" In other words, the
independence of the Church of England was secured by those who, if they
were not Roman Catholics, were certainly closer in faith to Rome than
they were to Protestantism. The Protestant doctrines did not become the
doctrines of the Church of England until the reign of Edward VI., and it
was many years after that before the separation from Rome was complete
in doctrine as well as respects the authority of the pope.
These facts indicate that there must have been other causes for the
success of the English Reformation than the greed or ambition of the
monarch. Those causes are easily discovered. One of them was the
hostility of the people to the alien priories. The origin of the alien
priories dates back to the Norman conquest. The Normans shared the
spoils of their victory with their continental friends. English
monasteries and churches were given to foreigners, who collected the
rents and other kinds of income. These foreign prelates had no other
interest in England than to derive all the profit they could from their
possessions. They appointed whom they pleased to live in their houses,
and the monks, being far away from their superiors, became a source of
constant annoyance to the English people. The struggle against these
alien priories had been carried on for many years, and so many of them
had been abolished that the people became accustomed to the seizure of
monasteries.
Large sums of money were annually paid to the pope, and the English
people were loudly complaining of the constant drain on their resources.
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