did not exceed £200 per annum. It was calculated that this bill—which, however, did not pass the Commons till Henry had sent for them, and told them that he would apply his favourite remedy for stiff necks, cutting off the heads—would dissolve no less than 380 communities, and add £32,000 to the annual income of the Crown, besides the presents received of £100,000 in money, plate, and jewels. The cause of these presents was a clause in the Act of Parliament, which left it to the discretion of the king to found any of these houses anew; a clause which was actively worked by Cromwell and his commissioners, and, by the hopes they inspired, drew large sums from the menaced brethren, which lodged plentifully in the pockets of the minister and his agents, besides that which reached the Crown. Cromwell amassed a large fortune from such sources.
The visitors under this act were authorised to proceed to each house, to announce its dissolution to the superiors, to take an inventory of its effects, and to dispose of the dispossessed inhabitants according to their instructions.
Tomb of Catherine of Arragon, in Peterborough Cathedral.
By these the superior received a pension for life; the monks under the age of four-and-twenty were absolved from their vows, and turned adrift into the world; those who were older, were either quartered on the larger and yet untouched monasteries, or were told to apply to Cromwell or Cranmer, who could find them suitable employment. As for the nuns, they were turned out unceremoniously-with the gift of a single gown, and were left to secure a means of existence as they could—a most ruthless proceeding. The cruelty of these ejectments was greatly aggravated by the crowd of hungry courtiers to whom the improvident king—as improvident as he was grasping and inhuman—had already given or sold the possession of the greater part of the property of the monasteries.
The Parliament, which had now sat six years, and which was one of the most slavish and base bodies that ever were brought together—having yielded every popular right and privilege which the imperious monarch demanded, and augmented the Royal prerogative to a pitch of actual absolutism; having altered the succession, changed the system of ecclesiastical government, abolished a great number of the ancient religious houses without thereby much benefiting the Crown—was now dismissed, having done that for this worthless monarch which should cost some of his successors their thrones or their heads, and a braver and more honourable generation the blood of its best men to undo again.
Whilst the cormorants of the Court were busy seizing upon and gorging the whole property thus reft from its ancient owners, and which, duly administered, might at this day, have rendered taxation nearly unnecessary, the two queens of this English sultan died, but under very different circumstances.
The treatment of Catherine, after her repudiation, was as rigorous and disgraceful as a heartless king and a servile set of courtiers could make it. She had been driven from her house at Bugden, and required to betake herself to Fotheringay Castle, which she refused on account of its unhealthy situation. The Duke of Suffolk, in endeavouring to force her into compliance, behaved to her with such rude insolence that she abruptly quitted his presence. In the commencement of 1535 she was removed to Kimbolton Castle. Though she had a right to £5,000 per annum as the widow of Prince Arthur, she was kept so destitute of money, that Sir Edmund Bedingfield, the steward of her household, reported that she was suffering under a lingering malady, and had no means of obtaining the most ordinary comforts. Her servants were required to take an oath that they "would bear faith, troth, and obedience only to the king's grace, and to the heirs of his body by his most dear and entirely beloved lawful wife, Queen Anne," or they were dismissed. Her confessor, Father Forrest, was thrown into Newgate, and the one who succeeded him in that office, Dr. Abell, was also incarcerated, because they would not reveal anything communicated in confession which might criminate the queen. These two conscientious men were treated with the grossest indignity, and finally put to death in a most horrid manner, for their constancy in resisting these diabolical designs.
Catherine's only daughter, Mary, was kept from her, and was not only declared illegitimate, but was banished
