tors, the sweeping nature of their report, and the long debate which
followed on its reception, leaves little doubt that these charges were
grossly exaggerated. But the want of any effective discipline which had
resulted from their exemption from all but Papal supervision told fatally
against monastic morality even in abbeys like St. Albans; and the
acknowledgement of Warham, as well as a partial measure of suppression
begun by Wolsey, go some way to prove that in the smaller houses at least
indolence had passed into crime. A cry of "Down with them" broke from the
Commons as the report was read. The country however was still far from
desiring the utter downfall of the monastic system, and a long and bitter
debate was followed by a compromise which suppressed all houses whose
income fell below L200 a year. Of the thousand religious houses which then
existed in England nearly four hundred were dissolved under this Act and
their revenues granted to the Crown.

[Sidenote: Enslavement of the Clergy]

The secular clergy alone remained; and injunction after injunction from
the Vicar-General taught rector and vicar that they must learn to regard
themselves as mere mouthpieces of the royal will. The Church was gagged.
With the instinct of genius Cromwell discerned the part which the pulpit,
as the one means which then existed of speaking to the people at large,
was to play in the religious and political struggle that was at hand; and
he resolved to turn it to the profit of the Monarchy. The restriction of
the right of preaching to priests who received licenses from the Crown
silenced every voice of opposition. Even to those who received these
licenses theological controversy was forbidden; and a high-handed process
of "tuning the pulpits" by express directions as to the subject and tenor
of each special discourse made the preachers at every crisis mere means of
diffusing the royal will. As a first step in this process every bishop,
abbot, and parish priest was required by the new Vicar-General to preach
against the usurpation of the Papacy and to proclaim the king as supreme
Head of the Church on earth. The very topics of the sermon were carefully
prescribed; the bishops were held responsible for the compliance of the
clergy with these orders; and the sheriffs were held responsible for the
obedience of the bishops.

[Sidenote: The Terror]

While the great revolution which struck down the Church was in progress
England loo