gnition that the evil which they
produce is constant and the advantage visionary.

That the monastic system was doomed had become generally felt; that the
victims of the intended overthrow should be impatient of their fate was no
more than natural. The magnitude of the design, the interests which were
threatened, the imagined sanctity attaching to property devoted to the
Church, gave an opportunity for outcry against sacrilege. The entire body
of monks became in their various orders an army of insurrectionary
preachers, well supplied with money, terrifying the weak, encouraging the
strong, and appealing to the superstitions so powerful with a people like
the English, who were tenacious of their habits and associations.

The Abbots and Priors had sworn to the supremacy, but had sworn
reluctantly, with secret reservations to save their consciences. With the
prospect of an Imperial deliverer to appear among them, they were
recovering courage to defy their excommunicated enemy. Those who retained
the most of the original spirit of their religion were the first to
recover heart for resistance. The monks of the London Charterhouse, who
were exceptions to the general corruption, and were men of piety and
character, came forward to repudiate their oaths and to dare the law to
punish them. Their tragical story is familiar to all readers of English
history. Chapuys adds a few particulars. Their Prior, Haughton, had
consented to the Act of Supremacy; but his conscience told him that in
doing so he had committed perjury. He went voluntarily, with three of the
brotherhood, to Cromwell, and retracted his oath, declaring that the King
in calling himself Head of the Church was usurping the Pope's authority.
They had not been sent for; their house was in no immediate danger; and
there was no intention of meddling with them. Their act was a gratuitous
defiance; and under the circumstances of the country was an act of war.
The effect, if not the purpose, was, and must have been, to encourage a
spirit which would explode in rebellion. Cromwell warned them of their
danger, and advised them to keep their scruples to themselves. They said
they would rather encounter a hundred thousand deaths. They were called
before a Council of Peers. The Knights of the Garter were holding their
annual Chapter, and the attendance was large. The Duke of Norfolk
presided, having returned to the Court, and the proceedings were unusually
solemn. The monks were r