are in our History cannot but quickly find it in him. He certainly wrote his History, as he hath done his other books, in post, or rather in Scotch, haste. The very same arguments he hath made use of against the Monasteries would have served against the Universities. It is no wonder that some ill men are found in all large societies. I do not doubt but the visitors were the most inveterate enemies that could be employed. And therefore, to be sure, they would in their Returns to the King, insert all the stories they could rake up that sullied the reputation of the monks, and were likely to please the King, who was resolved to get their revenues into his own hands, and was for that reason very glad to encourage any person that was willing to lay open the characters of those men in the blackest terms that could be thought of. What Burnett hath offered against them, appears to me to be spite and malice. His proofs are weak and groundless. And I do not doubt but that if every monk's character were strictly and impartially examined, there is not one of them but what would appear more innocent and virtuous than any one of the Visitors, and it may be, than any one of their other ac cusers. I would not be thought, from what I have said, to be an enemy to the Reformation. That is certainly to be commended so far as it was carried on with a design to shake off and extirpate those gross errors that had, by degrees, crept into the church; and so far, the King himself is to be commended as he proposed that, in his opposing the Pope. But then, whereas the Reformation was carried on with a design also to destroy all the Abbies, and to take from them those lands that were conferred in the most solemn manner, this, certainly, ought to be condemned, and to be looked upon as the highest instance of sacrilege. And by it the King hath left behind him such a blemish, as will never be wiped off; and therefore my Lord Herbert might well conclude his History with a wish that he could leave him in his grave, which is a very excellent conclusion, notwithstanding very short, he having by his demolishing the religious houses, and by giving and selling the lands to lay persons, exceeded in sacrilege any particular prince that ever went before him. Nay, I question whether he did not exceed all the princes of any one single kingdom put together. I am very unwilling to speak ill of crowned heads; but what I have mentioned is so very notorious, that it is no secret, and therefore there can be no harm in speaking of it, even in the most public manner. When Christianity was first planted in Britain, the Reformers discovered plainly that what they did was out of a true principle of piety and devotion, and with a design only to propagate the Christian Doctrines, and Not with an intent to enrich themselves. They therefore did not destroy the Heathen Temples, and other places of worship, but only converted them to a Christian use. Neither did they employ any of those things that had been appropriated to religion to a profane use; but decreed in a synod that they should continue for religious purposes, to which they were originally designed, though, with this caution, that under the severest penalties, they should not be (as before) made use of upon any account, in promoting and advancing the Heathen, but only in carrying on and establishing the Christian discipline. Had King H. 8th imitated them, he had left, in this point, a very great and glorious character behind him. But in this he very unhappily failed, and the nation groans to this day for the sins that were at that time committed, not only by himself, but by the agents employed by him, particularly by the Visitors, who proceeded with the utmost rigour and violence against the monks, and stuck at nothing that they thought would expose them, and would serve as an argument to the King for dissolving the Abbies and seizing on their lands and revenues, and afterwards employing them to such purposes as himself, by the advice of those Visitors and other enemies to the monks, should judge proper. * The sentiments expressed in this letter are such, as, in LETTER CII. T. HEARNE to Mr. ALLEN. Leland's Collectanea.-Death of Mr. Cherry. HONOURED SIR, * I AM much obliged to you for dispersing my book. But that which I am the opinion of the writer of this note, do no less credit to Hearne's heart than to his head. On the necessity and important value of the Reformation, there can be only one opinion; but the overthrow of every monastic institution, the barbarous cruelty inflicted on the professors of religion, and the destruction of every valuable monument of art, every splendid relick of literature, cannot but impress us with a disgust and abhorrence which even the great benefits we have received from the change can scarcely allay. That there were some abuses in societies so numerous and so extensive was to be expected, but that these abuses were not general is proved by the testimony of the visitors themselves. Many of the persons appointed, not so much to inspect as to condemn the monasteries and nunneries of the kingdom, confessed that they could discover no ill-conduct in their inhabitants or domestic government; that the houses they were directed to suppress were of the greatest benefit to the neighbourhoods in which they were situated, as well as of essential interest to the poor-they instructed the children of the wealthy, they employed the mechanics and labourers, and they relieved the poor. There are numerous instances on record of the most earnest intercession from the visitors in behalf of the unhappy objects of Henry's avaricious displeasure. The munnery of Godstow in Oxfordshire, the abbey of St. Ed chiefly concerned for now, is the present of my Lord Teynham, which I shall very readily and mond's-bury, in Suffolk, the monastery of Woolstrope, in Lincolnshire, with divers others, were reported as free from stain, their inmates were represented as pious, charitable, and virtuous, and their continuance deemed of vital importance to the country around them. The interesting account of the manners of one of these monastic institutions given by one of the visitors, (Giffard) is too curious to be omitted. He is speaking of Woolstrope. "The governour thereof is a verie good husbande for the howse and well beloved of all the inhabitants thereunto adjoynynge -a right honest man, having ryghte religious persones, being prests of ryght good conversacion, and lyvynge relygiously, having such qualities of vertue as we have not found the lyke in no place. For ther is not one religious person ther, but that he can and doth use either embrotheryng, writinge bokes with verie fair hande, makyng ther owne garments, carving, paynting, or graffing. The howse wythout eny slaunder or ill fame, and standinge verie solitarie: keepinge such hospitalitie, that, except singular good provysion, it could not be mayntened with half so much. land more as they may spend. Such a number of the pore inhabitants nigh thereunto daily relieved that we have not seene the lyke, havinge no more lands than they have. God be even my judge, as I do wryte unto yow the troth. The premises considered, I beseche yow to be a meane to the King's Majestie, for the standinge of the sayde Wolstrope," The same visitor also intercedes for the nunnery of Polesworth in Warwickshire." Wherein is an abbes namyd dame Alice * Graving. |