led the way) brought on others apace; as appears by their dates, which I have observed from the very instruments themselves; in so much that the rest stood amazed, not knowing which way to turn themselves. Some therefore thought fit to try whether money might save their houses from this dismal fate so near at hand; the abbot of Peterborough offering 25,000 marks to the king, and 300 pounds to the visitor-general. Others with great constancy refused to be thus accessary in violating the donations of their pious founders. But these, as they were not many, so did they taste of no little severity. For touching the abbot of Fountaines, in Yorkshire, I find, that being charged by the commissioners for taking into his private hands some jewels belonging to that monastery, which they called theft and sacrilege, they pronounced him perjured, and so deposing him extorted a private resignation. And it appears that the monks of the charter-house in the suburbs of London were committed to Newgate; where with hard and barbarous usage, five of them died, and five more lay at the point of death, as the commissioners signified; but withal alleged that the suppression of that house, being of so strict a rule, would occasion great scandal to their doings: for as much as it stood in the face of the world, infinite concourse coming from all parts to that populous city, and therefore desired it might be altered to some other use. And lastly, I find, that under the like pretence of robbing the church, wherewith the aforesaid abbot of Fountaines was charged, the abbot of Glastonbury with two of his monks being condemned to death, was drawn from Wells upon a hurdle, then hanged upon a hill called the Tor near Glastonbury, his head set upon the abbey gate, and his quarters disposed of to Wells, Bath, Ilchester, and Bridgewater. Nor did the abbots of Colchester and Reading fare much better, as they that will consult the story of that time may see. And for farther terror to the rest, some priors and other ecclesiastical persons, who spoke against the king's supremacy, a thing then somewhat uncouth, were condemned as traitors, and executed.

"And now, when all this was effected, to the end it might not be thought that these things were done with a high hand, the king having protested that he would suppress none without the consent of his parliament, fit being called April 28, 1539, to confirm these surrenders so made,) there wanted not plausible insinuations to both houses for drawing on their consent with all smoothness thereto; the nobility being promised large shares in the spoil, either by free gift from the king, easy purchases, or most advantageous exchanges, and many of the active gentry advancements to honours with increase of their estates; all which we see happened to them accordingly. And, the better to satisfy the vulgar, it was represented to them, that by this deluge of wealth the kingdom should be strengthened with an army of 40,000 men, and that for the future they should never be charged with subsidies, fifteenths, loans, or common aids. By which means, the parliament ratifying the abovesaid surrenders, the work became completed : for the more firm settling whereof, a sudden course was taken to pull down and destroy the buildings; as had been done before upon the dissolution of smaller houses, whereof I have touched. Next, to distribute a great proportion of their lands amongst the nobility and gentry, as had been projected; which was accordingly done; the visitor gene

ral having told the king, that the more that had interest in them, the more they would be irrevocable.

"And lest any domestic stirs, by reason of this great and strange alteration, should arise, rumours were spread abroad, that cardinal Pole laboured with divers princes to procure forces against this realm, and that an invasion was threatened; which seemed the more credible, because the truce concluded between the emperor and the French king was generally known, neither of them wanting a pretence to invade England. And this was also seconded by a sudden journey of the king unto the sea coasts; unto divers parts whereof he had sent sundry of the nobles and expert persons to visit the ports and places of danger, who failed not for their discharge upon all events to affirm the peril in each place to be so great, as one would have thought every place needed a fortification. Besides, he forthwith caused his navy to be in readiness, and muster to be taken over all the kingdom. All which preparations being made against a danger believed imminent, seemed so to excuse the suppression of the abbeys, as that the people, willing to save their own purses, began to suffer it easily; especially when they saw order taken for building such forts.

"But let us look a little upon the success: wherein I find that the visitor general, the grand actor of this tragical business, having contracted upon himself such an odium from the nobility, by reason of his low birth (though not long before made knight of the garter, earl of Essex, and lord high chancellor of England) as also from the Catholics, for having thus operated in the dissolution of abbeys, that (before the end of the abovesaid parliament wherein that was ratified, which he had with so much industry brought to pass) the king, not having any use of him, gave way to his enemies' accusations; whereupon, being arrested by the duke of Norfolk at the council table, when he least dreamt of it, and committed to the tower, he was condemned by the same parliament for heresy and treason, unheard, and little pitied; and on the 28th of July, viz. four days after the parliament was dissolved, had his head cut off on Tower-hill.

"And as for the fruit which the people reaped, after all their hopes built upon those specious pretences which I have mentioned, it was very little. For it is plain, that subsidies from the clergy and fifteenths of laymen's goods were soon after exacted: and that in Edward the VIth's time, the commons were constrained to supply the king's wants by a new invention, viz. sheep, cloaths, goods, debts, &c. for three years; which tax grew so heavy, that the year following they prayed the king for a mitigation thereof. Nor is it a little observable, that whilst the monasteries stood, there was no act for the relief of the poor, so amply did those houses give succour to them that were in want; whereas in the next age, viz. 39 Eliz. no less than eleven bills were brought into the house of commons for that purpose."

We might rest satisfied with this testimony in favour of the religious orders, and exposure of the black villanies of the devastators, but to render the cause of truth more firm, and prevent idle cavil, we will here add, a confirmation to the learned knight's statement, which is taken from Mr. Thomas Hearn's preliminary observations upon Mr. Brown Willis's View of the Mitred Abbeys.-This gentleman makes a

solemn declaration of his being a sincere member of the church of England, and must therefore be deemed an unexceptionable witness. He writes thus:-" Popery (as I take it) signifies no more than the 66 errors of the church of Rome. Had he, (Henry VIII.) therefore, 66 put a stop to those errors, he had acted wisely, and very much to the "content of all truly good and religious men. But then this would not "have satisfied the ends of himself and his covetous and ambitious agents. They all aimed at the revenues and riches of the religious 'houses; for which reason no arts or contrivances were to be passed "by, that might be of use in obtaining these ends. The most abomi"nable crimes were to be charged upon the religious, and the charge was to be managed with the utmost industry, boldness and dexterity. "This was a powerful argument to draw an odium upon them, and so "make them disrespected and ridiculed by the generality of mankind. "And yet, after all, the proofs were so insufficient, that from what I "have been able to gather, I have not found any direct, one against even any single monastery. The sins of one or two particular persons do not make a Sodom. Neither are violent and forced confessions to be "esteemed as the true result of any one's thoughts.. When therefore "even these artifices, would not do, the last expedient was put în exe"cution, and that was ejection by force; and to make these innocent "sufferers the more content, pensions were settled upon many, and "such pensions were in some measure proportioned to their innocence. "Thus, by degrees, the religious houses and the estates belonging to "them being surrendered unto the king, he either sold or gave them to "the lay-nobility, and gentry, contrary to what he had at first pretend"ed; and so they have continued ever since, though not without visible "effects of God's vengeance and displeasure, there having been direful "anathemas and curses denounced by the founders upon such as should presume to alienate the lands, or do any other voluntary injury to the religious houses. I could myself produce instances of the strange "and unaccountable decay of some gentlemen in my own time, though "otherwise persons of very great piety and worth, who have been pos"sessed of abbey-lands: but this would be invidious and offensive, and "therefore I shall only refer those that are desirous of having instances "laid before them, to shew the dismal consequences that have happened, "to Sir Henry Spelman's History of Sacrilege, published in 8vo. in the year 1698."

The reader has here before him an account of the vile artifices made use of by the visitors to blacken the fair fame of the religious orders, and bring about that destruction of ecclesiastical property which soon followed, and which was devoted to the most sacred purposes.-Let the bigots of the present day continue to circulate the venomous calumnies of Fox, aud Burnet, and other lying writers, who, to palliate the infamy and scandal of these barbarous and gothic proceedings, invented the false charges of looseness and irregularity against the religious orders; thank God, the press is not now shackled as it was by the pretended evangelical disciples of liberty, at the very birth of their devastating Reformation, and the honest part of it will now perform its duty, and make known the real state of the case.-Opposed to the lies of Fox and Burnet, we have even the parliament of Henry declaring

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CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL.

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that religion was well kept and observed in the greater houses, and Mr. Hearne, whom we have just quoted, states it as a positive fact, that not one direct proof was brought against any one single monastery, great or small, of the crimes laid to their charge.

"

The modern editors of Fox, copying from his cousin-german Burnet, say, "The most horrible and disgusting crimes were found to be practised in many of the houses; and vice and cruelty were more frequently the "inmates of these pretended sanctuaries than religion and piety. The report (of the visitors) contained many abominable things, not fit to "be mentioned; some of these were printed, but the greatest part " was lost." We have no doubt the report did contain many "abomi nable things," but then these "abominable things" were mere report,sheer slander and lies-invented for a cloak to conceal the real acts of vice and cruelty and injustice committed by the pretended reformers. If the monks and nuns were such dissolute and worse than beastly wretches, as represented by Burnet, why were they not punished for their abomi

nable crimes, as an example to future members of religious orders, and in vindication of the suppressing deeds of the visitors? But not one criminal have we on record to support the base insinuations of Burnet and Fox; not one single offender has Burnet and the modern editors furnished to bear out their infamous charges whilst history records the slaughter of 59 persons, (among whom were a bishop, an ex-lord chancellor, six doctors of divinity, three abbots, several Carthusian, Benedietine, and Franciscan friars, and many secular clergymen) for opposing and denying the king's spiritual supremacy. Twenty were executed for rising in defence of monastic lands. Nine for pretended plots against the king, and sixty were starved in prison, chiefly Carthusian and Franciscan friars, for denying the king's spiritual supremacy. Cranmer all this time, observe, was archbishop of Canterbury.

In fact, it was this opposition to the assumed supremacy of the king in spirituals, by the religious orders, that drew the vengeance of Henry and the reformers upon their establishments. This we learn from the modern editors and Burnet.-They say, "It was well known that the monks and friars, though they complied with the time (this is false, "for if they had complied, they would in all probability have been unImolested), yet hated this new power of the king's; the people were "also startled at it: (oh! then the people were sensible it was something new, and something alarming, or why startle at it?) so one Dr. "Leighton, who had been in Wolsey's service with Cromwell, propos"ed a general visitation of all the religious houses in England; and thought that nothing would reconcile the nation so much as to see some good effect from it." Certainly, the production of good was the best way to reconcile the people to the measure; but, unfortunately for the people of Englaud, no good whatever has arisen to them from the usurpation of the supremacy in spirituals by Henry.-The good, if such it can be called, fell to the lot of the greedy and unprincipled courtiers, and the evil to the share of the people. There can be no doubt that abuses existed at the time we are speaking of, and that many of the high dignitaries of the church were too well fed and too rich to do their duty truly; for if this had not been the case, the bishops would not have acknowledged the supremacy of Henry through fear of losing their temporalities, with the exception of one only, namely Fisher, bishop of Rochester. But the reforming of abuses, and the destruction of useful institutions, are two very distinct things, and the cry of reform was merely a pretence to put in execution a diabolical purpose. The stoutest opposers of the dissolution, as well as the divorce of Catharine, were the mendicant friars, whose holy poverty kept them independent in mind, and fearless of the threats of death. An example of this heroic fortitude was shewn in the conduct of friars Peto and Elstow, the former of whom boldly preached against the divorce in the presence of Henry, and being attacked in the pulpit by one Dr. Curwin, chaplain to the king, was as strenuously defended by Elstow, who challenged, Curwin before God and all equal judges, to prove him a false prophet and a seducer. This conduct of Elstow was in presence of the king. also, nor would he desist in his opposition to Curwin, until the monarch commanded him to be silent.-Not many days after the affair took place, Peto and Elstow were ordered to make their appearance before