The Lady Idonia’s reply was to call Dorathie to her. She took her grand-daughter’s face in both hands, and looked tenderly at the rosy cheeks and the pretty blue eyes, which were those neither of father nor mother, but which reminded Idonia Marnell, how often no one knew, of other blue eyes which were dust now in the Abbey of St. Albans.
"Aye, Madge. It will do," was the short but distinct decision of the old lady.
So Dorathie Marston became Dorathie Rotherham, and instead of departing to some strange place with her husband, he came to live with her.
The years went on, until the autumn leaves of 1537 were carpeting the green sward, and the wind was blowing keenly through the glades of Woodstock, and waving the willows that congregate round the Abbey of Godstow. The period was one which we look back upon as lively and tumultuous: yet to the few aged men and women who could look back further yet, to the terrible days of the Roses, it seemed very quiet. Matters had changed greatly since that time. The little printing-press set up by William Caxton the mercer in the Westminster Cloisters, had spread its wide wings over all the land: and the monk who, in his isolated courage, had posted his theses on the door of the church at Wittemburg, had spread his skirts over all the world. Men talked busily now on subjects which they had hardly thought about, fifty years before. Men, aye, and women too, dared to think for themselves. And one of the earliest results of these phenomena was the conclusion that the so-called religious houses had generally ceased to be houses of religion, and that the sooner they were done away with the better.
The state of many of these religious houses was of a kind that simply cannot be described. In them Satan and his angels reigned supreme. But there were a few—alas! they were very few—where the vows were really kept, where learning still had scope, and charity still held sway. And of female communities, the best of all these was the Abbey of Godstow.
The smaller houses, of the value of three hundred marks and under, were first suppressed. The larger, of which Godstow was one, followed later. Undoubtedly the motives for this proceeding were not pure and unmixed. Every person who joined in it was not actuated by exclusive regard for morality, nor was everybody quite innocent of some respect for those confiscated lands—not to speak of silver vases, gemmed reliquaries, and gold pieces—which, in the general up-breaking, might fall in his direction. Perhaps, when we have satisfied ourselves that our own motives are on all occasions absolutely unadulterated, we shall be in a more advantageous position to cast stones at the Reformers.