The Transactions of K. Henry VIII. &c. 133

pressed by the superior force of disabling Acts, and the Authority of the Church being laid asleep, Henry lays hold of the favourable opportunity to assume the character of Supreme Ordinary, and adventures to appear as such in the publication of his Injunctions, which Bishop Burnet thinks were the first Act of his Supremacy.- [The Reader will find a short Abstract of them in the Appendix, No. VI.] -As to the general contents of them, they are as follow, viz. All Ecclesiastical Incumbents were, in the first place, to cry down the Pope's Power, and preach up the abrogation of some superfluous holy days. They were to inform the people of the particulars which they ought to teach their children. They were to take care that the sacraments, &c. be reverently administered. They were not (except upon urgent occasions) to frequent taverns or alehouses, nor indulge (after meals) in drinking, tables or card-playing, but be mindful to give good example. The next three articles regard the proper management of the Clergy's Revenues, and the due reparations of their Churches, Chapels, and Mansion-houses; and the last article contains the penalties to be inflicted on the violators or infringers of hi Majesty's Injunctions; which amounted to suspension and sequestration.-And such were the regulations prescribed to the Clergy.

But it seemed a much more difficult task, how to regulate and keep within proper bounds the rest of the people, who now began to run mad after new gospels and new religions. For the seeds of heterodoxy having been sown in almost every corner of the nation, they soon sprouted up, and soon promised (what indeed they have since produced) a plentiful harvest of religious oddities.

But of all the unorthodoxies of the times, none seemed more remarkable than the Mala Dogmata, under which denomination the absurd opinions of the Zuinglian Gospellers were comprised. They had lately been imported from Swisserland; and, like other foreign exotics, were not a little admired (and perhaps improved too) by the English, who naturally delight in novelties.-[The Reader may gratify his curiosity with a taste of them in the Appendix, No. VII.]

By way of counterpoise to these enormities in casuistry and christian morality, the King soon found himself obliged to publish a system of his belief. It was comprised in a set of articles, which do not seem indeed to swerve or recede, in any material point, from the doctrines admitted

and defined in former General Councils. Neither have they, on the other hand, any thing in them that may seem to favour the modern Church of England: for they strenuously assert and maintain, that Penance is a Sacrament instituted by Christ: the necessity of Auricular Confession: the corporal Presence of Christ in the Eucharist: the Use of Images: Invocation of Saints: Purgatory, and Prayers for the Dead.-[See a short abstract of these Articles in the Appendix, No. VIII.]

In perusing these Articles, (which, as well as the Injunctions, are directed to the Clergy) one cannot help taking notice of the King's lofty style of — We think—We will—We command-We have caused to be published-We have committed our people to their [the Clergy's] Spiritual Charge.

From which last expression in particular, it is pretty plain, that the Clergy now held their Spiritual Commissions from the King, in quality of their Supreme Ordinary.

Cardinal Pole takes notice of this unexampled stretch of the regale, in his answer to Bp. Tonstal, who, it seems, had endeavoured to clear the King from the imputation of invading the Sacerdotal Office, because he did not pretend to preach, or administer the sacraments. "To this," says Mr. Collier, "the Cardinal rejoins, that his taking the title of Supreme Head of the Church supposed him the fountain of Spiritual Jurisdiction: and in case he had authority to delegate others, and commissionate them for such offices, does it not follow, that he might execute the same whenever he pleased? Farther, if the administration of the sacraments is the highest spiritual office, must it not belong to the Supreme Ordinary and be annexed to the Head of the Church?"-[See Bp. Tonstal's Letter, and the Cardinal's Answer, in Mr. Collier's Eccl. Hist. Vol. II. which, for brevity's sake, we omit.]

:

§2.-The King takes it into his Head to reform the Regulars and procures an Act of Parliament to dissolve the lesser Houses... The Preamble to that Act... Corrodies explained.

HENRY having reformed the Secular Clergy, by virtue of his Injunctions, Articles, and what not, his next resolve was, to introduce a reformation amongst the Regulars; but such a reformation as proved fatal to them in the event, and

concluded with the total extirpation of them all. True it is, that the religious inhabitants were first assaulted; but this was only a false attack, the true one being carried on, all the while, against their houses. This was the bait that drew on the Reformation; and the riches of the abbies, &c. may be said, in one sense, to have contributed not a little to their own ruin.

Now, in order to come at his prey with more ease and expedition, his Majesty had the precaution to get all the Monasteries in England put under the immediate jurisdiction of the Crown. And this was done by virtue of a statute enacted for that purpose, part of which is as follows:

'As for Abbots, Priors, and all places exempt and formerly under the immediate jurisdiction of the Pope, these religious fraternities were to make their appeal immediately to the Court of Chancery; neither were any Archbishops or Bishops to disturb their application to the King, or intermeddle with such matters.'-Stat. 25. H. VIII. c. 20.

"By this clause, all the religious, instead of being returned to the jurisdiction of their diocesans and metropolitan, were put under the regale, and the King is enacted their Ordinary. This provision, we may imagine, was contrived to bring on the dissolution of the Abbies for now the King was empowered to visit the Monasteries, to inspect their behaviour, and proportion the correction at his pleasure."

At first the King only proposed to dissolve the lesser Monasteries, i. e. such of them whose revenues did not exceed L. 200 per annum : and

"This proposal," as Mr. Fuller observes, "found little opposition in either of the Houses. Henry VIII. was a king, and his necessities were tyrants; and both [king and tyrant] suing together, must not be denied: besides, the larger thongs they [of the temporality] cut out of other men's leather, the more entire they preserved their own hide; which made the Parliament concur to ease their own purses by laying the load on the lesser houses, which they accordingly passed to the crown." "In Parliament," says our Annalist, "were granted to the King and his heirs all religious houses in the realm of England of the value of L. 200 and under, with all the lands and goods to them be

*Collier's Eccl. Hist. Vol. II. B. ii. p. 84.

+ Fuller's Ch. Hist. Book vi. p 310.

Stow's Annals, p. 572.

longing. The number of the houses then suppressed were 376, and the value of their lands then thirty-two thousand pounds and more by the year. The moveable goods (as they were sold at Robin Hood's Pennyworths) amounted to more than ten thousand pounds. The religious persons that were in the said houses were clearly put out; whereof some were sent to the other greater houses, and some went abroad into the world."

It was

And thus began the blessed work of Reformation. built upon the ruins of demolished religious houses; and the Act of Parliament that first gave birth to it bears this title:

'An Act concerning the Suppression or Dissolution of certain Religious Houses, given to the King's Highness, and to his Heirs for ever.'

The Preamble to this Act is too curious and remarkable to be overlooked. It sets forth, that Forasmuch as manifest sin, vicious, carnal, and abominable living, is daily used and committed commonly in such little and small Abbies and Priories, and other Religious Houses of Monks, Canons and Nuns, where the congregation of such persons is under the number of twelve persons, whereby the governors of such Religious Houses, and their Convents, spoil, destroy, consume, and utterly waste, as well those Churches, Monasteries, Priories, principal houses, farms, granges, lands, tenements, and hereditaments, as the ornaments of their Churches, and their goods and chattels, to the high displeasure of Almighty God, slander of good Religion, and the general infamy of the King's Highness and the realm, if redress should not be had thereof. And albeit that many continual visitations have been heretofore had, by the space of two hundred years and more, for an honest and charitable reformation of such unthrifty, carnal, and abominable living; yet nevertheless little or none amendment is hitherto had; and by a cursed custom, so grown and infested, that a great multitude of religious persons, in such small houses, do rather chuse to come abroad in apostasy, than to conform themselves to the observation of good religion. So that, without such small houses be utterly suppressed, and the religious persons therein committed to great and honourable Monasteries of Religion in this realm, where they may be compelled to live religiously for the reformation of their lives, there can be no redress or reformation in that behalf. In consideration whereof, the King's most Royal Majesty, being Supreme Head in earth, under God,

of the Church of England, daily studying and devising the increase and advancement and exaltation of true doctrine and virtue in the said Church, to the only honour and glory of God, and the total extirping and destruction of vice and sin, having knowlege that the premises be true, as well by the complaints of their late visitations, as by sundry credible informations.

'Considering also, that divers and great solemn Monasteries of this realm, wherein, thanks be to God, religion is right well kept and observed, be destitute of such full numbers of religious persons as they might and may keep, have thought good that a plain declaration should be made of the premises, as well to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, as to others his loving subjects, the Commons in this present Parliament assembled; whereupon the said Lords and Commons, by a great deliberation, finally resolved, that it is, and shall be, much more to the pleasure of Almighty God, and for the honour of this realm, that the possessions of such small religious houses now being spent, spoiled, and wasted, for the increase and maintenance of sin, should be used and converted to better uses; and the unthrifty religious persons so spending the same, be compelled to reform their lives. And thereupon most humbly desire the King's Highness that it may be enacted, by authority of this present Parliament, that his Majesty shall have and enjoy, to him and his heirs for ever, all and singular such Monasteries, &c. us in the printed statute."And such was the tenour of this famous Preamble: upon which we beg leave to subjoin

Mr. Fuller's Observations.

"We must not forget," says he, "how in the foresaid Preamble, the King fairly claweth the great Monasteries, Wherein, says he, religion, thanks be to God, is right well kept and observed; tho' be cluwed them soon after in ano. ther acceptation.-However, most specious uses were pretended, That all should be done to the pleasure of Almighty God, and for the honour of the realm. And particular care is taken in the statute, as it is printed, For the reservation of many rents and services, corrodies and pensions to founders, donors, and benefactors. They [the purchasers or grantees] were also to occupy yearly as much of the demesnes in tillage as the Abbots did, or their farmers under them, within the time of twenty years next before this Act, otherwise forfeiting to the King's Highness, for every month so offending, L. 6:13. 4, *Fuller's Ch. Hist. Book VI. p. 312.

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