rs, Gertrude marchioness
of Exeter, Sir Adrian Fortescue, and Sir Thomas Dingley. These two
gentlemen were executed; the marchioness was pardoned and survived the
king; the countess received a reprieve.

The only beneficial act passed this session, was that by which the
parliament confirmed the surrender of the monasteries; yet even this act
contains much falsehood, much tyranny, and, were it not that all private
rights must submit to public interest, much injustice and iniquity. The
scheme of engaging the abbots to surrender their monasteries had been
conducted, as may easily be imagined, with many invidious circumstances:
arts of all kinds had been employed; every motive that could work on the
frailty of human nature had been set before them; and it was with great
difficulty that these dignified conventuals were brought to make
a concession, which most of them regarded as destructive of their
interests, as well as sacrilegious and criminal in itself.[**] Three
abbots had shown more constancy than the rest, the abbots of Colchester,
Reading, and Glastenbury; and in order to punish them for their
opposition, and make them an example to others, means had been found
to convict them of treason, they had perished by the hands of the
executioner, and the revenue of the convents had been forfeited.[***]
Besides, though none of these violences had taken place, the king knew
that a surrender made by men who were only tenants for life, would not
bear examination; and he was therefore resolved to make all sure by his
usual expedient, an act of parliament. In the preamble to this act, the
parliament asserts, that all the surrenders made by the abbots had been
"without constraint, of their own accord, and according to due course of
common law." And in consequence, the two houses confirm the surrenders,
and secure the property of the abbey lands to the king and his
successors forever.[****] It is remarkable, that all the mitred abbots
still sat in the house of peers, and that none of them made any protests
against this injurious statute.

* Rymer, vol. xiv. p. 652.

** Collier, vol. ii. p. 158 et see

*** 31 Henry VIII. c. 10.

**** 31 Henry VIII. c. 13.

In this session, the rank of all the great officers of state was fixed:
Cromwell, as vicegerent, had the precedency assigned him above all of
them. It was thought singular, that a blacksmith's son, for he was no
other, should have place next the royal fam