having denied the king's supremacy;—and as all these, while threatened with prosecutions on one side, were flattered with promises and offered tolerable terms on the other, they, for the most part, compromised matters by surrenders: Many, in the hope of advancement to bishoprics, or to be made suffragan bishops, as the inferior abbots generally were, gladly recommended themselves by ready and cheerful resignations: And to some, the honour has been ascribed of acting from new sprung zeal for the Reformation. Some obstinately stood out and denied the king's supremacy, either joining a party in arms or abetting rebellion, and were attainted of treason-when, contrary to all law, the endowments over which they presided, were declared to be forfeited to the Crown*. The surrenders were of themselves invalid, because the abbots and priors, being merely trustees, had no power to alienate the property; but, as the lands and revenues were for the most part disposed of like those of the lesser houses, there was no difficulty in persuading parliament to supply the defect of title, whether by resignation or forfeiture; and all leases granted by the abbots, &c. within a year of the surrender, were reduced.

The personal property that devolved on the Crown was immense, and the rated revenue of all the

Burnet, p. 430. et seq. See vol. v. in proof of the violent means resorted to by the visitors. P. 226. et seq. Herbert says, that Cromwell, "betwixt threats, gifts, persuasions, promises, and whatever might make man obnoxious, obtained of the abbots, priors, abbesses, &c. that their houses might be given up." P. 217. See also p. 218.

houses suppressed, was, according to one account, £131,607, 6s. 4d. to another, £161,100, but the real value is said to have been at least ten times more; and though six new bishoprics were erected out of real property, and part was retained by the Crown, infinitely the greatest portion was either sold at an undervalue, or given away to the nobility and gentry *. The influence conferred by it was proportionally great, and the precariousness of their tenure, till their rights were confirmed by time, obliging the purchasers and grantees to throw their influence into the scale of the Crown, increased the authority of the monarch to a vast extent The state of factions, as we have observed, enabled Henry to occupy the proud place of arbiter in determining their fate. The ascendancy at once belonged to the side he embraced, and the new proprietors were fully aware, indeed the rebellions which followed the suppression of the monasteries afforded them a salutary lesson, by showing the strength that could be arrayed to restore the church patrimony t,-that, if by an illtimed opposition they irritated the monarch to renew his alliance with the Catholics, that body, thus united under a regular head, might succeed in recovering the patrimony of the church out of profane hands. The fluctuating principles of Henry, as well as those to which he always ad

* Burnet, v. i. 488. Herb. 218. Bur. 487. See Strype's Ec. Mem. v. i. p. 264. et seq. in proof of the keenness with which the houses were sued for.

+ See Herbert, Burnet, &c.

hered, were calculated equally to alarm the one faction and encourage the other: for, "in the whole progress of the changes," says Burnet, "his design seems to have been to terrify the court of Rome, and cudgel the Pope into a compliance with what he desired *;" and Clarendon justly observed, that he was "not less a Catholic to the hour of his death, than when he writ against Luthert." This then, was one of the grand sources of that influence in parliament, so much remarked, which Henry possessed in ecclesiastical affairs.

At an after period, the pure and evangelical times of the first reformers, with their views, were appealed to as the criterion of the protestant creed, and the zeal of Laud and his coadjutors is alleged to have been only directed towards restoring the church to that model of imputed perfection ‡. It will therefore be no less conducive to a correct idea of the schemes entertained during the reign of Charles I. than to that of the government in the time of Henry VIII. to give a summary of the chief acts of the legislature, which conferred power upon the latter monarch in ecclesiastical affairs, and an account of the manner in which he carried them into effect.

The same parliament which confirmed the surrender of the greater monasteries, strengthened the crown by an act in regard to proclamations. As Henry had proceeded to innovate in religious

* Hist. of Ref.

+ Clarendon's Hist. of the Church, p. 321.

Heylin's Introduction to, and Life of Laud.

matters, without the intervention of the legislature, great murmurs had arisen, and his injunctions were, with other proceedings, generally considered as an invasion of public rights. The act therefore sets forth in the preamble," the contempt and disobedience of the king's prociamations, by some who did not consider what a king by his royal power might do, which, if it continued, would tend to the disobedience of the laws of God, and the dishonour of the king's majesty, (who may full ill bear it) considering also that many occasions might require speedy remedies, and that delaying these till a parliament met, might occasion great prejudices to the realm, and that the king by his royal power, given of God, might do many things in such cases; therefore it is enacted, that the king for the time being, with advice of his council, might set forth proclamations, with pains and penalties in them, which were to be obeyed as if they were made by an act of parliament. But this was not to be so extended that any of the king's subjects should suffer in their estates, liberties, or persons by virtue of it: nor that by it any of the king's proclamations, laws, or customs were to be broken and subverted." Then follow clauses about publishing proclamations and prosecuting those who contemned or disobeyed them.

Another act, commonly known by the name of the bloody statute, followed immediately, though

* Hist. of Ref. vol. i. p. 477.

with much opposition *; and, it is curious to learn, that, as it countenanced the Romish faith, so it reconciled many of that party to the suppression of monasteries t. It is entitled an act for abolishing diversity of opinions in certain articles concerning Christian religion; and sets out in the preamble, with stating, "that the king, considering the blessed effects of union, and the mischiefs of discord, since there were many different opinions both among the clergy and laity, had called this parliament, and a synod at the same time, for removing these differences, when six articles were proposed and long debated by the clergy, and the king himself had come in person to parliament and council, and opened many things of high learning and great knowledge about them and the six articles were, 1st, That, in the sacrament of the altar after consecration, there remains no substance of bread and wine, but under these forms the natural body and blood of Christ are present. 2d, That communion in both kinds is not necessary to salvation to all persons by the law of God, but that both the flesh and blood of Christ are together in each of the kinds. 3d, That priests may not marry by the law of God. 4th, That vows of chastity ought to be observed by the law of God. 5th, That private masses ought to be observed, which as it is agreeable to God's laws, so men receive great be

Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. i. b. 1. c. 47. Burnet, vol. i. p. 465, et seq.

+ Id.

p. 471.