night" to the hospital of the Crutched or Crossed Friars; he was attended through the place, filled with the groans of the dying, by two friars, bearing iron crosses in their hands, and with a badge of their order, a cross of red cloth, on their grey garments. The courtly Wyatt lapsed into a reflective mood, and asked one of the Fathers if they did not fear death in such a pestilential place. "No," replied Father Anthony; "our mission is to rescue poor souls from Satan. My son, our mission is from heaven." "Have any of your community died of this dreadful sickness ?" inquired Wyatt. "Not one," said the monk. The thoughtless courtier stood awe-struck, when he beheld, as he relates, the "last rites ministered to the men and women about to die." In after years, when on his deathbed, Sir Thomas Wyatt gave an account to his sister, Lady Lee, of the kindness of the monks and nuns to their patients; and the gentle persuasion they used to win back to religion those terrible characters who often sought aid from them when on the brink of dissolution. Many Protestant writers have borne testimony to the labours of the Monastic houses for the sick and dying at the period of the plague.

The Rev. J. H. Blunt sums up the destruction of the Monastic houses in these words: "On the whole question it may be said that we must ever look back on that destruction as on a series of transactions in which the sorrow, the waste, the impiety, that were wrought, were enough to make angels weep. It may be true that the Monastic system had worn itself out for practical good; or, at least, that it was unfitted for those coming ages which were to be so different from the ages that were past. But slaughter, desecration, and wanton destruction, were no remedies for

its sins, or its failings; nor was covetous rapacity the spirit of reformation. A blot and a scandal were indelibly impressed upon our history, and every bare site, every ruined gable, is still a witness to what was nothing else than a great national tragedy."*

How many tomes have been written upon the "oppressions of Rome" and the "cruelties of the Inquisition!" Casting off, as I do, and condemning, with utter loathing, cruelty and injustice, whose wickedness is but enhanced when perpetrated in the name of religion, which should be a merciful monitor, possibly it would be no violation of equitable judgment in all thinking men now to feel and acknowledge that not all the auto-da-fés of Portugal and Spain -not all the cruelties ascribed to the Santa Hermandad were fraught with more enduring evils to the poor "God's poor"—of a country, than were the results of that Inquisition of which Thomas Crumwell was the un-English Torquemada. That Inquisition was the origin of the debasing Poor Laws in this realm. Who can deny this fact?

* J. H. Blunt's Reformation of the Church of England, vol. i. Thorndale, whom I have quoted in this and my former works, was a Flemish architect, who resided many years in England, and subsequently printed his little Black-letter Book in Brussels. He wrote with admirable brevity, and gathered many valuable facts bearing upon the destruction of the Monastic houses, and, being an architect and an antiquarian himself, he felt a special interest in the sad fate of the churches, abbeys, and libraries. He was personally acquainted with Anna Boleyn, Thomas Wyatt, and Lord Percy; Crumwell, Layton, London, and others of the Inquisitors whom he had met in Archbishop Cranmer's dining hall. Of Cranmer's hospitality and benevolence Thorndale speaks in glowing terms. To Thorndale I am indebted for much of my information concerning the character of the Monastic Inquisitors, whose infamous lives are yet unpublished. The real name of this author was Dominic Baptist Julian Cricitelli, the grandson of a physician of that name who resided in Mantua about the close of the fifteenth century. Thorndale (the author) died in Paris in 1560.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CONVOCATION.

THE Convocations of Henry's reign appear in a painful light; they had ceased to manifest even a semblance of the independence which had formerly made their deliberations respected. But this change of action-not altogether principle may be accounted for in the continuous threats of the King and his Ministers, whose Church patronage was bestowed for political and other services. Then the presence of Lord Crumwell and his theologian Alesse in Convocation, to represent the Monarch as Head of the Church, had the worst results. Dr. Whyte describes Crumwell's "presence there as a scandal no honest or independent priest could tolerate." The King must have abandoned all regard for the clerical character when he appointed Thomas Crumwell-an ignorant layman-to the prebend of Blewsbury, in the diocese of Salisbury; and further, the favourite was presented with the Deanery of Wells, which preferments he held till the period of his arrest and condemnation. Crumwell's endowments formed no exception to this flagrant abuse of Church patronage. Reginald Pole, when enjoying King Henry's favour, received Church livings, although he was not for many years subsequently endowed with clerical orders. At the age of seventeen he was appointed by the King Prebendary of

Roscombe and Dean of Exeter, of which endowments he received the revenues, without, of course, exercising any clerical duties.* This condition of things, evinced in many similar instances, was the natural result of the lamentable connection between the Church and Crown.

Here is another instance of a gratuitous insult offered by the King to the Church. To prevent the publication, as alleged, of "corrupt copies of the Holy Scriptures, a special patent was granted to Lord Crumwell, which prohibited any persons from printing an English edition of the Bible, except those who were deputed by the said Lord Crumwell." This command was specially intended as a blow against the bishops, of whom Crumwell was an open enemy. The Grand Inquisitor's agents were at liberty to print and circulate whatever ribaldry they pleased. Dean Maitland has fully investigated Crumwell's deeds in this respect, to which I shall refer in another chapter. When Richard Foxe, Fisher, Warham, Collet, and the men of that high school had passed away, and were succeeded by clerics like Gardyner, Bonner, Roland Lee, Edward Lee, Thomas Cranmer, Edward Fox, Shaxton, Latimer, Ridley, Hooper, Layton, London, Poynet, and others of the same accommodating temperament, it is not to be wondered that division and inconsistency marked the devious deliberations of a once dignified assembly. Lord Crumwell and Archbishop Craumer carried out their programme by terror

*

Rymer, xiv. 569: Foss's English Judges, vol. vi.; Rymer, xiv. p. 650. + Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. vii.

‡ Notwithstanding Dr. Gardyner's many grave faults, he had powerful influence with the Convocation; but when the King discovered he was adverse to his schemes of Church confiscation, he found means to employ that prelate elsewhere. Gardyner was therefore sent on special diplomatic missions.

and corruption; yet there were men in Convocation who could not be purchased, and for whom the dungeon or the axe had no terrors. The schemes devised by the Archbishop for inducing priests to adopt or promote his political and religious views were of the most insidious and unjust description; and his plans for setting aside or hunting down honest opponents amongst the clergy exhibited a thorough disregard for equity and humanity. He ruined the archdiocese of Canterbury, for no virtuous clergyman could hold a cure under his administration.

.

The Supremacy question was the first great cause of rupture between the King and Convocation. "It was evident," writes Lingard, "that the adoption of the title of Head of the Church by the King would experience considerable opposition from the clergy; but the cunning of Crumwell had already organised a plan which promised to secure their submission. . . The Convocation offered a present of one hundred thousand pounds in return for a full pardon.' To their grief and astonishment Henry refused the proposal, unless in the preamble to the grant a clause was introduced acknowledging the King to be the Protector and only Supreme Head of the Church and clergy of England. Three days were occupied in useless consultations; conferences were held with Crumwell and the Royal Commissioners; expedients were proposed and rejected; and a positive message was sent by Viscount Rochford that the King would admit of no other alteration than the addition of the words 'under God.' What induced him to relent, so far as to set himself down as only inferior to the Deity, is unknown; but an amendment was moved, with his permission (1531), by Archbishop Warham,