Part 13 (2/2)
Henry preferred negotiation to battle, in accepting which the rebels were doomed. To wait was to fail. Their demands reduced to paper were: 1. The religious houses should be restored. 2. England should be reunited with Rome. 3. The first fruits and tenths should not be paid to the crown. 4. Heretics, meaning Cranmer, Latimer and others, should cease to be bishops. 5. Catharine's daughter Mary should be restored as heiress to the crown. These and other demands, the granting of which would have meant the death of the Reformation, were firmly refused by the king, who marveled that ignorant churls, ”brutes and inexpert folk”
should talk of theological and political subjects to him and to his council.
After several ineffectual attempts to meet the royal army in battle, partly due to storms and lack of subsistence, the rebels were induced to disperse and a general amnesty was declared. But new insurrections broke out in various quarters, and the enraged king determined to stamp out the smoldering fires of sedition. About seventy-five persons were hanged, and many prominent men were imprisoned and afterwards executed.
This effectually suppressed the rebellion.
The revolt showed the strength of the opponents to the king's will, but it also proved conclusively that the monarchy was the strongest power in the realm; that the star of ecclesiastical domination had set forever in England; that henceforth English kings and not Italian popes were to govern the English people. True, the king was carrying things with a high hand, but one reform at a time; the yoke of papal power must first be lifted, even if at the same time the king becomes despotic in the exercise of his increased power. Once free from Rome, const.i.tutional rights may be a.s.serted and the power of an absolute monarchy judiciously restricted.
Following the Pilgrimage of Grace came the complete overthrow of the monastic system by the dissolution of the larger monasteries.
_Henry's Disposal of Monastic Revenues_
What use did Henry make of the revenues that fell into his hands? As soon as the vast estates of the monks were under the king's control, he was besieged by n.o.bles, ”praying for an estate.” They kneeled before him and specified what lands they wanted. They bribed Cromwell, who sold many of the estates at the rate of a twenty years' purchase, and in some instances presented valuable possessions to the king's followers. Many families, powerful in England at the present time, date the beginning of their wealth and position to the day when their ancestors received their share of the king's plunder.
The following interesting pa.s.sage from Sir Edward c.o.ke's Inst.i.tutes, shows that Henry sought to quiet the fears of the people by making the most captivating promises concerning the decrease of taxes, and other magnificent schemes for the general welfare: ”On the king's behalf, the members of both houses were informed in Parliament that no king or kingdom was safe but where the king had three abilities: 1. To live of his own and able to defend his kingdom upon any sudden invasion or insurrection. 2. To aid his confederates, otherwise they would never a.s.sist him. 3. To reward his well-deserving servants. Now the project was, that if Parliament would give unto him all the abbeys, priories, friaries, nunneries, and other monasteries, that forever in time then to come he would take order that the same should not be converted to private uses, but first, that his exchequer, for the purpose aforesaid, should be enriched; secondly, the kingdom should be strengthened by a continual maintenance of forty thousand well-trained soldiers; thirdly, for the benefit and ease of the subject, who never afterwards (as was projected), in any time to come, should be charged with subsidies, fifteenths, loans or other common aids; fourthly, lest the honor of the realm should receive any diminution of honor by the dissolution of the said monasteries, there being twenty-nine lords of Parliament of the abbots and priors, ... that the king would create a number of n.o.bles.”
The king was granted the revenues of the monasteries. About half the money was expended in coast defences and a new navy; and much of it was lavished upon his courtiers. With the exception of small pensions to the monks and the establishment of a few benefices, very little of the splendid revenue was ever devoted to religious or educational purposes.
Small sums were set apart for Cambridge, Oxford and new grammar schools.
Not-withstanding the pensions, there was much suffering; it is said many of the outcast monks and nuns starved and froze to death by the roadside. Latimer and others wanted the king to employ the revenues for religious purposes, but Henry evidently thought the church had enough and refused. He did, however, intend to allot eighteen thousand pounds a year for eighteen new bishoprics, but once the gold was in his possession, his pious intentions suffered a decline, and he established only six, with inferior endowments, five of which exist to-day.
_Was the Suppression Justifiable?_
It is quite common to restrict this inquiry to a consideration of the report made by the commissioners against the monks, and to the methods employed by them in their investigations. The implication is that if the accusations against the monasteries can be discredited, or if it can be shown that the motives of the destroyers were selfish and their methods cruel, then it follows that the overthrow of the monasteries was a most iniquitous and unwarrantable proceeding. Reflection will show that the question cannot be so restricted. It may be found that the monastic inst.i.tution should have been destroyed, even though the charges against the monks were grossly exaggerated, the motives of the king unworthy, and the means he employed despicable.
At the outset a few facts deserve mention. It is usual for Protestants to recall with pride the glorious heroism of Protestant martyrs, but it should be remembered that Roman Catholicism also has had its martyrs.
Protestant powers have not been free from tyranny and bloodshed. That n.o.ble spirit of self-sacrifice which has glorified many a character in history is not to be despised in one who dies for what we may p.r.o.nounce to be false.
It must also be granted that the action of the king was not dictated by a pure pa.s.sion for religious reform. Indeed it is a fair question whether Henry may be claimed by the Protestants at all. Aside from his rejection of the pope's authority, he was thoroughly Catholic in conviction and in practice. His impatience with the pope's position respecting his divorce, his need of money, his love of power, and many other personal considerations determined his att.i.tude toward the papacy.
It should also be freely conceded that the royal commissioners were far from exemplary characters, and that they were often insolent and cruel in the prosecution of their work.
”Our posterity,” says John Bale, ”may well curse this wicked fact of our age; this unreasonable spoil of England's most n.o.ble antiquities.” ”On the whole,” says Blunt, ”it may be said that we must ever look back on that destruction as a series of transactions in which the sorrow, the waste, the impiety that were wrought, were enough to make the angels weep. It may be true that the monastic system had worn itself out for practical good; or at least, that it was unfitted for those coming ages which were to be so different from the ages that were past. But slaughter, desecration and wanton destruction, were no remedies for its sins, or its failings; nor was covetous rapacity the spirit of reformation.”
Hume observes that ”during times of faction, especially of a religious kind, no equity is to be expected from adversaries; and as it was known that the king's intention in this visitation was to find a pretext for abolis.h.i.+ng the monasteries, we may naturally conclude that the reports of the commissioners are very little to be relied upon.” Hallam declares that ”it is impossible to feel too much indignation at the spirit in which the proceedings were conducted.”
But these and other just and honorable concessions in the interests of truth, which are to be found on the pages of eminent Protestant historians, are made to prove too much. It must be said that writers favorable to monasticism take an unfair advantage of these admissions, which simply testify to a spirit of candor and a love of truth, but do not contain the final conclusions of these historians. Employing these witnesses to confirm their opinions, the defenders of monasticism proceed with fervid, glowing rhetoric, breathing devotion and love on every page, to paint the sorrows and ruin of the Carthusian Fathers, and the abbots of Glas...o...b..ry and Reading. They ask, ”Is this your boasted freedom, to slay these men in cold blood, not for immorality, but because they honestly did not acknowledge what no Protestant of to-day admits, viz.: that King Henry was the Supreme Head of the Church?”
Having pointed out the exaggerations in the charges against the monks and having made us weep for the aged fathers of the Charterhouse, they skillfully lead the unwary to the conclusion that the suppression should never have taken place. This conclusion is illogical. The case is still open.
Furthermore, if one cared to indulge in historical reminiscences, he might justly express astonishment that Rome should object to an investigation conducted by men whose minds were already made up, or that she should complain because force was employed to carry out a needed reform. Did the commissioners take a few altar-cloths and decorate their horses? Did Rome never adorn men in garments of shame and parade them through streets to be mocked by the populace, and finally burned at the stake? Were the altar-cloths dear to Catholic hearts? Were not the Bibles burned in France, in Germany, in Spain, in Holland, in England, dear to the hearts of the reformers? But however justifiable such a line of argument may be, there is little to be gained by charging the sins of the past against the men of to-day. Nevertheless, if these facts and many like them were remembered, less would be said about the cruelties that accompanied the suppression of the monasteries.
Were the charges against the monks true? It seems impossible to doubt that in the main they were, although it should be admitted that many monasteries were beyond reproach. Eliminating gross exaggerations, lies and calumnies, there still remains a body of evidence that compels the verdict of guilt. The legislation of the church councils, the decrees of popes, the records of the courts, the reports of investigating committees appointed by various popes, the testimony of the orders against each other, the chronicles, letters and other extant literature, abound in such detailed, specific charges of monastic corruption that it is simply preposterous to reject the testimony. All the efforts at reformation, and they were many, had failed. Many bishops confessed their inability to cope with the growing disorders. It is beyond question that lay robbers were encouraged to perpetrate acts of sacrilege because the monks were frequently guilty of forgery and violence. Commenting upon the impression which monkish lawlessness must have made upon the minds of such men as Wyclif, Pike says: ”They saw with their own eyes those wild and lawless scenes, the faint reflection of which in contemporaneous doc.u.ments may excite the wonder of modern lawyers and modern moralists.” The legislation of church and state for a century before Henry VIII. shows that the monks were guilty of brawling, frequenting taverns, indulging in licentious pleasures and upholding unlawful games.
Bonaventura, the General of the Franciscan Order in its earliest days, and its palmiest, for the first years of a monastic order were always its best years--this mendicant, their pride and their glory, tells us that within fifty years of the death of its founder there were many mendicants roaming around in disorderly fas.h.i.+on, brazen and shameless beggars of scandalous fame. This unenviable record was kept up down to the days of Wyclif, who charged the begging friars with representing themselves as holy and needy, while they were robust of body, rich in possessions, and dwelt in splendid houses, where they gave sumptuous banquets. What shall one say of the hysterical ravings against Henry of the ”Holy Maid of Kent,” whose fits and predictions were palmed off by five ecclesiastics, high in authority, as supernatural manifestations?
What must have been the state of monasteries in which such meretricious schemes were hatched, to deceive silly people, thwart the king and stop the movements for reform?
Moreover, the various attempts to reform or to suppress the monasteries prior to Henry's time show he was simply carrying out what, in a small way, had been attempted before. King John, Edward I. and Edward III., had confiscated ”alien priories.” Richard II. and Henry IV. had made similar raids. In 1410, the House of Commons proposed the confiscation of all the temporalities held by bishops, abbots and priors, that the money might be used for a standing army, and to increase the income of the n.o.bles and secular clergy. It was not done, but the attempt shows the trend of public opinion on the question of abolis.h.i.+ng the monasteries. In 1416, Parliament dissolved the alien priories and vested their estates in the crown. There is extant a letter of Cardinal Morton, Legate of the Apostolic See, and Archbishop of Canterbury, to the abbot of St. Albans, one of the mightiest abbeys in all England. It was written as the result of an investigation started by Innocent VIII., in 1489. In this communication the abbot and his monks were charged with the grossest licentiousness, waste and thieving. Lina Eckenstein, in her interesting work on ”Woman Under Monasticism,” says: ”It were idle to deny that the state of discipline in many houses was bad, but the circ.u.mstances under which Morton's letter was penned argue that the charges made in it should be accepted with some reservation.” In 1523, Cardinal Wolsey obtained bulls from the pope authorizing the suppression of forty small monasteries, and the application of their revenues to educational inst.i.tutions, on the ground that the houses were homes neither of religion nor of learning.
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