e often made from
ignorance of this fact; "religiosi" are sharply
distinguished from "clerici".]

On the other hand, the lax state of monastic morality does not depend
only upon the visitors' reports; apart from satires like those of
Skelton, from ballads and from other mirrors of popular opinion or
prejudice, the correspondence of Henry VIII.'s reign is, from its
commencement, full of references, by bishops and other unimpeachable
witnesses, to the necessity of drastic reform. In 1516, for instance,
Bishop West of Ely visited that house, and found such disorder that he
declared its continuance would have been impossible but for his
visitation.[949] In 1518 the Italian Bishop of Worcester writes from
Rome that he had often been struck by the necessity of reforming the
monasteries.[950] In 1521 Henry VIII., then at the height of his zeal
for the Church, thanks the Bishop of Salisbury for dissolving the
nunnery of Bromehall because of the "enormities" practised there.[951]
Wolsey felt that the time for reform had passed, and began the process
of suppression, with a view to increasing the number of cathedrals and
devoting other proceeds to educational endowments. Friar Peto,
afterwards a cardinal, who had fled abroad to escape Henry's anger for
his bold denunciation of the divorce, and who had no possible (p. 339)
motive for cloaking his conscientious opinion, admitted that there
were grave abuses, and approved of the dissolution of monasteries, if
their endowments were used for proper ends.[952] There is no need to
multiply instances, because a commission of cardinals, appointed by
Paul III. himself, reported in 1537 that scandals were frequent in
religious houses.[953] The reports of the visitors, too, can hardly be
entirely false, though they may not be entirely true. The charges they
make are not vague, but very precise. They specify names of the
offenders, and the nature of their offences; and an air of verisimilitude,
if nothing more, is imparted to the condemnations they pronounce
against the many, by the commendations they bestow on the few.[954]

[Footnote 949: _L. and P._, ii., 1733.]

[Footnote 950: _Ibid._, ii., 4399.]

[Footnote 951: _Ibid._, iii., 1863; see also iii.,
77, 533, 567, 569, 600, 693, 1690; iv. 4900.]

[Footnote 952: _D.N.B._, xlv., 89. Chapuys had