Henry Viii Essay Research Paper From any free essay sample

Henry Viii Essay, Research Paper From any point of position the devastation of the English monasteries by Henry VIII must be regarded as one of the great events of the 16th century. They were looked upon in England, at the clip of Henry # 8217 ; s breach with Rome, as one of the great ramparts of the apostolic system. The monastics had been called # 8220 ; the great standing ground forces of Rome. # 8221 ; One of the first practical consequences of the premise of the highest religious powers by the male monarch was the supervising by royal edict of the ordinary Episcopal trials, and the assignment of a layperson # 8212 ; Thomas Cromwell # 8212 ; as the male monarch # 8217 ; s vicar-general in spirituals, with particular authorization to see the cloistered houses, and to convey them into line with the new order of things. This was in 1534 ; and, some clip prior to the December of that twelvemonth, agreements were already being made for a systematic trial. We will write a custom essay sample on Henry Viii Essay Research Paper From any or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page A papers, dated 21 January, 1535, allows Cromwell to carry on the visit through # 8220 ; commissaries # 8221 ; # 8212 ; instead than personally # 8212 ; as the curate is said to be at that clip excessively busy with # 8220 ; the personal businesss of the whole kingdom. # 8221 ; It is now practically admitted that, even prior to the issue of these committees of trial, the undertaking of stamp downing some, if so non all, of the cloistered constitutions in the state, had non merely been broached, but had become portion of Henry # 8217 ; s practical political relations. It is good to retrieve this, as it throws an interesting and slightly unexpected light upon the first disintegrations: the monasteries were doomed prior to these trials, and non in effect of them, as we have been asked to believe harmonizing to the traditional narrative. Parliament was to meey early in the undermentioned twelvemonth, 1536, and, with the double object of refilling an dog-tired treasury and of expe cting resistance on the portion of the spiritual to the proposed ecclesiastical alterations, harmonizing to the royal design, the Commons were to be asked to allow Henry the ownerships of at least the smaller monasteries. It must hold been felt, nevertheless, by the astute Cromwell, who is credited with the first construct of the design, that to win, a undertaking such as this must be sustained by strong yet simple grounds calculated to appeal to the popular head. Some nice stalking-horse had to be found for showing the proposed step of suppression and arrogation to the state, and it can barely now be doubted that the device of melanizing the characters of the monastics and nuns was intentionally resorted to. The trial opened seemingly in the summer of 1535, although the visitatorial powers of the bishops were non suspended until the eighteenth of the undermentioned September. Preachers were furthermore commissioned to travel over the state in the early fall, in order, by their vituperations, to educate public sentiment against the monastics. These pulpit speechmakers were of three kinds: # 8220 ; railers # 8221 ; , who declaimed against the spiritual as # 8220 ; dissemblers, magicians, and idle drones, etc. # 8221 ; ; # 8220 ; sermonizers # 8221 ; , who said the monastics # 8220 ; made the land unprofitable # 8221 ; ; and those who told the people that, # 8220 ; if the abbeys went down, the male monarch would neer desire any revenue enhancements again. # 8221 ; This last was a favorite statement of Cranmer, in his discourses at St. Paul # 8217 ; s Cross. The work forces employed by Cromwell # 8212 ; the agents entrusted with the undertaking of acquiring up the needed grounds # 8212 ; were chiefly four, Layton, Leigh, Aprice, and London. They were good fitted for their work ; and the charges brought against the good name of some at least of the monasteries, by these chosen envoies of Cromwell are, it must be confessed, sufficiently awful, although even their studies surely do non bear out the modern impression of sweeping corruptness. The trial seems to hold been conducted consistently, and to hold passed through three clearly defined phases. During the summer the houses in the West of England were subjected to scrutiny ; and this part of the work came to an terminal in September, when Layton and Leigh arrived at Oxford and Cambridge severally. In October and November the visitants changed the field of their labors to the eastern and southeasterly territories ; and in December we find Layton progressing through the Midland counties to Lichfield, where he met Leigh, who had finished his work in the spiritual houses of Huntingdon and Lincolnshire. Thence they proceeded together to the North, and the metropolis of York was reached on 11 January, 1536. But with all their hastiness, to which they were urged by Cromwell, they had non proceeded really far in the work of their northern review before the meeting of Parliament. From clip to clip, whilst on their work of review, the visitants, and chiefly London and Leigh, sent brief studies to their employers. Practically all the accusals made against the good name of the monastics and nuns are contained in the letters sent in this manner by the visitants, and in the papers, or paperss, known as the # 8220 ; Comperta Monastica # 8221 ; , which were drawn up at the clip by the same visitants and forwarded to their head, Cromwell. No other grounds as to the province of the monasteries at this clip is forthcoming, and the enquirer into the truth of these accusals is driven back ultmately upon the worth of these visitants # 8217 ; words. It is easy, of class, to disregard inconvenient informants as being unworthy of recognition, but in this instance a mere survey of these letters and paperss is rather sufficient to project considerable uncertainty upon their testimony as entirely unworthy of belief. It is of class impossible to come in into the inside informations of the trial. We must, hence, base on balls to the 2nd measure in the disintegration. Parliament met on 4 February, 1536, and the head concern it was called upon to transact was the consideration and passing of the act stamp downing the smaller spiritual houses. It may be good to province precisely what is known about this affair. We know for certain that the male monarch # 8217 ; s proposal to stamp down the smaller spiritual houses gave rise to a long argument in the Lower House, and that Parliament passed the step with great reluctance. It is more than singular, furthermore, that in the preamble of the Act itself Parliament is careful to throw the full duty for the step upon the male monarch, and to declare, if words mean anything at all, that they took the truth of the charges against the good name of the spiritual, entirely upon the male monarch # 8217 ; s # 8220 ; declaration # 8221 ; that he knew the charges to be true. It must be remembered, excessively, that one simple fact proves that the existent accusals or # 8220 ; comperta # 8221 ; # 8212 ; whether in the signifier of the visitants # 8217 ; notes, or of the fabulous # 8220 ; Black-book # 8221 ; # 8212 ; could neer hold been placed before Parliament for its consideration in item, still less for its critical scrutiny and judgement. We have the # 8220 ; Comperta # 8221 ; paperss # 8212 ; the findings of the visitants, whatever they may be deserving, whilst on their unit of ammunitions, among the province documents # 8212 ; and it may be easy seen that no differentiation whatever is made in them between the greater and lesser houses. All are, to utilize a common look, # 8220 ; tarred with the same coppice # 8221 ; ; all, that is, are every bit smirched by the foul suggestions of Layton and Leigh, of London and Aprice. # 8220 ; The thought that the smaller monasteries instead than the larger were peculiar residences of frailty # 8221 ; , writes Dr. Gairdner, the editor of the State documents of this period, # 8220 ; is non borne out by the # 8216 ; Comperta # 8217 ; . # 8221 ; Yet the preamble of the very Act, which suppressed the smaller monasteries because of their barbarous life, declares positively that # 8220 ; in the great and grave Monasteries of the kingdom # 8221 ; faith was good ascertained and God good served. Can it be imagined for a minute that this averment could hold found its manner into the Act of Parliament, had the studies, or # 8220 ; Comperta # 8221 ; , of the visitants been laid upon the tabular array of the House of Commons for the review of the members? We are accordingly compelled by this fact to accept as history the history of the affair given in the preamble of the first Act of disintegration: viz. that the step was passed on the strength of the male monarch # 8217 ; s # 8220 ; declaration # 8221 ; that the charges against the smaller houses were true, and o n that alone. In its concluding form the first step of suppression simply enacted that all the spiritual houses non possessed of an income of more than 200 lbs a twelvemonth should be given to the Crown. The caputs of such houses were to have pensions, and the spiritual, despite the alleged corruption of some, were to be admitted to the larger and more observant monasteries, or to be licensed to move as secular priests. The step of depravity fixed by the Act was therefore a monetary 1. All cloistered constitutions which fell below the 200 lbs a twelvemonth criterion of # 8220 ; good life # 8221 ; were to be given to the male monarch to be dealt with at his # 8220 ; pleasance, to the honor of God and the wealth of the realm. # 8221 ; This money bound at one time rendered it necessary, as a first measure in the way of disintegration, to determine which houses came within the operation of the Act. Equally early as April, 1536 ( less than a month from the passing of the step ) , we find assorted committees of functionaries and state gentlemen appointed in effect to do studies of the spiritual houses, and instructions issued for their counsel. The returns made by these commissioners are of the highest importance in finding the moral province of the spiritual houses at the clip of their disintegration. It is now beyond difference that the accusals of Cromwell # 8217 ; s visitants were made prior to, non after ( as most authors have mistakenly supposed ) , the fundamental law of these assorted committees of aristocracy and functionaries. The chief intent for which the commissioners were nominated was of class to happen out what houses possessed an income of less than 200 lbs a twelvemonth ; and to take over such in th e male monarch # 8217 ; s name, as now by the late Act lawfully belonging to His Majesty. The aristocracy and functionaries were nevertheless instructed to happen out and describe upon # 8220 ; the conversation of the lives # 8221 ; of the spiritual ; or in other words they were specially directed to analyze into the moral province of the houses visited. Unfortunately, relatively few of the returns of these assorted committees are now known to be ; although some have been discovered, which were unknown to Dr. Gairdner when he made his # 8220 ; Calendar # 8221 ; of the paperss of 1536. Fortunately, nevertheless, the extant studies trade expressly with some of the very houses against which Layton and Leigh had made their pestiferous suggestions. Now that the suppression was resolved upon and made legal, it did non affair to Henry or Cromwell that the inmates should be described as # 8220 ; evil livers # 8221 ; ; and so the new commissioners returned the religious of the same ho uses as being truly # 8220 ; of good virtuous conversation # 8221 ; , and this, non in the instance of one house or territory merely, but, as Gairdner says, # 8220 ; the characters of the inmates are about uniformly good. # 8221 ; To fix for the response of the expected spoils, what was known as the Augmentation Office was established, and Sir Thomas Pope was made its first financial officer, 24 April, 1536. On this same twenty-four hours instructions were issued for the counsel of the assorted committees in the work of fade outing the monasteries. Harmonizing to these waies, the commissioners, holding interviewed the superior and shown him the # 8220 ; Act of Dissolution # 8221 ; , were to do all the functionaries of the house swear to reply truthfully any inquiries put to them. They were so to exmine into the moral and fiscal province of the constitution, and to describe upon it, every bit good as upon the figure of the spiritual and # 8220 ; the conversation of their lives. # 8221 ; After that, an stock list of all the goods, movables, and home base was to be taken, and an # 8220 ; indentation # 8221 ; or opposite number of the same was to be left with the superior, dating from 1 March, 1536, because from that day of the month all had passed into the ownership of the male monarch. Thenceforward the higher-up was to be held responsible for the safe detention of the male monarch # 8217 ; s belongings. At the same clip the commissioners were to publish their bids to the caputs of the houses non to have any more rents in the name of the convent, nor to pass any money, except for necessary disbursals, until the king # 8217 ; s pleasance should be known. They were, nevertheless, to be purely enjoined to go on their attention over the lands, and # 8220 ; to seed and cultivate # 8221 ; as before, until such tme as some male monarch # 8217 ; s husbandman should be appointed and alleviate them of this responsibility. As for the monastics, the officer was told # 8220 ; to direct those that will stay in faith to other houses with letters to the governors, and those that wish to travel to the universe to my Godhead of Canterbury and the Godhead Chancellor of the Exchequer for # 8221 ; their letters to have some benefices or lifes when such could be found for them. One funny fact about the disintegration of the smaller monasteries deserves particular notice. No Oklahoman had the male monarch obtained ownership of these houses under the money value of 200 lbs a twelvemonth, than he commenced to refound some # 8220 ; in sempiternity # 8221 ; under a new charter. In this manner no fewer than 52 spiritual houses in assorted parts of England gained a impermanent reprieve from extinction. The cost, nevertheless, was considerable, non entirely to the spiritual, but to their friends. The belongings was once more confiscated and the spiritual were eventually swept off, before they had been able to refund the amounts borrowed in order to buy this really slight favor at the custodies of the royal legal owner. In difficult hard currency the financial officer of the Court of Augmentation acknowledges to hold received, as simply # 8220 ; portion payment of the assorted amounts of money due to the male monarch for mulcts or composings for the acceptance an d continuation # 8221 ; of merely thirty-one of these refounded monasteries, some 5948 lbs, 6s. 8d. or barely less, likely, than 60,000 lbs of 1910 money. Sir Thomas Pope, he financial officer of the Court of Augmentation, artlessly added that he has non counted the arrears due to the office under this caput, # 8220 ; since all and each of the said monast Eries, before the stopping point of the history, have come into the King’s custodies by resignation, or by the authorization of Parliament have been added to the augmentation of the royal revenues.† â€Å"For this reason† , he adds, â€Å"the King has remitted all amounts of money still due to him, as the residue of their mulcts for his royal toleration.† The amounts paid for the fresh foundations â€Å"in perpetuity† , which in world as the event showed meant merely the reprieve of a twosome of old ages or so, varied well. As a regulation they represented about three times the one-year gross of the house ; but sometimes, as in the instance of St. Mary’s, Winchester, which was fined 333 lbs 6s. 8d. , for leave to go on, it was reestablished with the loss of some of its richest ownerships. It is slightly hard to gauge right the figure of spiritual houses which passed into the male monarch # 8217 ; s ownership in virtuousness of the Act of Parliament of 1536. Stowe # 8217 ; s estimation is by and large deemed sufficiently near the grade, and he says: # 8220 ; the figure of the houses so suppressed was 376. # 8221 ; In regard to the value of the belongings, Stowe # 8217 ; s estimation would besides look to be well right when he gives 30,000 lbs, or some 300,000 lbs of 1910 money, as the annual income derived from the confiscated lands. There can be no uncertainty, nevertheless, that later the promises of big one-year grosss from the old spiritual estates proven illusory, and that, in malice of the rack-renting of the Crown husbandmans, the cloistered estates furnished less money for the royal bag than they had antecedently done under the thrifty direction and personal supervising of their former proprietors. As to the value of the spoils which came from the wrecked and demolished houses, where the waste was everyplace so great, it is of course hard to measure the value of the money home base, and gems which were sent in sort into the male monarch # 8217 ; s exchequer, and the returns from the sale of the lead, bells, stock, furniture, and even the cloistered edifices. It is, nevertheless, moderately certain that Lord Herbert, following Stowe, has placed the sum really received at excessively high a figure. Not, of class, that these goods were non deserving immensely more than the unit of ammunition 100,000 lbs, at which he estimates them ; but nil like that amount was really received or acknowledged by Sir Thomas Pope, as financial officer of the Court of Augmentation. Corruptness, without a uncertainty, existed everyplace, from the lowest attender of the sing commissioner to the highest tribunal functionary. But leting for the countless ways in which the cloistered ownerships could be plundered in the procedure of transference to their new owner, it may non be much beyond the grade to set these # 8220 ; Robin Hood # 8217 ; s pennyworths # 8221 ; , as Stowe calls them, at about 1,000,000 lbs of 1910 money. Something must needfully be said of the existent procedure which was followed by the Crown agents in fade outing these lesser monasteries. It was much the same in every instance, and it was a slightly long procedure, since the work was non all done in a twenty-four hours. The axial rotations of history, sent into the Augmentation Office by the commissioners, show that it was often a affair of six to seven weks before any house was eventually dismantled and its inmates had all been turned out of doors. The main commissioners paid two official visits to the scene of operations during the advancement of the work. On the first twenty-four hours they assembled the superior and his topics in the Chapter House, announced to the community and its dependants their at hand day of reckoning ; called for and defaced the convent seal, the symbol of corporate being, without which no concern could be transacted ; desecrated the church ; took ownership of the best home base and vestments # 8220 ; u nto the King # 8217 ; s use # 8221 ; ; measured the lead upon the roof and calculated its value when melted ; counted the bells ; and appraised the goods and movables of the community. Then they passed on to the scene of their following operations, go forthing behind them certain low-level officers and workingmans to transport out the designed devastation by depriving the roofs and drawing down the troughs and rain pipes ; runing the lead into hogs and fresh fishs, throwing down the bells, interrupting them with sledge-hammers and packing the metal into barrels ready for the visit of the speculator and his command for the spoils. This was followed by the work of roll uping the furniture and selling it, together with the window frames, shutters, and doors by public auction or private stamp. When all this had been done, the commissioners returned to scrutinize the histories and to fulfill themselves by and large that the work of desolation had been accomplished to the male monarch # 8217 ; s contentment # 8212 ; that the nest had been destroyed and the birds scattered # 8212 ; that what had been a memorial of architectural beauty in the yesteryear was now a # 8220 ; bare roofless choir, where tardily the sweet birds sang. # 8221 ; No Oklahoman had the procedure of devastation begun at the same time all over the state than the people began at last to recognize that the benefits likely to accrue to them out of the loot were most illusive. When this was understood, it was foremost proposed to show a request to the male monarch from the Lords and Commons, indicating out the apparent harm which must be done to the state at big if the step was carried out to the full ; and inquiring that the procedure of suppression should be at one time stopped, and that the lesser houses, which had non yet been dissolved under the authorization of the Act of 1536, shold be allowed to stand. Nothing, of class, came of this effort. Henry # 8217 ; s appetency was but whetted by what had come to him, and he merely hungered for more of the spoils of the Church and the hapless. The action of the Parliament in 1536 in allowing the first step to go jurisprudence made it in world much more hard for Henry to pull back ; and in more senses than one it paved the manner for the general disintegration. Here and at that place in the state active opposition to the work of devastation was organized, and in the instance of Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and the North by and large, the popular rise of the # 8220 ; pilgrims journey of grace # 8221 ; was caused in the chief, or at least in great step, by the desire of the people at big to salvage the spiritual houses from pitiless devastation. The failure of the rebellion of the # 8220 ; Pilgrimage of Grace # 8221 ; was celebrated by the executing of 12 archimandrites, and, to utilize Henry # 8217 ; s ain words, by a sweeping # 8220 ; tying-up # 8221 ; of monastics. By a new and clever procedure, suitably called # 8220 ; Dissolution by Attainder # 8221 ; , an abbey was considered by the royal advisors to fall into the male monarch # 8217 ; s custodies by the supposed or constructive lese majesty of its superior. In this manner several of the larger abbeys, with all their gr osss and ownerships, came into Henry # 8217 ; s custodies as a effect of the # 8220 ; Pilgrimage of Grace. # 8221 ; The Parliament of 1536, it will be remembered, had granted Henry the ownership merely of the houses the one-year value of which was less than 200 lbs. What happened in the three old ages that followed the passing of the At was briefly this: the male monarch was sick satisfied with the existent consequences of what he had thought would turn out a regular gold mine. Personally, possibly, he had non gained every bit much as he had hoped for from the disintegrations which had taken topographic point. The belongings of the monastics someway seemed cursed by its beginning ; it passed from his control by a thousand-and-one channels, and he was shortly thirsting for a greater award, which, as the event showed, he was every bit unable to guard for his ain utilizations. By his instructions, visitants were one time more set in gesture against the larger abbeys, in which, harmonizing to the Act of 1536, faith was # 8220 ; right good maintain and observed. # 8221 ; Not holding received any auth orization from Parliament to authorise the extension of their proceedings, the royal agents, eager to win a topographic point in his favor, were busy up and down the state, wheedling, haling, commanding, and endangering the members of the spiritual houses in order to coerce them to give up their monasteries unto the King # 8217 ; s Majesty. As Dr. Gairdner puts it: # 8220 ; by assorted humanistic disciplines and means the caputs of these constitutions were induced to give up, and on occasion when an archimandrite was found, as in the instance of Woburn, to hold committed lese majesty in the sense of the recent legislative acts, the house ( by a stretch of the oppressive Torahs ) was forfeited to the male monarch by his civil death. But civil deaths were surely the exclusion, resignations being the general rule. # 8221 ; The fall of 1537 saw the beginning of the autumn of the friaries in England. For some ground, perchance because of their poorness, they had non been brought under the Act of 1536. For a twelvemonth after the # 8220 ; Pilgrimage of Grace # 8221 ; few disintegrations of houses, other than those which came to the male monarch by the civil death of their higher-ups, are recorded. With the banquet of St. Michael, 1537, nevertheless, besides the convents of mendicants the work of procuring of procuring, by some agencies or other, the resignation of the greater houses went on quickly. The instructions given to the royal agents are clear. They were, by all methods known to them, to acquire the spiritual # 8220 ; volitionally to consent and agree # 8221 ; to their ain extinction. It was merely when they found # 8220 ; any of the said caputs and convents, so appointed to be dissolved, so willful and obstinate that they would in no wise # 8221 ; hold to subscribe and seal their ain death- warrant, that the commissioners were authorized by Henry # 8217 ; s instructions to # 8220 ; take ownership of the house # 8221 ; and belongings by force. And whilst therefore engaged, the royal agents were ordered to declare that the male monarch had no design whatsoever upon the cloistered belongings or system as such, or any desire to procure the entire suppression of the spiritual houses. They were instructed at all costs to set a halt to such rumors, which were of course rife all over the state at this clip. This they did ; and the unscrupulous Dr. Layton declared that he had told the people everyplace that # 8220 ; in this they absolutely slandered the King their natural lord. # 8221 ; He bade them non to believe such studies ; and he # 8220 ; commanded the archimandrites and priors to put in the stocks # 8221 ; such as related such untrue things. It was, nevertheless, as may be imagined, hard plenty to stamp down the rumor whilst the existent thing was traveling on. In 1538 and 1539 some 150 monasteries of work forces appear to hold signed away their corporate being and their belongings, and by a formal title handed over all rights to the male monarch. When the work had progressed sufficiently the new Parliament, which met in April, 1539, after detecting that frogmans archimandrites and others had yielded up their houses to the male monarch, # 8220 ; without restraint, coercion, or irresistible impulse # 8221 ; , confirmed these resignations and vested all cloistered belongings therefore obtained in the Crown. Finally in the fall of that twelvemonth, Henry # 8217 ; s victory over the cloistered orders was completed by the atrocious deceases for constructive lese majesty of the three great archimandrites of Glastonbury, Colchester, and Reading. And so, as one author has said, # 8220 ; before the winter of 1540 had set in, the last of the abbeys had been added to the ruins with which the land was strewn from one terminal to the other. # 8221 ; It is hard, of class, to gauge the exact figure of spiritual and spiritual houses suppressed at this clip in England. Puting all beginnings of information together, it seems that the monastics and regular canons expelled from the greater monasteries were about 3200 in figure ; the mendicants, 1800 ; and the nuns, 1560. If to these should be added the figure of those affected by the first Act of Parliament, it is likely non far from the truth to state that the figure of spiritual work forces and adult females expelled from their places by the suppression were, in unit of ammunition Numberss, about 8000. Besides these, of class, there were likely more than ten times that figure of people turned adrift who were their dependants, or otherwise obtained a life in their service. If it is hard to find, with any certainty, the figure of the spiritual in cloistered England at the clip of the disintegration of the monasteries, it is still more so to give any accurate estimation of the belongings involved. Speed calculated the one-year value of the full belongings, which passed into Henry # 8217 ; s custodies at some 171,312 lbs. Other ratings have placed it at a higher figure, so that a modern computation of the one-year value at 200,000 lbs, or some 2,000,000 lbs of 1910 money, is likely non inordinate. Hence, as a unsmooth computation, it may be taken that at the autumn of the monasteries an income of approximately two million lbs sterling a twelvemonth, of the 1910 money value, was taken from the Church and the hapless and transferred to the royal bag. It may, nevertheless, be at one time stated that Henry obviously neer derived anything like such a amount from the dealing. The capital value was so diminished by gratuitous grants, gross revenues of lands at nominal values, and in legion other ways, that in fact, for the 11 old ages from 1536 to 1547, the Augmentation Office accounts show that the king merely drew an mean annual income of 37,000 lbs, or 370,000 lbs of 1910 money, from belongings which, in the custodies of the monastics, had likely produced five times the sum. Equally far as can be gathered from the histories still extant, the entire grosss of the male monarch from the cloistered arrogations from April, 1536, to Michaelmas, 1547, was about 13 million and a half of 1910 money, to which must be added about a million sterling, the runing value of the cloistered home base. Of this amount, go forthing out of computation the home base and gems, non rather three 1000000s were spent by the male monarch personally ; 600,000 l bs was spent upon the royal castles, and about half a million on the family of the Prince of Wales. More than five 1000000s sterling are accounted for under the caput of war disbursals, and about 700,000 lbs were spent on seashore defense mechanism. Pensions to spiritual individuals account for 330,000 lbs ; and one funny point of 6000 lbs is entered as spent # 8220 ; to procure the resignation of the Abbey of Abingdon. # 8221 ;