Parliament then passed an act settling the succession on the children of Henry and Anne. Sir Thomas More, the Chancellor, and Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, refused to accept this act, and were sent to the Tower. A year later they were both executed, nominally for high treason, in reality because they disapproved of what Henry was doing. Unfortunately,? before a prince was born to inherit the throne, Henry became jealous of Anne. Probably she had only been foolishly indiscreet; but the matter was serious, and she was executed. Execution of Two days afterwards Henry married another lady, Jane Seymour. By her he had a son, born in 1537; and as Katharine had died before Anne Boleyn's fall, there could be no doubt that this prince was heir to the throne, so that the succession difficulty was over for the present. Unfortunately, the queen died soon after the birth of her son, and Henry did not marry again for some time. He Anne Boleyn. Thomas' Cromwell. After the fall of Sir Thomas More, the chief adviser of the king was Thomas Cromwell. He had been a dependent of Wolsey's, and, like More, he was a layman. was an able man, devoted to the king's interests. With his aid the king proceeded to attack the monasteries. Religious At this time there were in England more than six hundred monastic houses, where dwelt men and women who had taken the three vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. The oldest of the orders was the Benedictine, founded in the sixth century by St. Benedict, the patriarch of Western Monasticism. Its houses were usually in populous towns, which had often grown up around them. Of their abbeys, Westminster is an example. Branches of this order were the Clugniac, founded during the eleventh century, which took its name from the French abbey of Clugny, and the Cistercian, called from the abbey of Cîteaux, founded at the close of the eleventh century by Stephen Harding, an Englishman. The Cistercian monasteries were built in out-ofthe-way places, which were reclaimed by the monks, and of these Fountains, Tintern, and Furness are examples. Next to these orders stood the Augustinian and Premonstratensian canons, of which the houses at Bristol and Chichester are specimens. During the crusades were founded the military orders, of which the chief were the Templars, whose principal house was the Temple in London, and the knights of St. John, or Hospitallers, one of whose houses was at Clerkenwell. The Templars, however, had been dissolved in the time of Edward II. Next came the mendicant friars, who had houses in every important town. Their chief orders were the Grey Friars, or Franciscans, founded by an Italian, St. Francis, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and the Dominicans, or Black Friars, founded about the same time by St. Dominic, a Spaniard. The monks and nuns lived by themselves within the walls of their monasteries, but the friars travelled from place to place, living upon alms, and only used their houses as headquarters. Henry attacks the monasteries. There was much to be said for and against the monasteries. In a rude age they had done good service as retreats for men of peace and learning; but their place had now been taken by the universities, and Wolsey, as we have seen, had recognized that some of their wealth, at any rate, might be better employed in supporting colleges and schools. Thus from the point of view of the men of the new learning, they were behind the age. Others, no doubt, looked at them as valuable institutions, which diffused some culture in country places, educated the children of their neighbours, sent poor lads to the university and maintained them there, relieved the distressed, succoured the wayfarer, and performed a number of kindly offices which could ill be spared. Neither of these views was, we fear, taken by the majority. The needy king saw in the wealth of the monasteries a good reason for their fall; members of Parliament thought that, if this wealth were given to the king, there would be no more need for taxes; while, doubtless, many coveted the lands of the monks and hoped to profit by their misfortunes. Commission into state of Actuated by these diverse feelings, the government sent a commission to inquire into the state of the monasteries. Their condition was probably no better and no worse than it had long sent to inquire been. The larger were for the most part in good monasteries. order, the smaller were frequently full of abuses; but sufficient evidence was got to afford a pretext for what was wanted, and by Act of Parliament in 1536, the smaller monasteries were dissolved. Their fate frightened many of the greater ones into Dissolution of the monasteries. voluntary submission; some were cajoled into making what they believed was a formal surrender; the abbots of Glastonbury, Colchester, and Reading, were indicted for treason and executed; and in 1539 another act was passed, authorizing the surrender to the king of all the property of the remaining monastic institutions. Doubtless the more honourable statesmen hoped that the money thus obtained would be used for the good of the nation as a whole. Plans were brought forward to increase the number of bishoprics, and to found colleges and schools. Unfortunately, very little was done in this way; only six new bishoprics were created; and the money did not even go to form a permanent fund for the reduction of taxation. Some was spent on the fortification of the coast, but most of it found its way into the pockets of the king's courtiers, and helped to make the fortunes of a new nobility devoted to the interests of the reformation; and such families as the Cavendishes, the Russells, the Seymours, the Dudleys, and the Cecils, whose wealth was gained from this source, began to take the place of the old nobility of England, of whom the family of Howard, though their title only dated from the reign of Edward IV., were the chief representatives. So How the money was applied. Disturbances caused by proceedings of Henry and Parliament. The proceedings of Henry and the Parliament in the matter of the divorce, the separation from Rome, and the abolition of the monasteries, did not pass without disturbance. early as 1534 a half-witted girl, commonly called the Nun of Kent, who in her fits had spoken strongly against the divorce, and had been made the tool of the disaffected priests, was executed. In 1535, the execution of Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher showed that the most accomplished layman of his day, and one of the most learned of ecclesiastics, were not prepared to join a movement which they thought schismatic. In 1536 the northern counties, where the monks were more popular than in the south, rose in rebellion, under a lawyer, Robert Aske, against the sup- The pression of the lesser monasteries. This movement was called the "Pilgrimage of Grace." The leaders, Aske, Darcy, and Constable, with four abbots, were "Pilgrimage of Grace. Council of the North. executed, but the common people were treated with leniency. One result of this rebellion was the institution of the Council of the North, a committee of the Privy Council, which henceforth sat for four months of the year, at York, Hull, Newcastle, and Durham. Movement towards Protestantism. The severance of the connection between England and Rome, and the attacks which had been made on the clergy, naturally encouraged the party which took their ideas partly from the German reformation, partly from the lingering traditions of Lollardism; and an impetus had been given to these ideas by an English translation of the Bible being allowed to be set up in the churches in 1536. Such a movement towards Protestantism formed no part of Henry's plan. To the end of his life he was a Catholic, and in 1539 an act was passed to put a stop to the movement. This law passed Parliament by acclamation, and imposed on the nation Six Articles of doctrine and observance, of which the most important were-the belief in transubstantiation, the celibacy of the clergy, and auricular confession. Henry was determined that these should be believed in and practised; and when he sent to execution at the same time one man for denying the royal supremacy, and another for denying the truth of transubstantiation, he exactly showed what his own attitude was. Marriage of Anne of Cleves. For some time after the death of Jane, Henry remained unmarried, but in 1539 he was persuaded to accept in marriage Anne, sister of the Duke of Cleves-a small territory on the Rhine. Cromwell devised this match, because he wanted Henry to make common cause with the German Protestant princes who had formed a league against Charles V. Unluckily for Cromwell, his scheme of an alliance against Charles failed; and when Anne arrived, her person was distasteful to the king. The matter was easily arranged. Anne was divorced and provided for by a pension; but Cromwell lost his head. His enemies were only too Cromwell. glad to attack him, and when the king's favour was withdrawn, an act of attainder brought his career to a close, in 1540. The king then pleased the old nobility by marrying Katharine Howard. Unfortunately, after two years the king found that she had behaved badly Execution of Marriage with before her marriage, and she was put to death; the Marriage with king then married Katharine Parr, who survived him. Katharine Execution of Countess of Possibly the difficulties in which Henry had been involved revived the hopes of the Yorkists, and encouraged them to plot against him; perhaps Henry was angry because Reginald Pole, who had written against the divorce, had been made a Cardinal; at any rate in 1538 Henry arrested Pole's mother, the Countess of Salisbury,1 daughter of the Duke of Clarence, the brother of Edward IV.; her eldest son, Henry Pole, Lord Montacute, and Edward Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter, grandson of Edward IV. All three were executed-the lords in 1539, the Countess in 1541—and after this the rivalry between the two houses of York and Lancaster may be said to disappear. The confiscation of the property of the monasteries had a bad effect upon Henry and his court. When the money was gone, he looked about for more, and he hit upon the expe- Debasement of dient of debasing the coinage. Since the days of the coinage. Edward III. England had always been very careful to keep up a high standard, On this the credit of a nation depends; for if there is any uncertainty as to the value of money, foreign trade becomes impossible. The old rule was that with every twelve ounces of silver there should be mixed three quarters of an ounce of alloy, in order to make it hard enough to stand wear and tear; but in 1543 Henry paid his creditors with shillings in which the proportion was two ounces of alloy to twelve ounces of silver. From bad he went to worse, and in 1546 he actually issued money in which there were eight ounces of alloy to twelve ounces of silver. Naturally Henry |