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The 'Pilgrim age of Grace.' A.D. 1536-7.

The larger monasteries dissolved.

A.D. 1540.

of gain and by hatred to the monastic orders, who as the special protégés of the Papacy were the most obstinate opponents of his ecclesiastical policy. Their widespread influence over the mass of the people rendered them dangerous enemies to a ruler of whose conduct they disapproved. This is evidenced by the insurrections in Lincolnshire and Somersetshire, and the great northern rebellion, styled by the insurgents the Pilgrimage of Grace,' which broke out on the suppression of the smaller monasteries, and was imputed to the 'solicitation and traitorous conspiracy of the monks and canons.'

The rebellion having been ruthlessly stamped out,1 Henry ventured, four years later, to dissolve the larger monasteries also, without encountering any open resistance from a terrified people. A few had already been held, contrary to every principle of the common law, to be forfeited to the Crown by the attainder of their abbots for high treason. The rest were all surrendered, practically under duress. It only remained for Parliament to ratify the king's title under the surrenders and forfeitures, in order to obviate any objection on the score that as all the members of a foundation possessed only life-interests in the property, they could not, either singly or collectively, confer anything more on the sovereign. An Act was accordingly passed, which, after hypocritically reciting that the abbots, priors, abbesses, and

1 On the 22nd February, 1537, after the rebels in the north had dispersed, the king wrote to the Duke of Norfolk: Forasmuch as our banner is now spread and displayed, by reason whereof, till the same shall be closed again, the course of our laws must give place to the ordinances and statutes martial, our pleasure is that before you close up our said banner again, you shall, in anywise, cause such needful execution to be done upon a good number of the inhabitants of every town, village and hamlet, that have offended in this rebellion, as well by the hanging of them up in trees, as by the quartering of them, and the setting of their heads and quarters in every town, great and small, and all such other places, as they may be a fearful spectacle to all our hereafter that would practise any like matter: which we require you to without pity or respect, according to our former letters.' The Duke was also to 'cause all the monks and canons that be in anywise faulty, to be ties w without further delay or ceremony, to the terrible example of others; whereia we think you shall do unto us high service.'

prioresses had made surrender, 'of their own free and voluntary minds, goodwills, and assents, without constraint, coaction, or compulsion,' vested in the king and his heirs for ever all the property, real or moveable, of the religious houses which had been already or might be hereafter dissolved, suppressed, surrendered, or had or might by any other means come into the hands of the king.'1

However harsh and unjust may have been the mode in which, to use a modern phrase, the 'disestablishment and disendowment' of the monasteries was carried out, it was a measure politic in itself, supported by the precedents of the Knights Templars under Edward II. and the Alien Priories under Henry V., and fraught with benefits to the English nation. Hallam has well remarked how in many persons the violence which accompanied this great revolution 'excite so just an indignation, that they either forget to ask whether the end might not have been reached by more laudable means, or condemn that end itself either as sacrilege, or at least as an atrocious violation of the rights of property.' But this is not only to ignore the inherent right of the supreme authority of Parliament to confiscate any property, private or corporate, lay or ecclesiastical, for reasons of which it is itself the sole judge, but also to lose sight of the important distinction between private property and corporate property with respect to the justice and expediency of their confiscation. 'The law of hereditary succession,' continues Hallam, 'as ancient and universal as that of property itself, the law of testamentary disposition, the complement of the former, so long established in most countries as to seem a natural right, have invested the individual possessor of the soil with such a fictitious immortality, such anticipated enjoyment, as it were, of futurity, that hist perpetual ownership could not be limited to the term

1 31 Hen. VIII. c. 13.

Was the suppression of the justifiable ?

monasteries

The Pilgrim

age of Grace.' A.D. 1536-7.

The larger monasteries dissolved.

A. D. 1540.

of gain and by hatred to the monastic orders, who as the special protégés of the Papacy were the most obstinate opponents of his ecclesiastical policy. Their widespread influence over the mass of the people rendered them dangerous enemies to a ruler of whose conduct they disapproved. This is evidenced by the insurrections in Lincolnshire and Somersetshire, and the great northern rebellion, styled by the insurgents the Pilgrimage of Grace,' which broke out on the suppression of the smaller monasteries, and was imputed to the 'solicitation and traitorous conspiracy of the monks and canons.'

The rebellion having been ruthlessly stamped out, Henry ventured, four years later, to dissolve the larger monasteries also, without encountering any open resistance from a terrified people. A few had already been held, contrary to every principle of the common law, to be forfeited to the Crown by the attainder of their abbots for high treason. The rest were all surrendered, practically under duress. It only remained for Parliament to ratify the king's title under the surrenders and forfeitures, in order to obviate any objection on the score that as all the members of a foundation possessed only life-interests in the property, they could not, either singly or collectively, confer anything more on the sovereign. An Act was accordingly passed, which, after hypocritically reciting that the abbots, priors, abbesses, and

1 On the 22nd February, 1537, after the rebels in the north had dispersed, the king wrote to the Duke of Norfolk: Forasmuch as our banner is now spread and displayed, by reason whereof, till the same shall be closed again, the course of our laws must give place to the ordinances and statutes martial, our pleasure is that before you close up our said banner again, you shall, in anywise, cause such needful execution to be done upon a good number of the inhabitants of every town, village and hamlet, that have offended in this rebellion, as well by the hanging of them up in trees, as by the quartering of them, and the setting of their heads and quarters in every town, great and small, and all such other places, as they may be a fearful spectacle to all other hereafter that would practise any like matter: which we require you too without pity or respect, according to our former letters.' The Duke was also to 'cause all the monks and canons that be in anywise faulty, to be tied w without further delay or ceremony, to the terrible example of others; wherea we think you shall do unto us high service.'

prioresses had made surrender, 'of their own free and voluntary minds, goodwills, and assents, without constraint, coaction, or compulsion,' vested in the king and his heirs for ever all the property, real or moveable, of the religious houses which had been already or might be hereafter dissolved, suppressed, surrendered, or had or might by any other means come into the hands of the king.'1

However harsh and unjust may have been the mode in which, to use a modern phrase, the 'disestablishment and disendowment' of the monasteries was carried out, it was a measure politic in itself, supported by the precedents of the Knights Templars under Edward II. and the Alien Priories under Henry V., and fraught with benefits to the English nation. Hallam has well remarked how in many persons the violence which accompanied this great revolution' excite so just an indignation, that they either forget to ask whether the end might not have been reached by more laudable means, or condemn that end itself either as sacrilege, or at least as an atrocious violation of the rights of property.' But this is not only to ignore the inherent right of the supreme authority of Parliament to confiscate any property, private or corporate, lay or ecclesiastical, for reasons of which it is itself the sole judge, but also to lose sight of the important distinction between private property and corporate property with respect to the justice and expediency of their confiscation. 'The law of hereditary succession,' continues Hallam, 'as ancient and universal as that of property itself, the law of testamentary disposition, the complement of the former, so long established in most countries as to seem a natural right, have invested the individual possessor of the soil with such a fictitious immortality, such anticipated enjoyment, as it were, of futurity, that his perpetual ownership could not be limited to the term

1 31 Hen. VIII. c. 13.

Was the sup pression of the justifiable?

monasteries

Distribution of the church

property.

of his own existence, without what he would justly feel as a real deprivation of property. Nor are the expectations of children, or other probable heirs, less real possessions, which it is a hardship, if not a real injury, to defeat. Yet even this hereditary claim is set aside by the laws of forfeiture, which have almost everywhere prevailed. But in estates held, as we call it, in mortmain, there is no intercommunity, no natural privity of interest, between the present possessor and those who may succeed him; and as the former cannot have any pretext for complaint, if, his own rights being preserved, the legislature should alter the course of transmission after his decease, so neither is any hardship sustained by others, unless their succession has been already designated or rendered probable. Corporate property, therefore, appears to stand on a very different footing from that of private individuals; and while all infringements of the established privileges of the latter are to be sedulously avoided, and held justifiable only by the strongest motives of public expediency, we cannot but admit the full right of the legislature to new-mould and regulate the former, in all that does not involve existing interests, upon far slighter reasons of convenience. If Henry had been content with prohibiting the profession of religious persons for the future, and had gradually diverted their revenues instead of violently confiscating them, no Protestant could have found it easy to censure his policy."1

The vast wealth which accrued to the Crown by the dissolution of the monasteries, might have rendered the king, had he been able to retain it, independent of the Commons. But he was obliged to bribe all around him, to acquiesce in, and maintain a measure, the accomplishment of which had been attained not without great hazard and difficulty. Some portion was expended on public works and on the foundation of six new bishoprics, but the

1 Const. Hist. i. 74, 75; and see Freeman, 'Disestablishment and Disendowment, What are they?'

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