were thus suppressed, and
the monks turned adrift, yet not entirely without support. This
spoliation may have been a violation of the rights of property, but the
monks had betrayed their trusts. The next Parliament completed the work.
In 1539 all the religious houses were suppressed, both great and small.
Such venerable and princely retreats as St. Albans, Glastonbury,
Beading, Bury St. Edmunds, and Westminster, which had flourished one
thousand years,--founded long before the Conquest,--shared the common
ruin. These probably would have been spared, had not the first
suppression filled the country with traitors. The great insurrection in
Lincolnshire which shook the foundation of the throne, the intrigues of
Cardinal Pole, the Cornish conspiracy in which the great house of
Neville was implicated, and various other agitations, were all fomented
by the angry monks.

Rapacity was not the leading motive of Henry or his minister, but the
public welfare. The measure of suppression and sequestration was
violent, but called for. Cromwell put forth no such sophistical pleas as
those revolutionists who robbed the French clergy,--that their property
belonged to the nation. In France the clergy were despoiled, not because
they were infamous, but because they were rich, In England the monks
may have suffered injustice from the severity of their punishment, but
no one now doubts that punishment was deserved. Nor did Henry retain all
the spoils himself: he gave away the abbey lands with a prodigality
equal to his rapacity. He gave them to those who upheld his throne, as a
reward for service or loyalty. They were given to a new class of
statesmen, who led the popular party,--like the Fitzwilliams, the
Russells, the Dudleys, and the Seymours,--and thus became the foundation
of their great estates. They were also distributed to many merchants and
manufacturers who had been loyal to the government. From one-third to
two-thirds of the landed property of the kingdom,--as variously
estimated,--thus changed hands. It was an enormous confiscation,--nearly
as great as that made by William the Conqueror in favor of his army of
invaders. It must have produced an immense impression on the mind of
Europe. It was almost as great a calamity to the Catholic Church of
England as the emancipation of slaves was to their Southern masters in
our late war. Such a spoliation of the Church had not before taken place
in any country of Europe. How great an evi