and also in his objection to the king's divorce from queen Catharine, the interest of the king and the people thus became the same. The pope afterwards signified his desire of accommodation by dispensation, which the king resolved to reject; and this produced the first blow to the papal authority-a proclamation, forbidding, under severe penalties, the receiving any bull from Rome contrary to the prerogatives of the crown. The consequent fall of Wolsey was grounded on his exercising his legatine authority without the king's licence; and of his disposing, as legate, of several benefices, contrary to the statutes of provisors and præmunire: the whole body of the clergy fell likewise under the same predicament; they were obliged to sue to the crown for a pardon, which was granted at the expence of 100,000l. The thunders of the Vatican were now heard with contempt, and the crown of England at length began to feel itself released from an unjust bondage, and subject to no other control than the laws of the realm.

The grant of lands to superstitious uses, such as for masses to be said for the soul of the donor, when he should quit the present stage of existence, and the like; was the most fertile invention to increase the power of the clergy (and a principal support of the arguments in favour of purgatory): the heads of the papal priesthood luxuriously slumbered upon large bequests for this purpose, while their inferior brethren spread their tattered garments over the graves of departed visionaries, and exhausted their breath in vain repetitions for the safety of those souls for whom they felt very little regard, and less pious concern.

The former statutes had as yet applied only to corporate bodies; it became now essential to preserve whole families from ruin, by forbidding such acts of selfish

devotion ;

23 Hen. 8. c. 10 Anno 1531.

devotion; and with this prohibition, the glorious and heavenly Reformation first dawned upon England. Henry the Eighth, however tyrannical and self-willed in all his pursuits, and whatever sinister views might lead him in this great cause, yet seems to have been blessed with an inspired firmness, that bore him on amid all the crowd of public prejudice; the arts of papal priestcraft; the terrors, to him vain terrors, of the hierarchy; and the multitudes of his wondering people, then deeply shackled by the fetters of superstition, and the influence, almost unshaken, of the church of Rome! He thus began by attacking men in their private and internal principles, and the priesthood in this chief bond which preserved their power.

The new act abolished these purgatorial services: it recites, "that by such sales and conveyances made of "trust of lands to the use of churches, fraternities, or "brotherhoods, erected and inade of devotion, or by "consent of the people without any corporation; or to "the use and intent to have obits perpetual, or a con"tinual service of a priest for ever, or for threescore or "fourscore years (supposing, no doubt, that their pur"gatorial state might by that time be concluded), out of "the issues of land charged therewith, that as much loss "and inconvenience happened, and the same were as "prejudicial as where lands were aliened in mortmain."

"Wherefore all such uses, by what name, nature, or quality they were called, were from thenceforth de "clared to be utterly void. But this is saved in some "degree by a proviso, authorizing any person seized of "lands to his own use, or having feoffees of any trust of "lands to his use, to make or devise the same for the "above purposes, so as the same do not continue for a "longer term than twenty years.

"All

"All devices and contrived assurances to defraud the "statute are declared void; and it is declared that the "act shall always be interpreted and expounded as be"neficially as may be to the destruction and utter avoid"ing of such uses; but not to prejudice the right or "custom any corporation might then hold to devise "lands in mortmain."

Superstitious uses were the object which this statute was designed to overthrow; but the same propensity remaining among the people, happily directed by a better judginent, they created trusts for the endowment of free schools, seminaries of education, and stipendiary reliefs to the poor and aged; a practice which the law certainly favoured, had the design ever been put in practice, by adjudging it not within the restrictions of the Cro El. 288. last cited statute, which was expounded to be intended 1 Co. 26. only to subvert the progress of superstition.

Gibs. 645.

Rapin.

In 1532, these measures were further extended, by an 24 H. 8. c. 12. act which established the supremacy of the three estates of the realm, in all causes spiritual as well as temporal; and decreed the penalties of præ munire on all who should prefer appeals to the see of Rome, and appointed the judicature of the ecclesiastical court. The pope's earnest remonstrances against the king's divorce seem to have been one great cause of the general abolition of his authority in England, in the acts of exemption from the annates, appointing bishops, peterpence, procurations, delegations, expedition of bulls, and dispensations; the very name of the pope was, by proclamation, in 1534, ordered to be struck out of all books, that the remembrance of it might, if possible, be lost for ever. In the mean while, as the people were daily corrupted by the monks, who insinuated that the king was going to overturn all religion; he resolved to take every possible precaution to prevent the pernicious designs of these dan

gerous

gerous adversaries. To that end, the suppression of all monasteries was suggested, which the king resolved to effect by degrees. He began by ordering visitations, whereby he should discover their revenues and practices. The monks, conscious of their irregularities, were easily terrified by the threats of their visitors, into a surrender of their houses to the hands of the king: the visitations unravelled to open day a series of debauchery, corruption, wickedness, and abominations (says Burnet) "equal "to any that were in Sodom ;" and the king gave them leave to quit their houses of mock sanctity. Henry tried his success with his nephew James, king of Scotland, 27 H.8. c. 28. but found him still an adherent to the see of Rome. In 1535, he proceeded in his plan, by procuring an act to abolish all the lesser monasteries, whose revenues did not amount to more than 2001. and this was followed by an order for publishing the holy scriptures in English. The pope solicited a reconciliation, which was rejected, and this was followed by an act in 1536, incurring the penalties of præmunire on all who endeavoured to restore his 95 H. 8. c. 16. authority in England.❤

All these measures produced innumerable discontents among the clergy, the monks, and the people. An insurrection followed, which was happily suppressed; but it served only to facilitate the ruin of monastic pride; to which cause the king easily attributed the danger to which he had been exposed, and therefore

* Alms of ploughlands, eleemosyna carucarum, or eleemosyna pro aratrix, was a tax anciently paid for the benefit of the poor, at the rate of a penny for each ploughland.

Alms of the king denote what was otherwise called peterpence, or alms of St. Peter.

The erecting an alms-chest in any church was introduced by an act of 27 Henry VIII. and is enjoined by the book of canons, as also the manner of distributing what is thus collected among the poor of the parish.

resolved

resolved upon the suppression of all the monasteries, and for that purpose appointed, as before, another strict

visitation.

The gross and impious abuses there discovered were Anno 1537. immediately published by the king's command; the forged relics, and secret springs, which moved images, said to be moved by the effect of a divine power, were broken down; the visionary relief attributed by every deluded votary, who threw himself at their feet, began to be no longer felt; and the impositions and pious frauds practised by the priests upon the credulity of the people were universally exposed. The shrine of Becket shared the common fate. It is said, that in one year the offerings upon the altar of Christ did not amount to one penny; those at the altar of the Virgin, to 4l. 1s. 8d. but those at the shrine of Becket, who was accounted the greatest saint in heaven, to 954l. 6s. 3d.

Whatever might have been the views of Henry, to whom avarice has been assigned, with apparent justice; and to whose ingenuity is also attributed a subtle report that an invasion was expected, or a continental war, formed by the pope, to involve him in new distractions, as well abroad as at home; it is certain he made these the motives for suppressing religious houses, and appropriating some of their immense riches to the charges of the state, instead of raising a subsidy upon the people.

The act of 1539 granted the lands of religious houses 31 H. 8. c. 13, to the king, which were supposed to have been voluntarily surrendered to him; an artifice which he adopted to blunt the edge of cruelty, which was imputed to him by the suppression; and indeed the extravagant devotion of this parliament to the will of the monarch, particularly testified in the act for enlarging his royal prerogative, were additional distresses to the church of anti

christ,