faith of the accusers. At first, it was only the small houses, under the number of twelve persons, which were given to "vicious and abominable practices," and to "consuming and wasting the Church's lands." Burnet says the reasons given were that these small houses being poor, "their poverty set them on to use many ill arts to grow rich." The preamble of the Act of 1536, for suppressing these smaller monasteries, gives another reason … "considering also that divers and great solemn monasteries of this realm, wherein, thanks be to God, religion is right well kept and observed, be destitute of such full numbers of religious persons as they ought and may keep," it is suggested that the smaller communities—now called nothing worse than "unthrifty"—may be reformed by entering the larger. The King declared that his information was obtained from the "visitors" he had sent, and "by sundry credible informations," so he knew "the premisses to be true." But next year he had discovered that all were bad alike. He took all, and in two years he had squandered all, was asking for subsidies, and debasing the coinage, until when, in his son's reign, it was necessary to pay the loan borrowed from the Antwerp merchants, a new coinage had to be struck before foreigners would accept our money!
Some historians and others speak as though the great wealth of the monasteries was an extenuation of Henry VIII.'s action. As he had for thirty years been squandering money as no king of England ever did before or has since, they seem to think he had a right to rob the Church and the poor, because it would be so well worth his while. But surely the greater the treasure he seized, the more land and goods he got into his power, the greater the crime if when he had got them he squandered them? What would these apologists say in another case? In 1893, not one-fourth, but half, the agricultural surface of England and Wales was held by 2250 persons. That is, 2250 persons owned between them 6000 of the 12,000 rural parishes of England and Wales. In our time those who say that these 2250 persons hold too much land are called robbers and revolutionaries. But the monks held in trust for the poor; and no one has ever yet had the courage to say that the great landowners hold their estates in
