i. p. 193.

*** It is pretended, (see Holingshed, p. 939,) that ten
thousand monks wore turned out on the dissolution of the
lesser monasteries. If so, most of them must have been
mendicants; for the revenue could not have supported near
that number. The mendicants, no doubt, still continued their
former profession.

**** 27 Henry VIII. c. 27.

v 27 Henry VIII. c. 4

The commons, sensible that they had gained nothing by opposing the
king's will when he formerly endeavored to secure the profits of
wardships and liveries, were now contented to frame a law,[*] such as he
dictated to them. It was enacted, that the possession of land shall be
adjudged to be in those who have the use of it, not in those to whom it
is transferred in trust.

* 27 Henry VIII. c. 10.

After all these laws were passed, the king dissolved the parliament; a
parliament memorable, not only for the great and important innovations
which it introduced, but also for the long time it had sitten, and the
frequent prorogations which it had undergone. Henry had found it so
obsequious to his will, that he did not choose, during those religious
ferments, to hazard a new election; and he continued the same parliament
above six years: a practice at that time unusual in England.

The convocation which sat during this session was engaged in a very
important work, the deliberating on the new translation which was
projected of the Scriptures. The translation given by Tindal, though
corrected by himself in a new edition, was still complained of by the
clergy as inaccurate and unfaithful; and it was now proposed to them,
that they should themselves publish a translation which would not be
liable to those objections.

The friends of the reformation asserted, that nothing could be more
absurd than to conceal, in an unknown tongue, the word of God itself,
and thus to counteract the will of Heaven, which, for the purpose
of universal salvation, had published that salutary doctrine to all
nations: that if this practice were not very absurd, the artifice at
least was very gross, and proved a consciousness, that the glosses and
traditions of the clergy stood in direct opposition to the original
text, dictated by supreme intelligence: that it was now necessary for
the people, so long abused by interested pretensions, to see with their
own eyes, and to examine whether the claims of the ecclesiastics were
founded on that