, the doom of
the monasteries might be heard muttering in the chambers of the upper
air. In the angry denunciations of Wicliffe, in the popular merriment
of Chaucer, might be read the same sentence of condemnation awarded
against them. Fierce warnings were given to them at intervals. A
petition against them was addressed by the House of Commons to Henry
IV. The son of this prince, the man of Agincourt, though superstitious
enough, if superstition could have availed them, had in _his_ short
reign (so occupied, one might have thought, with war and foreign
affairs) found time to read them a dreadful warning: more than five
scores of these offending bodies (Priories Alien) were suppressed by
that single monarch, the laughing _Hal_ of Jack Falstaff. One whole
century slipped away between this penal suppression and the ministry
of Wolsey. What effect can we ascribe to this admonitory chastisement
upon the general temper and conduct of the monastic interest? It would
be difficult beyond measure at this day to draw up any adequate report
of the foul abuses prevailing in the majority of religious houses, for
the three following reasons:--First, because the main record of such
abuses, after it had been elaborately compiled under the commission of
Henry VIII., was (at the instigation of his eldest daughter Mary) most
industriously destroyed by Bishop Bonner; secondly, because too
generally the original oath of religious fidelity and secrecy, in
matters interesting to the founder and the foundation, was held to
interfere with frank disclosures; thirdly, because, as to much of the
most crying licentiousness, its full and satisfactory detection too
often depended upon a surprise. Steal upon the delinquents suddenly,
and ten to one they were caught _flagrante delicto_: but upon any
notice transpiring of the hostile approach, all was arranged so as to
evade for the moment--or in the end to baffle finally--search alike
and suspicion.

The following report, which Mr. Froude views as the liveliest of all
that Bishop Bonner's zeal has spared, offers a picturesque sketch of
such cases, according to the shape which they often assumed. In
Chaucer's tale, told with such unrivalled _vis comica_, of the
_Trompington Miller and the Two Cambridge Scholars_, we have a most
life-like picture of the miller with his 'big bones,' as a 'dangerous'
man for the nonce. Just such a man, just as dangerous, and just as
big-boned, we find in the person of an