The annual income was about
one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, which was a smaller sum than was
then believed to be in the control of the monks. Nearly fifty thousand
persons were driven from the houses, to foment the discontent and to
arouse the pity of the people. Such, in brief, was the extent of the
suppression, but a little reflection will show that these statements of
cold facts convey no conception of the confusion and sorrow that must
have accompanied this terrific and wholesale assault upon an institution
that had been accumulating its possessions for eight hundred years. At
this distance from those tragic events, it is impossible to realize the
dismay of those who stood aghast at this ruthless destruction of such
venerable establishments.
_The Effect of the Suppression Upon the People_
For months the country had seen what was coming; letters from abbots and
priors poured in upon the king and parliament, begging them to spare the
ancient strongholds of religion. The churchmen argued: "If he plunders
the monasteries, will not his next step be to plunder the churches?"
They recalled what Sir Thomas More had said of their sovereign: "It is
true, his majesty is very gracious with me, but if only my head would
give him another castle in France, it would not be long before it
disappeared." Sympathy for the monks, an inborn conservatism, a natural
love for ancient institutions, a religious dread of trampling upon that
which was held sacred by the church, a secret antipathy to reform, all
these and other forces were against the suppression.
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