merciful death of decapitation instead of burning. Such were the tender mercies of Henry! The two points in the Reformation effected by Henry were the abolition of the pope's supremacy and the suppression of the monasteries. [The further progress of the Reformation took place under Edward VI. and was effected by the skilful management of Cranmer.] The first the difficulties about his divorce evidently suggested; the second had already been begun by Wolsey, and the spoil derived from the monasteries which, as far as Wolsey went, was devoted to the founding of colleges, under Henry was directed to courtiers and the king's use, and for the most part wasted.* Wolsey, with the express sanction of the pope, suppressed many monasteries, and what is singular, Cromwell was his agent in this usurpation on the rights of the monastic bodies. Wolsey's object in this spoliation was the endowment of his splendid foundations at Oxford and Ipswich. There was no want of learning and of far-seeing views in Henry's time. Sir Thomas More, Wolsey himself, Cranmer we may mention, and others, but it was the absence of a well-founded liberty which exposed everything to be overturned at the caprice of a tyrant. Henry was learned, firm in mind, and his father left him a settled government; but absolute power, at so early an age, was his curse, and it may be said of him 'what an excellent monarch he would have been had he never reigned.' *To show how heedlessly, carelessly, and without any reasonably fair consideration, King Henry VIII. granted away the immense properties of the religious houses, the following may be quoted: 'Sir Thomas Curwen, in Henry VIII.'s time, was an excellent archer at twelvescore marks. He went up with his men to shoot with that renowned king at the dissolution of abbeys. The king said to him: "Curwen, why dothe thee beg none of these abbeys? I wold gratify thee someway." Quoth the other: "Thank you;" and afterwards said he "wold desire of him the Abbie of Forneis (nygh unto him) for 20 one years." Sayes the king: "Take it for ever." Quoth the other: "It is long enough, for youle set them up again in that time;" but they not being likely to be set up again, this Sir Thomas Curwen sent Mr. Preston, who had married his daughter, to reniewe the lease for him, and he even reniewed it in his own name, which when his father-in-law questioned, quoth Mr. Preston: "You shall have it as long as you live, and I think I may as well have it with your daughter as another." ('Annals of Cartmel.”) LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VIEW OF HACKNEY, FROM A PRINT IN THORNTON'S 'HISTORY VIEW OF THE OLD TOWER AND OF THE ROWE CHAPEL frontispiece page 40 page 45 CONJECTURAL POSITION OF THE MONUMENTS IN THE OLD page 58 THE WALLS AND PILLARS OF THE OLD CHURCH AS SHOWN IN A PLAN IN THE POSSESSION OF J. R. DANIEL-TYSSEN, ESQ. at the end "This cardinal, Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly Was fashioned to much honour. From his cradle |