Under the Tudors commerce and industry were yet in their infancy. Great Britain still remained substantially agricultural, and capital primarily sought investment in land. The enclosure of the commons and the confiscations of the monastic estates, together formed a gigantic real estate speculation, with which faith had little to do, and which was possible only because force began to express itself through another type of intellect than that which had been able to defend its property during an imaginative age.
The commercial community always demanded cheap religion. Under Henry they inclined toward Zwingli, under Elizabeth toward Calvin, under Charles they were Presbyterian; the gentry, on the contrary, were by nature conservative, and favoured orthodoxy as far as their interest in Church plunder permitted them. Henry and Norfolk stood at the head of this class; Norfolk's conversion to Protestantism has been explained by Chapuys, and Henry remained a bigot to his death.
"Shortly before he died, when about to communicate, as he always did, under one kind, he rose up from his chair, and fell on his knees to adore the body of our Lord. The Zwinglians who were present said that his majesty, by reason of his bodily weakness, might make his communion sitting in his chair. The king's answer was, 'If I could throw myself down, not only on the ground, but under the ground, I should not then think that I gave honour enough to the most Holy Sacrament.'"[240]
As to Norfolk, Chapuys has left his opinion in very plain words:--
"He [Norfolk] has a good deal changed his tune, for it was he alone [in] the Court who showed himself the best of Catholics, and who favoured most the authority of the pope; but he must act in this way not to lose his remaining influence, which apparently does not extend much further than Cromwell wishes."[241]
To attain their end, the rising class, at whose head these two men stood, had to doubly despoil the Church in whose dogmas they believed. They confiscated her lands to enrich themselves, and they suppressed her revenues to buy the support of the traders. Finally, their lack of physical force suggested to them the expedient of seizing on the ecclesiastical organization and filling it with their servants, who should teach the people the religious duty of submission to an authority which distrusted an appeal to arms.