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CROMWELL AND SUPPRESSION OF MONASTERIES

249

hundred institutions harboring about 10,000 monks and nuns had ceased to exist.

Distribution

and use of the

wealth.

Thus large sums were added to the yearly income of the unthrifty king, but it was not long before the greater part of this wealth had passed into other hands. The spoils were employed in various ways. They were used to endow university professorships, establish schools, and build colleges; to improve fortifications, especially monastic along the Channel shore; to pension homeless monks and nuns; and to finance a new aristocracy. The suppression of the abbeys reduced materially the membership in the House of Lords, since the abbot's office had become extinct; but the places of the mitred abbots were taken by members of a new nobility of Henry's own creation to whom monastic lands were given outright or sold at absurdly low prices. In this way Henry was able to tighten his control of the House of Lords.

It is impossible to approve either the purposes or the methods of Henry and Cromwell; at the same time, it is not likely that English monasticism in the sixteenth century deserves much sympathy. Its old usefulness was passing away; modern civilization has provided agencies that perform the social service of the convents and monasteries far more effectively than most of these institutions were ever able to perform them.1 Nor does there seem to have been either spirit or energy left in the religious houses. Many of the younger monks appear to have lost faith in the ascetic life and were anx- Monastic ious to be released from their vows. Protestant decadence. ideas had struck root in some of the monasteries, and in such houses the dissension on religious matters was so great that the abbots gladly disbanded them. A few of the chiefs heroically refused to stifle their consciences and found death in martyrdom; but the vast majority meekly submitted. It seems that those who suffered death were executed, some for refusing to accept the principle of the Act of Supremacy, others for refusing to deny the legality of the king's marriage to Catherine.

1 Review sec. 20; Tuell and Hatch, No. 19.

The English

222. The Introduction of the English Bible into the Churches. In the suppression of the monasteries England took a second long step in the direction of Protestantism. A third was taken during the same period when the Bible. 1537. king authorized the use of the English Bible in the churches. In 1537, when monastic strongholds were surrendering everywhere, the so-called Matthew's Bible was ordered to be placed in every church. The new Bible was virtually the old version of Tyndale who had suffered martyrdom the year before. Cranmer was evidently anxious to have the Bible read in the churches, and the king assented, it seems, because the Bible was likely to prove useful in his fight with the papacy. But Henry evidently did not believe that the Scriptures could be hostile to Catholic doctrine. Only two years later appeared the famous “Six Articles" in which the king took Catholic ground on all the chief theological questions that were in dispute between Protestants and Catholics.

223. The Agitation for Doctrinal Reform. At this point the two currents of reform, the constitutional and the doctrinal, The question the parliamentary and the popular, came squarely of doctrine. into collision. The agitation begun by Bilney and Tyndale sixteen years before had continued without abatement. At first the questions debated were of secondary importance: the use of relics, the efficacy of pilgrimages, the worth of the monastic life, and the doctrine of purgatory. But soon the nature of the Eucharist came up for discussion, and here was a dogma upon which a large part of the Catholic doctrinal system rested. In abolishing papal supremacy, in dissolving the monasteries, and in permitting the reading of the Scriptures in the churches, the king had acted in harmony with the doctrinal reformers; but he would go no farther. The Six Arti- In the Six Articles the Catholic position on the cles. 1539. Eucharist, celibacy, and confession was affirmed; prayers for the dead were approved; the laity were to receive only the bread in the communion; and the monks, friars, and

1 Review sec. 206.

THE FALL OF CROMWELL. 1540

251

nuns, whose monastic homes were now closed, were ordered to continue the celibate life according to their earlier vows. These articles were law during the remainder of the reign, but they were never strictly enforced.

224. Archbishop Cranmer. In the doctrinal statement of 1539 Cranmer had no part. In the Reformation movement the archbishop occupied a peculiar place: he stood Cranmer's somewhere between the king and the advanced position. reformers, though his thoughts flowed in the popular current. Cranmer's mind was fine in quality and highly cultivated; but he was of a timid disposition both intellectually and morally. Cranmer was constantly advancing toward the Protestant ideal; but the advance was cautious, slow, and halting. He was a reformer, not a revolutionist, and he wished to have everything done in an orderly manner and by legal methods. It may be that his caution was inspired by the masterful personality of the king to whom nearly all the great intellects of the nation yielded all too frequently. At times he was in mild opposition to the ruler; but Henry loved Cranmer, as he loved no other man; and their friendship continued unbroken till the king's death.

225. The Fall of Cromwell. 1540. The Six Articles Act was followed the next year (1540) by the fall of Thomas Cromwell. All through this period both domestic and church policies were largely influenced by the relations Cromwell and with foreign powers. It was Cromwell's policy the German

Protestants.

to form a close alliance with the German Protestant princes, a policy that would unavoidably force England further along the road to Protestantism. After less than three years of married life Henry became a widower; Anne Boleyn was charged with gross crimes and executed. After ten days the king took a new wife, Jane Seymour, who bore him a son Edward, the king's first legitimate male offspring. But twelve days later the mother died, and Henry remained unmarried two entire years.

Birth of
Prince

Edward.

Cromwell now conceived the plan of cementing the proposed

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