y to keep on the winning side. The
mysteries of the faith came to be disputed at the
public tables; the refectories rang with polemics; the
sacred silence of the dormitories was broken for the first
time by lawless speculation. The orthodox might have
appealed to the Government: heresy was still forbidden
by law, and if detected, was still punished by the stake.
But the orthodox among the regular clergy adhered
to the Pope as well as to the faith, and abhorred the
sacrilege of the Parliament as deeply as the new opinions
of the Reformers. Instead of calling in the help of the
law, they muttered treason in secret; and the Reformers,
confident in the necessities of the times, sent reports to
London of their arguments and conversations. The
authorities in the abbey were accused of disaffection;
and a commission of inquiry was sent down towards the
end of the spring of 1536, to investigate. The
depositions taken on this occasion are still preserved; and
with the help of them, we can leap over three centuries
of time, and hear the last echoes of the old monastic
life in Woburn Abbey dying away in discord.

Where party feeling was running so high, there were
of course passionate arguments. The Act of Supremacy,
the spread of Protestantism, the power of the Pope, the
state of England--all were discussed; and the possibilities
of the future, as each party painted it in the
colours of his hopes. The brethren, we find, spoke
their minds in plain language, sometimes condescending
to a joke.

Brother Sherborne deposes that the sub-prior "on
Candlemas-day last past (February 2, 1536), asked him
whether he longed not to be at Rome where all his
bulls were?" Brother Sherborne answered that "his
bulls had made so many calves, that he had burned
them. Whereunto the sub-prior said he thought there
were more calves now than there were then."

Then there were long and furious quarrels about "my
Lord Privy Seal" (Cromwell), to one party the incarnation
of Satan, to the other the delivering angel. Nor did
matters mend when from the minister they passed to the
master.

Dan John Croxton being in "the shaving-house" one
day with certain of the brethren having their tonsures
looked to, and gossiping, as men do on such occasions,
one "Friar Lawrence did say that the King was dead."
Then said Croxton, "thanks be to God, his Grace is in
good health, and I pray God so continue him;" and
said further to the said Lawrence, "I advise thee