To live of
his own and able to defend his kingdom upon any sudden invasion or
insurrection. 2. To aid his confederates, otherwise they would never
assist him. 3. To reward his well-deserving servants. Now the project
was, that if Parliament would give unto him all the abbeys, priories,
friaries, nunneries, and other monasteries, that forever in time then
to come he would take order that the same should not be converted to
private uses, but first, that his exchequer, for the purpose aforesaid,
should be enriched; secondly, the kingdom should be strengthened by a
continual maintenance of forty thousand well-trained soldiers; thirdly,
for the benefit and ease of the subject, who never afterwards (as was
projected), in any time to come, should be charged with subsidies,
fifteenths, loans or other common aids; fourthly, lest the honor of the
realm should receive any diminution of honor by the dissolution of the
said monasteries, there being twenty-nine lords of Parliament of the
abbots and priors, ... that the king would create a number of nobles."
The king was granted the revenues of the monasteries. About half the
money was expended in coast defences and a new navy; and much of it was
lavished upon his courtiers. With the exception of small pensions to the
monks and the establishment of a few benefices, very little of the
splendid revenue was ever devoted to religious or educational purposes.
Small sums were set apart for Cambridge, Oxford and new grammar schools.
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