Before adverting to the final suppression of Tinterne <g>Abbey</g>, and the confiscation of its revenues to the king’s treasury, we shall now take a brief view of the circumstances which led to this grand revolution in our ecclesiastical government--quoting for our authority those writers of unquestionable veracity, who have treated of that momentous epoch. First, with regard to the
<g>Dissolution.</g>--“Never,” says an historian of this epoch,[113] “never was there any exploit, seemingly so full of hazard and danger, more easily achieved than the subversion of our English monasteries.” The church commissioners presented a startling report of the vices[114] and deceptions of the monks and nuns; and, what was of equal weight in the condemnation, they sent in the title-deeds of their estates, with the inventory of their plate, jewels, and ready money. Upon this a bill was introduced, giving unto the king and his heirs all monastic establishments, the revenues of which did not exceed two hundred pounds sterling a year, with every kind of property attached to them, whether real or personal. Three hundred and eighty of the lesser houses fell within this category, and were suppressed; whereby the king was enriched by thirty-two thousand pounds per annum--an enormous sum in that day--in addition to a hundred thousand pounds in ready money, plate, and jewels. The bill, according to one writer, was not passed through the House of Commons without some difficulty; but <g>Henry</g>, sending for the ministers, and telling them that he would have either the bill or their heads, they passed it immediately.
The parliament, which, by successive prorogations, had sat for the unprecedented term of six years, was now dissolved; and Henry, after all their passive obedience, appears to have been disgusted at this their last and feeble effort at opposition. He now named other commissioners to take possession of the suppressed monasteries, and to prepare measures for the seizure of others. If these men, mostly the friends of Cromwell or of Cranmer, had a better religion before their eyes, they certainly were not blind to the charms of lucre, and the temptations of fair houses and fat glebes; as many of them made a harvest for themselves, out of the spoils of the monks and nuns.[115]