative wills, in whatever manner they present contemporary opinion. Now, as regards bequests to Religious Houses, I have made the following analysis. I take three periods. (1) from 1250 to 1350; (2) from 1350 to 1450; (3) from 1450 to the Dissolution, say 1538; covering nearly three centuries. During these three periods the following is the number of bequests:—

These figures show most unmistakably that the monastic life was no longer regarded as it had been by the people of London. By the friars especially, i.e. by those who could read the signs of the time, it must have been understood that the end was very near. Not the alleged immorality of the Religious, but the decay of their numbers, the wasting of their property, the withdrawal of support by the laity, might have warned those under vows that a change was nigh at hand. I do not suppose that many of them heard this warning. Who could believe, standing in the great church, glittering with lights, with gold and silver, rich with colour, splendid with carved work, that the axe was already laid to the root?

The people of London were not, it is true, consulted. Henry was not the kind of man to consult the illiterate on points of Theology or Spiritual Government. They were, however, filled with a vague unrest of new ideas; we know not what survivals of the old Lollardry lingered and were whispered about, or spoken openly; we know not how widely the ballads and satirical verses against monks and friars were repeated and sung and made the subject of merriment in the taverns. We do know, however, that the King ordered and that the people of London obeyed. I think it incredible that even the most masterful of English kings should have dared to force changes so radical upon an unwilling city. London was never remarkable for meekness, and in matters religious was never uncertain. The King must have known that the people of London, at least, would be with him. London, therefore, obeyed; the people looked on while the Pope of Rome vanished; they made no protest when they saw Monks, Nuns, and Friars turned out of doors and their Houses closed; they looked on without a murmur even when the Carthusians were dragged to a horrible doom. Was this callousness? Was it fear? Was it acquiescence in the Revolution, with the hope of larger things to follow? For my own part, looking at the attitude of the citizens during the successive reigns of Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, I think there can be no doubt as to the general opinion at the time, and that it was from the outset in favour of the Dissolution of the Houses and the Dispersion of the Religious; in favour of denying the authority of the Pope; eager for the free readings of the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongue and for the right of that private interpretation which seems so easy to the illiterate. As regards ritual, the changes, as will be explained later, were gradual; the introduction of distinctive Protestant doctrine was not brought about in a day; the genesis of the Puritanic spirit does not belong to the Revolution under Henry.

Let us endeavour to realise something of the extraordinary change which the Suppression of the Houses brought about in London. Fortunately the work was carried on by successive Acts, covering a period of fifteen years or so; it was not until 1548, for instance, that the whole of the chantries, colleges, etc., were suppressed.

The point of departure is, naturally, the expulsion and the dispersion of the Religious of all Orders. At this point most historians stop. Yet this was only the beginning.

Consider, then, the number of those turned out of the London Houses. We may arrive at an approximation of the number by the following considerations. There were 202 Houses, not counting Friaries, dissolved in 1538–1540.

They contained, in all, 3221 Monks and Canons. This gives an average of 16 Brethren to each House. Now there were in London some twenty Houses great and small—say from St. Peter’s, Westminster, to Jesus Commons. In the same proportion there would thus be 300 Monks and Canons. In the same proportion, also, there would be about a fourth of that number of Nuns. Now, these monks and nuns were not sent out into a cold world empty-handed. Not at all. They received pensions. The nuns of St. Helen’s, for instance, received pensions of £2:14:4 each. The chantry priests of the same place, whose stipends had been £6:13:4 and £7 respectively, obtained pensions of £5 each. We must, in fact, put aside altogether the generally received notion of the Dissolution as an Act which drove thousands of holy men and women out of their homes—abodes of piety and virtue—to starve. There was no starvation at all: the pensions though small were intended to be sufficient; we have therefore the fact that some 400 Religious of London were made to lay down the habit of their Profession and to go forth into the world on pensions large enough to maintain them. What became of them? Many of the older monks and nuns doubtless felt acutely the change of habit; the loss of the former life—its quiet, its self-centred interests, its community; some of the younger men, we cannot doubt, willingly turned themselves to secular pursuits; some lived quietly, keeping up privately, two or three together, some manner of religious life; some were concealed in the country and a few, perhaps, in town, and led the life of the Rule in a clandestine manner; some, again, the restraint of their vows being withdrawn, ran into excesses and fell into the mire; some haunted taverns, to the disgrace of their former calling. But of suffering or privation I cannot discover that there was much, if any, either for monks or nuns. It is pretended that the pensions were irregularly paid. The evidence seems to me insufficient; in regard to the nuns of St. Helen’s, we have positive evidence pointing in the opposite direction.

The greatest sufferers were, as we have seen, the friars. For them there was no pity; for them there were no pensions; no one believed in them any longer; their day was done. There appeared, a short time ago, a book written by one who had been for twelve years a friar: he came out of the House; he laid down his frock and renounced his vows; and he wrote a book in which he described the life of his late brethren. It is not an exaggerated or an ill-natured book; it is simply a plain statement of the manner of life led by the friars of these days. Looking through its pages one begins unconsciously to consider the friars of the early sixteenth century—the friars in their last days—by the light of this revelation. Now the modern friar is a man of some education and some culture. Take away his education and his culture in order to get at the friar of the Tudor time. Place him in a time much rougher and coarser in manners; give him nothing to do: no work either of mental or physical kind; and to the general futility and unreality of life in a modern friary add the temptations, almost irresistible to the uneducated mind of the ordinary friar, of the world around him. In this way one may succeed, perhaps, in understanding the reasons for the unpopularity of the friars.

It is generally stated that riches flowed in upon the friars as a consequence of the respect in which they were held. That is not the case: they were never rich. They owned a few houses built within the limits of their own precinct, the rent of which went to maintain the fabric of the church, and the service. For themselves the friars possessed no great buildings, except the Church, the Library, and the Hall: and they lived on charity at the end of their time as at the beginning. Wyclyf makes much of their churches. “Freres bylden mony grete churches and costily houses, and cloystris as hit were castels and that withoute nede. Grete houses make not men holy, and onely by holiness is God wel served.”

The friars were not rich, but they were proud: they arrogated power and sanctity for their very robe. Those who died in the Franciscan habit could never, they said, be carried away by the devil. Walsingham, who had, perhaps, the jealousy of a monk, thus wrote of them:—

“The friars, unmindful of their profession, have even forgotten to what end their Orders were instituted; for the holy men their lawgivers desired them to be poor and free of all kind of temporal possessions, that they should not have anything which they might fear to lose on account of saying the truth. But now they are envious of possessors, approve the crimes of the great, induce the commonalty into error, and praise the sins of both; and with the intent of acquiring possessions, they who had renounced possessions, with the intent of gathering money, they who had sworn to persevere in poverty, call good evil and evil good, leading astray princes by adulation, the people by lies, and drawing both with themselves out of the straight path.”

They disappeared. What became of them? It is impossible to say. Some of the Sisters went to Flanders; some of those who were in priests’ orders obtained benefices; some took up honest work; for many, work was impossible. If a man gets to thirty or so without doing any work, it becomes impossible that he should ever do any work.

The Brethren, however, were not the only people who lived upon the revenues of the House. Every Monastic Foundation had its own establishment and was complete in itself. Of course, the superfluity of officers and the general waste of work were, from a modern point of view, deplorable. Every House had its mill, its brewery, its bakery, its still-rooms, its gardens, orchards, fish-ponds, vineyards; its servants of all kinds, including bailiffs, serjeants, scriveners, illuminators, carvers, gilders, singing men, singing schools, huntsmen, farmers, carpenters, plumbers, gardeners, agriculturists, sextons, gate-porters, rent-collectors, lawyers, stewards, and one knows not what besides. When the House was closed all these people were turned adrift, certainly, without pensions. Thousands of families, for these people were not under vows and were married, were suddenly deprived of their means of livelihood. What could they do? The ordinary craftsmen would make shift: their Companies helped them; but the better sort, the scriveners, limners, illuminators, painters, carvers, gilders; the bailiffs, lawyers, stewards,—what could they do? For fifteen years London was flooded with the people of the monasteries turned adrift to find a means of living; they were not people who swelled the ranks of the vagabond and the masterless; they were respectable and honest folk. Their struggles and their sufferings, if we could get at them, must have been very real and, in many cases, very terrible.

There were, next, the people who lived by the making and selling of things no longer wanted under the new order. There were the makers of ecclesiastical vestments and robes; altar cloths; wax tapers; instruments required in the celebration of Mass; crosses and crucifixes; beads, reliquaries, images, and all the “properties” required for the old Faith. Also all those who sold tapers, beads, crosses, images, relics, books of hours, mass books, censers and every kind of church vessel. One has only to look at the shops in the vicinity of a French cathedral to understand the extent of the business when not a single cathedral, but a hundred and fifty parish churches, and monastic chapels, had to be provided for, and when all the people, with one consent, acquiesced in the doctrines, and practised the ritual of the Church.

All these people, thus deprived of their livelihood, were skilled craftsmen. When their occupation was gone, when embroidered altar-cloths, copes and vestments stiff with cloth of gold, carven images, sacred pictures, beads and crosses and crucifixes, were no longer wanted, what could they do? If, at the present day, any single branch of industry is suddenly destroyed, what happens? It is too late for the people concerned to learn another trade. What happened to these unfortunates it is impossible to guess. One thing we know, namely, in general terms, that London was in a miserable condition for a quarter of a century after the Dissolution of the Houses; and we may fairly conclude that not bad trade alone, but also the great number of poor and forlorn creatures who had been hurled by the Reformation from comfort to penury, was one cause of the depression.

Or, if we consider the immediate external effects of the Suppression; think of the unwonted silence, when all the bells of all the Monastic Houses were taken down: instead of the melodious pealing from forty chapels, there was left only the sorry tinkle of the parish bell.

From the streets disappeared all the friars: those of St. Francis, of St. Dominic, of St. Augustine, the Carmelites, and those with the Iron Cross. The old familiar figures had been diminishing in numbers, but they were still visible when the end came: still they went about, opening their money-boxes in the shops, and finding nothing. Afterwards one met, flitting along the streets, stray and forlorn figures clad like craftsmen, but knowing no craft; sturdy beggars who would not work; men and women turned out into the stony-hearted streets, filled with rage and bitterness; looking always for the restoration of the old Order and their own return to the quiet house of ease and comfort. Gone, too, were the servants of the Houses; they had been known by the badge upon their shoulders; gone was the vast army of chantry priests, subdeacons, and ecclesiastics, with all the minor Orders. When Queen Mary restored the ancient Faith the priests appeared again, leaping out from unknown dens and secret places, ready to resume suddenly the restored service before the newly adorned altar. And as London always attracted the masterless and the vagabond and the criminal, so from all parts of England flocked to the City those whom the Reformation had sent out homeless and penniless. The clergy, for their part, lost the greater part of their fees. The baptisms, marriages, and funerals, it is true, continued, but the fees for masses to be said for the dead—the most important part of the fees—the endowments of chantries, post obits, and memorial days, were all swept away. There were many chantry priests in every parish church. Why, only a few years before the Reformation, on the death of Lady Jane Seymour, Sir Richard Gresham ordered 1200 masses to be sung in the City churches for the repose of her soul. And when prayers for the dead were forbidden, and what had been an aristocratic Heaven, open especially to the rich because they could buy their entrance by masses, became a democratic Heaven, open to the poor and lowly as much as to the high and mighty, the loss to the clergy from this source was very great. There was also another loss in the abolition of pilgrimage, and another in the abolition of confession, penance, and extreme unction.

As for the people, they had their losses to deplore as well as their gains to rejoice over. They were deprived, for instance, of the most splendid and gorgeous spectacle open to them, the services of the Church with the rolling music of the organ, the singing of the choir, the chanting of the priests; with the illumination of the altar; the fragrance of the incense; the pictures on the wall; the brilliant side chapels; the many votive candles; the sculptured saints; and all that appealed to the eye and to the ear. That service had been performed by moving figures, they seemed not men, in wondrous robes set off by the bright lights. It was a service at which the hearts of men and women with imagination were daily, keenly, sincerely moved and led heavenward. All this they had to give up. In its place they were offered a cold and quiet service with a sermon an hour long, appealing to their reason and bidding them base their faith on logic and argument instead of the authority and the Voice of the Church, inviting them to trust in right doctrine rather than in the Fold of Christ. The service had been the chief instructor in art, music, and æsthetics. When it was gone what had they left? There were no more pictures for the people; there was no more grand and solemn music for them; only the tinkling of the mandoline in the tavern, or the “noise” of the whifflers who marched before a prisoner; there was nothing else for them. Mary’s martyrs made them hate the name of Catholic; they pelted her chaplains in the street; they hung up a dog, head shorn, to mock the tonsure; they hung up a cat with a wafer in its paws to mock the Elevation of the Host. Yet though they were no longer Catholics it cannot be maintained that they had got very far in Protestantism.

Some of the ancient forms remained: it still continued the duty of every Christian, as it has always been the duty of every follower of the Roman Church, to attend service on Sunday morning, and to communicate on the great festivals of Easter, Christmas, Trinity, and Whit Sunday. The fast days remained: no flesh could be sold; the butchers’ shops were closed; none could be eaten on Fridays or in Lent; there were some who followed the ancient austerities so far as to fast on Wednesday as well. All classes, high and low, rich and poor, were constantly engaged in reading the New Testament for proofs of new doctrine, and the Old Testament for examples and for warnings. In every ale-house the men wrangled on points of doctrine over their pots; the women in the doorways discussed obscure points in the teaching of St. Paul; there were none so ignorant as not to be able to formulate a whole body of doctrines; in every barber’s shop there was a Bible; already men had begun to set up strange and absurd teachings, in their ignorant and fond attempts to discern the Truth in a weak translation; already some had begun to go about in sad-coloured garments, without ornament, colour, or decoration, even with texts ostentatiously bound round their hats or their sleeves, like the phylacteries of the Pharisees.

In London the better sort of people towards the end of the century became infected with Puritanism. Puritans were known by their outward and visible signs: they wore texts on their arms; they hated starch and had limp cuffs; they wore no hatbands; they would not curl their hair, but carried it lank; those who were shopkeepers always had a Bible open on the counter; they hated the theatre and all other amusements; in church they would have no organ; they used strange words, calling, for instance, godfather and godmother “witnesses”; they spoke of Christ-tide instead of Christmas; whole trades in London went “solid” for Puritanism, e.g. the feathermen of Blackfriars; they were intolerant and fanatic; they desired above all things to abolish Episcopacy. They showed their opinions by their manner of singing, which was without the accompaniment of organs, and by slowly drawling their words. The Puritans would not greatly care for irreverence in St. Paul’s: they gave no reverence to a consecrated place; yet they went to church in order to worship and to hear godly sermons. Therefore they could not look on unmoved when they saw St. Paul’s crowded with people who went there in order to transact business, to buy and sell, to talk, to quarrel, to fight, to make assignations or to keep them, to display fine dress, to be hired in service.

To a certain class, the larger class, otherwise the thing would have been impossible; these changes were welcomed with the greatest joy because they declared and emphasised the revolution of religious thought. For the majority the pendulum had swung round from the faith and trust in the Fold of the Church, to the sense of individual responsibility. The pendulum is always swinging backwards and forwards. In our own time we have witnessed a partial return to the belief in a Fold. The cold service with its long sermon of doctrine; the private study of the Scriptures; the exercise of individual judgment, free though unlettered, upon points of doubt and apparent contradiction;—all formed part of the same movement and appealed to the majority.

At the same time there was another section to whom these things were hateful and horrible and blasphemous. This was the class which was ready to forget the old grievances, the intolerable burden of Church property; the multitudes who lived in sloth, as it appeared; the wide difference between practice and profession; and thought only, as so many at the present day think, of the haven of safety promised to the faithful; the beauty, splendour, and stateliness of the service; the ecstasy of the believer; the yielding of spirit before the Ineffable Presence; the visible power and authority of the Roman Catholic Church. These people looked and prayed daily for a return of the old Faith; they were recusants under Elizabeth; they concealed the priests who came over to concoct their conspiracies; they were Romanists first and Englishmen next, until the horrors of the persecution in Flanders, of the massacres in France, and the designs of the Spaniards upon England, made them Englishmen first and Catholics next.