" Thus did the noble old man
consent to go into heaven with a lie on his conscience, hoping to escape
by the mercy of God, because he sought to save the lives of his
brethren. But all this was of no avail; Cromwell had determined that
this monastery must fall, and fall it did. The monks prepared for their
end calmly and nobly; beginning with the oldest brother, they knelt
before each other and begged forgiveness for all unkindness and offence.
"Not less deserving," says Froude, "the everlasting remembrances of
mankind, than those three hundred, who, in the summer morning, sate
combing their golden hair in the passes of Thermopylae." But rebellion
was blazing in Ireland, and the enemies of the king were praying and
plotting for his ruin. These monks, with More and Fisher, were an
inspiration to the enemies of liberty and the kingdom. Catholic Europe
crouched like a tiger ready to spring on her prostrate foe. It is sad,
but these recluses, praying for the pope, instilling a love for the
papacy in the confessional, these honest and conscientious but dangerous
men must be shorn of their power to encourage rebels. There was a farce
of a trial. Houghton was brought to the scaffold and died protesting his
innocence. His arm was cut off and hung over the archway of the
Charterhouse, as other arms and heads were hideously hanging over many a
monastic gate in Merry England. Nine of the monks died of prison fever,
and others were banished.
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