When the King perceived that neither imprisonment, nor the execution of the Carthusians, shook Sir Thomas More's resolution, he ordered him to be brought to trial. After the indictment had been read, pardon was offered him, and favour, if he would lay aside what the Court called his obstinacy, and change his opinion. "Most noble Lords," he replied, "I have great reason to return thanks to your honours, for this your great civility; but I beseech Almighty God that I may continue in the mind I am in, through his grace, unto death." Then answering to the charges against him, he said, that if he had not, as the King's counsellor, opposed the project of the second marriage, according to his conscience, . . . then, indeed, he might justly have been esteemed a most wicked subject, and a perfidious traitor to God. The offence, if offence it was, to deliver his mind freely, when the King had called for it, he thought had been sufficiently punished by the loss of his estate, and an imprisonment of fifteen months, which had impaired not his health only, but his memory and understanding also. Touching the second charge, that he had obstinately and traitorously refused, when twice examined, to tell his opinion, whether the King was supreme head of the Church or no; 66 This," said he, was then my answer, that I would think of nothing else hereafter, but of the passion of our blessed Saviour, and of my exit out of this miserable world. I would not transgress any law, nor become guilty of any treasonable crime; for the statute, nor no other law in the world, can punish any man for his silence, seeing they can do no more than punish words and deeds. God only is the judge of the secrets of our hearts." He protested that he had never revealed his opinion to any person; and to the charge of having encouraged Fisher in the like obstinacy, he said, that when that Bishop desired to know how he had answered concerning the oath, his only reply was, that he had settled his conscience, and advised him to satisfy his according to his own mind. A witness was brought against him, to whose testimony Sir Thomas objected, the man being a notorious liar; and was it to be believed, that he would communicate to such a fellow opinions which he deemed it necessary not to explain before the Council? Two persons were called upon to confirm this villain's evidence, and both declined doing it, saying, that being otherwise occupied at the time, they

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had given no ear to the discourse. Yet upon this evidence the Jury found him guilty . . . Such were juries in those days.

Sir Thomas then spoke resolutely out, and maintained that judgement ought not to be pronounced against him, because the act, upon which the indictment was founded, was directly repugnant to the laws of God, and of the holy Church. This kingdom had no more right to make laws for the Church, of which it was but one member, than the City of London had for the kingdom. The act was contrary to Magna Charta, by which the Church was secured in the possession of all its rights and liberties. It was contrary also to the coronation oath; and he could not think himself bound to conform his conscience to the counsel of one kingdom, against the general consent of Christendom. He concluded, in his natural mild temper, that as the Apostle Paul consented to the death of the protomartyr Stephen, and yet both were now Saints in Heaven, so he prayed that, though their lordships were now judges to his condemnation, they might meet hereafter joyfully in everlasting life. It is related of him, that he had been in the habit of tormenting his body by wearing sackcloth, and that after his condemnation he punished himself every night severely with a scourge, . . . so completely had he surrenderd his better mind to the degrading superstitions of the Romish Church, if his biographers, who regarded him as a Saint, are in this point to be credited. But this is certain, that his equanimity never forsook him; that, even on the scaffold, he found occasion for a jest, and that he laid his head upon the block with the cheerfulness of a man, who, knowing that he had acted faithfully according to his conscience, was assured of his reward. Fisher was beheaded a few days before him. The execution of these eminent men, the one nearly fourscore, venerable also for his erudition and his virtues, . . . the other, the most distinguished ornament of his age and country, was regarded throughout Christendom with wonder and detestation. It was thought necessary, therefore, that a vindication of the King's conduct should be written, and the person by whom this task was performed was Stephen Gardiner; the task was worthy of the man. In both cases, the work of retribution may be acknowledged; as persecutors both sufferers had sinned, and both died as unjustly as they had brought others

to death. The consideration is important in a Christian's views; but it affords no excuse, no palliation, for the crime.

The King's determination to have his supremacy acknowledged, was exasperated by opposition; and he would even have sent his daughter, the Lady Mary, to the Tower for her refusal, there to suffer as a subject, if Cranmer had not earnestly dissuaded him. To his entreaties he yielded; but, at the same time, warned the Archbishop, that this interference would one day prove his utter confusion. Cranmer could not have been blind to this danger; neither, when the worst consequences which might have been apprehended, came upon him at last, would he repent of having, in this instance, faithfully discharged his duty. If Henry had always listened to this faithful counsellor, the Reformation would have proceeded as temperately in all other respects as with regard to doctrine, and the reproach which was brought upon it by the destruction of the religious houses, would have been averted. Tolerated upon their then present footing, those establishments could not be... They were the strongholds of Popery, the manufactories of Romish fraud, the nurseries of Romish superstition. If religion was to be cleared from the gross and impious fables with which it was well nigh smothered; if the Manichean errors and practices which had corrupted it, were to be rooted out; if the scandalous abuses connected with the belief of purgatory, were to be suppressed; if the idolatrous worship of saints and images was to be forbidden; if Christianity, and not Monkery, was to be the religion of the land; . . . then was a radical change in the constitution of the monasteries necessary: . . . St. Francis, St. Dominic, and their fellows, must dislodge with all their trumpery, and the legendary give place to the Bible.

Therefore Cranmer advised the dissolution of the monasteries, as a measure indispensable for the stability of the Reformation; and that out of their revenues more bishoprics should be founded, so that, dioceses being reduced into less compass, every Bishop might be able to fulfil the duties of his office. And to every Cathedral he would have annexed a college of students in divinity, and clergymen, from whom the diocese should be supplied.

More than this might justly have been desired. After

1 Strype's Cranmer, 35.

a certain number of monasteries had been thus disposed of, others should have been preserved for those purposes of real and undeniable utility connected with their original institution; some, as establishments for single women, which public opinion had sanctified, and which the progress of society was rendering in every generation more and more needful; others, as seats of literature and of religious retirement. Reformed convents, in which the members were bound by no vow, and burthened with no superstitious observances, would have been a blessing to the country.

Cranmer's advice was taken, as to the dissolution; in other respects it was little regarded, though to him it is owing that anything was saved from the wreck. The overthrow of these houses had long been predicted, because of the evils inherent in their constitution; still more, because of their wealth: . . . and though the danger had been staved off in Henry the Fifth's reign, even then a precedent had been given to his successors, by the suppression of such alien priories as were subservient to foreign abbeys. For this measure, however, there were just and unanswerable reasons of state. A more dangerous step was taken by Wolsey, in the plenitude of his power. He, with the King's approbation, procured Bulls from the Pope, for suppressing forty smaller monasteries, and endowing, with their possessions, the two colleges which it was his intention to found at Oxford, and at his birth-place, Ipswich.

The Observant Franciscans had incensed the King, by the part they had taken in the Kentish Nun's imposture, and by the boldness with which they inveighed against the divorce. From resentment, therefore, he suppressed that order of Friars; and, in this act, cupidity could have had no share, for they had no lands, and their convents were given to the Augustinians. More serious measures were intended, when commissioners were appointed to visit the monasteries, and report concerning their state, their discipline, and their possessions. To obtain the latter for the King's use, was the real object; and in the former, they found as much pretext as the fiercest enemies of monachism could have desired. Wicliffe had lamented one crying evil, which has prevailed everywhere where monasteries have existed,... the practice of thrusting children into them, and compelling them

to bind themselves by irrevocable vows, that the patrimony of the elder or favourite child might not be diminished by their portion. The visitors had authority to dispense with such vows; and many, when they knew this, fell on their knees before them, and prayed to be delivered from their miserable imprisonment. In many of these petty communities, they found parties opposed to each other, captious opposition, vexatious tyranny, and cruel abuse of power, which dreaded no responsibility. Coining was detected in some houses; the blackest and foulest crimes in others. Many nunneries were in a scandalous state; and so little were the austere rules of their institute observed, that when the observance was insisted on by the visitors, the Monks declared it was intolerable, and desired rather that their community might be suppressed than so reformed.

It was in the lesser monasteries that the worst abuses were found; probably because they served as places of degradation, to which the most refractory or vicious members were sent. This afforded a plea for suppressing them, and a bill was passed accordingly, for conferring upon the Crown all religious houses, which were not able clearly to expend above 2007. a year. The Preamble stated, that when the congregation of Monks, Canons, or Nuns, was under the number of twelve persons, carnal and abominable living was commonly used, to the waste of the property, the slander of religion, and the great infamy of the King and of the realm, if redress should not be had thereof. Their manner of life had, by cursed custom, become so inveterate, that no reformation was possible, except by utterly suppressing such houses, and distributing the members among the great monasteries, wherein religion was right well observed, but which were destitute of such full members as they ought to keep. In order, therefore, that the possessions of such small religious houses, instead of being spent, spoiled, and wasted for increase of sin, should be converted to better uses, and the unthrifty religious persons, so spending the same, be compelled to reform their lives, Parliament humbly desired the King would take all such monasteries to himself and his heirs for ever.

If the plea for this act had not been undeniably notorious, the greater Abbots, of whom six-and-twenty at that time voted in Parliament, would never have consented to it. Fair promises