It is generally supposed, that the order was abolished by the council; but this is a mistake. The pope assembled the cardinals, and several prelates, in a secret consistory; and there, abolished the order by his own authority. At the second sessions of the council he published the decree of abolition: the members present heard it, (it cannot be said they accepted it), in solemn silence. Four days afterwards, the pope, in his bull, Considerantes dudum, announced that the charges against the order were sufficiently proved, to render them strongly suspected; but, not sufficiently proved, to authorise a judicial sentence. For this reason, he professed to have abstained from a definitive sentence, and only passed a provisional condemnation. It is observable, that Clement the fourteenth, in his bull for suppressing the order of the Jesuits, adverts to this circumstance, and expressly says, that "the general council of Vienne, to "whose examination the pope had committed the business, advised him to adopt this provisional "mode of proceeding."

Combining all these circumstances, it seems impossible not to acquit the Templars of the general guilt imputed to their body: if some members were chargeable with irreligion, their number was not great; if some irreligious associations were formed, these must have been exceedingly few,-and seem to have been merely meetings of sensuality: it is evident, at least, that nothing of the metaphysical speculations of atheism entered into them.

The last act of the tragedy was the burning of the grand master, Jacques de Molay. He was of an illustrious house of Burgundy, and, at the time, when the storm burst on the order, was carrying on, with great valour, a war, in the island of Cyprus, against the Turks. By the command of the pope, he quitted it, and, attended by sixty of his knights, all of noble birth, repaired to Paris; immediately on their arrival, they were cast into prison. The grand master was cruelly tortured: subdued by the violence of the torments, he confessed the general guilt of the order. He was then remanded to prison, and continued in it during six years. On the 18th of March 1313, he was summoned, with three chief dignitaries of the order, before the three commissaries of the cause, and required to acknowledge his guilt. Turning his face to the assembled multitude, "most just," he said aloud, "that, on this horrible

66

"It is

day, and in these last moments of my life, I "should proclaim the iniquity of falsehood, and "make virtue triumph. I therefore acknowledge, "before heaven and earth, that I have been guilty "of the greatest crime. But, it was, when I con"fessed the truth of the charges made against the "order. I now attest its innocence: the love of "truth obliges me to declare it. I asserted the contrary, merely to suspend the excessive tor"tures inflicted on me; and to soften the hearts "of those, who inflicted them. I am aware of the "torments, which have been inflicted on those, "who have had the courage to retract their con

"fessions: but, this dreadful spectacle is not suf"ficient to make me confirm a first lie by a second: "rather than comply with so infamous a condition, I renounce life."

66

A knight, who attended him, made a similar declaration. A council of state was immediately assembled by order of the king; who condemned both to perish by a slow fire. They were, accordingly, fastened to an iron stake; and a small fire was lighted under them. In this horrible situation they long continued,-protesting their innocence to the last.

Some readers may, perhaps, acquit the Templars wholly of the charges imputed to them. This, perhaps, is going too far: yet it should not be forgotten, that the evidence against them arises, altogether, from the depositions taken before commissioners appointed by their enemies, and extorted from the witnesses by hopes, intimidation, and torture; while every method was used to mislead the judgment, inflame the imagination, and rouse the passions of the public against them. If, from such materials, and under such circumstances, arguments, so powerfully vindicating their innocence, have been collected, how would the case have stood, had they been allowed to make their own statements, urge their own defence, and expose, in their own manner, the artifices and cruelty of their adversaries?

XVII. 2.

The Suppression of the Alien Priories.

THE alien priories may be considered as filiations from the foreign abbies. Some depended entirely upon their foreign parents,―receiving from them their priors, and remitting to them, all' that remained of their income, after supplying the necessary wants of the community. The dependence of the others was almost nominal: they elected their own priors, and were absolute proprietors of their own estates. The former had long been the objects of the jealousy of the English government, on account of their sending out of the country a large proportion of the revenues. In the fourth year of Henry the fifth, when he was at war with France, an act was passed, by which all the alien priories were suppressed, and their estates vested in the crown.

XVII. 3.

License granted by the Pope to cardinal Wolsey, to dissolve several of the smaller Monasteries.

To the attacks, which were made upon monasteries by Henry the eighth, Wolsey preluded, by the license, which, in 1525, he obtained from the pope, to dissolve several of the smaller communities. The pope had attached to this license a condition, that no monastery should be dissolved without the previous consent of the king and its

founders. The consent of the king was readily obtained: what arrangements were made with the founders or their representatives, does not appear. The suppressed houses and their possessions became the property of Henry: he conferred them, by new grants, on the cardinal; who annexed some of them to the college at Oxford, and others, to the college at Ipswich, which he had founded. The former is called Christ Church; the latter, immediately after the decease of the cardinal, was neglected, and fell to ruin.

XVII. 4.

The Dissolution of the remaining smaller Monasteries.

HENRY determined on the general dissolution of all the monasteries within his realm, soon after he had assumed the title of supreme head of the church. His first attack was levelled at the smaller institutions, or those, whose yearly income did not exceed two hundred pounds. With this view, he appointed Thomas Cromwell, -(who from a very low situation, had raised himself by his talents to the rank of secretary of state)-to be his vicargeneral and vicegerent; with authority to visit all ecclesiastical persons and communities, within his dominions, to rectify and correct all abuses, and, generally to do every thing that the king could do, as supreme head of the church. Henry also authorised him to delegate to others, any portion of the authority thus conferred upon him. Cromwell, accordingly, signed several commissions, autho