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1523 sup

by the sup

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the work;

transferred

general reform of the professed as well as the secular clergy Wolsey's and the suppression of monasteries; but he soon narrowed his attempt in designs down to the suppression of certain houses under papal plemented authority for the purpose of endowing his colleges at Ips- pression of wich and Oxford.1 In this work it was that Cromwell and asteries; his friend Dr. Leighton, who was associated with him in the Cromwell and Leighcardinal's service, earned the name of being very "dexterous ton emand diligent men." 2 With his appetite thus whetted by his ployed in past experience, it was not likely that Cromwell, the prime object of whose policy was the complete subordination of the church to the state, would now fail to strike the final blow by taking away from the monastic bodies the vast wealth with which they were endowed. As the right of visitation 3 over right of them had been transferred by the Act of Supremacy from visitation the papacy to the crown, commissions were issued at the in- by the Act of Supremstance of the vicar-general, who now bore the still more pre- acy from tentious title of "vicegerent of the king in all his ecclesiasti- the king; cal jurisdiction within the realm," 5 to Drs. Leighton, Legh, and Ap Rice, who, together with certain subordinates, were charged with the making of a general visitation of the religious houses, the universities, and other spiritual corporations. Nothing could have been more commendable than the terms in terms of which the instructions to the commissioners were drawn, and yet the very limited time in which they were to be carried out Leighton, Legh, and precludes the idea that they were honestly intended. Although Rice; the visitation of the monasteries only began in October, 1535, their report the report of the commissioners was to be laid before the to the sev seventh and last session of the parliament which met on the last session, 4th of the following February. After several weeks of delay, began in February, during which the houses disposed of some minor business, the 1536; famous report, known as the Black Book of the monasteries,

1 See above, p. 51.
2 Burnet, vol. i. p. 136.

The first act upon this subject (25
Hen. VIII. c. 21, § 20) was soon fol-
lowed by the Act of Supremacy (26
Hen. VIII. c. 1).

"Their commissions, if they were passed under the great seal, and enrolled, have been taken out of the rolls; for there are none of them to be found there." Burnet, vol. i. p. 137. The instructions to the commissioners are

printed in Burnet (Collectanea), vol. ii.
lxix., lxx. The instructions, or "arti-
cles of inquiry," consisted of eighty-six
questions, and to these were added
twenty-six "injunctions," to be left in
each house by the visitors. They may
still be seen in the British Museum Li-
brary, Cotton MSS., Cleop. E., 4 fol.
13, 21.

5 As to the scope of Cromwell's
powers as vicegerent, see above, p. 77,

note I.

the pope to

the com

enth and

which

a great

debate on

As the report

was laid on the table of the house of commons. itself does not exist, and as the journals of the session during which "a great debate"1 took place are lost, a serious controthe report; versy exists not only as to the truth of the report, but also as to what it actually contained. It seems, however, to be clear from the accounts that remain that while the commissioners admitted that about one third of the houses, including the bulk of the greater abbeys, were fairly conducted, they charged that the conduct of the remaining two thirds was deeply stained both by profligacy and crime. While it is now impossible to determine the amount of truth which the accusation contained, certain it is that parliament accepted the report as a statute for sufficient basis of its action, which took the form of an act3 pression of providing that all religious houses, the incomes from whose lands were less than two hundred pounds a year, should be suppressed, and all their property, real and personal, given to the king, his heirs and assigns, "to do and use therewith his or their own wills to the pleasure of Almighty God and the honor and profit of the realm." Under the authority of this act nearly four hundred out of the one thousand religious houses then existing in England were suppressed and their revenues transferred to the crown. With this great act of confiscation if confiscation it can be called 4-ended the

the sup

all monas

teries with
annual
incomes
of less

than two
hundred
pounds;

-

1 27 Hen. VIII. c. 28.

2 The best summing up in favor of the truth of the report is to be found in Froude, vol. ii. pp. 332, 333. For a pungent criticism of his conclusion, see Amos, Statutes of the Reformation Parliament, pp. 302-305.

3 27 Hen. VIII. c. 28.

4 There can be no question of the constitutional power of the omnipotent parliament, then as now, to annul corporate rights, and to appropriate any kind of property, public or private, lay or ecclesiastical, to any purpose whatsoever. The only cloud or restraint upon that power is the ethical theory stated by Austin (Province of Jurisprudence, lect. vi.), that an act of parliament which violates fundamental rights, though legal and binding, is still unconstitutional. See also Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 143. "The founder of all corporations, in the strict and legal sense, is the king alone, for he only can incorporate a

Rex v.

society" (1 Bl. Com., p. 480); and yet
the king by virtue of his prerogative
possesses no power to alter their char-
ters or to divest them of their fran-
chises without their consent.
Pasmore, 3 T. R. p. 199, and cases
cited. But as against the parliament,
corporations, like individuals, have no-
thing but the ethical theory to fall
back upon. It is claimed that that
theory was not violated without excuse
in the disendowment of the monas-
teries because, apart from the peculiar
status of corporate property, there were
precedents in the dissolution of the
Knights Templars in the reign of Ed-
ward II., and in the confiscation of the
alien priories in that of Henry V.
Such an exercise of legislative power
was made impossible in the United
States by that clause of the constitu-
tion (art. 1, sec. 10) which provides
that "no State shall pass any law im-
pairing the obligation of contracts."
In the famous case of Dartmouth

the work of

of 1529.

work of the famous parliament of 1529, whose most notable summary of achievement was the extinguishment of the papal supremacy the great in England, which consisted in the main (1) of the right to parliament hear appeals in all matters ecclesiastical; (2) of the right to send delegates into the realm, and through them to overrule the domestic synods; (3) of the right to grant licenses and dispensations; (4) of the right to grant investiture to bishops, to confirm their elections, and to dispense the church patronage; (5) and finally of the right to receive the firstfruits, the tenths of English benefices, and the goods of clergymen who died intestate,1 In addition to the emancipation of the national church from foreign supervision, by the transfer of the bulk of these rights from the papacy to the crown, this parliament by its various acts deprived the convocations of the independent power of legislation; humiliated the bishops by making them in reality nominees of the king; validated Henry's marriage with Anne and settled the succession upon her descendants; multiplied the royal prerogatives and swelled the royal exchequer by the donation of the vast property of the religious houses, acts more notable by reason of their revolutionary character and far-reaching importance than all others, save those of the Long Parliament itself.

parliament

When the parliament of 1529, whose life had been so pro- A new longed, was dissolved, on the 14th of April, 1536, the country meets in little thought that before the end of the month writs would June, 1536; be issued for a general election, in order that another might be assembled as quickly as possible.2 The necessity for this

College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 519, it
was held by the Supreme Court of the
U. S. that the charter granted to the
college by the British crown in 1769
was a contract within the meaning of
the constitution, and as such the rights
granted by it were inviolate by the
legislature.
It was also held that al-
though a corporation is established for
purposes of general charity, or for edu-
cation generally, that fact does not, per
se, make it a public corporation sub-
ject to legislative control. The court
also took occasion to say: "Had par-
liament, immediately after the emana-
tion of this charter, and the execution
of those conveyances which followed
it, annulled the instrument, so that the
living donors would have witnessed the

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trial and execution of Anne Boleyn;

36

ries Jane Seymour;

extraordinary and sudden proceeding arose out of certain terrible charges against the chastity of the queen which, during the month of April, were secretly laid before the privy council. Before the estates could be assembled on the 8th of June, Anne had been indicted by the grand juries of Middlesex and Kent,1 convicted of adultery by the peers summoned for her trial before the Lord High Steward,2 and executed.

On the day before the execution the archbishop who had confirmed her marriage with the king declared it null and void, and on Henry mar- the next day thereafter Henry was married to Jane Seymour. The changed condition of things thus brought about made it necessary for parliament to resettle the succession by a fresh second suc- enactment, which, after declaring the king's marriages with cession act; Catherine and Anne both void, and the issue of both illegitimate, entailed the crown on his sons by Queen Jane successively and their heirs, with remainder to his sons by any future marriage, and on failure of sons to his daughters in like manner. The act then bestowed upon the king, in default of lawful issue, the extraordinary power, unknown to the constitution, "to dispose, by your letters patent under your great seal, or else by your last will made in writing, and signed with your hand, the imperial crown of this realm, and all other the

exhorted them to resettle the succes-
sion. See Lords' Journal, p. 84; Bur-
net, vol. i. p. 155.

1 The two indictments, found on the
10th and 11th of May against Anne,
are printed in Amos, Reformation Par-
liament, Appendixes II. and III. See
the author's comments as to the prac-
tices of grand juries at that time (Ap-
pendix IV.), and also as to the connec-
tion between the charges and the new
treasons created by the first succession
act, pp. 25, 26.

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2 As to the jurisdiction and practice of this court, specially when parliament is not sitting, see vol. i. p. 440. "In this tribunal the steward sits as the only judge, while the peers summoned by him - the lords triers' act as a jury.". Ibid. The steward then possessed the power to limit his court to such peers only as he saw fit to summon. As to the proceedings in Anne's case, which was without a precedent, see Baga de Secretis, pouches 8 and 9: Appendix II. to the Third Report

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8 The divorce was pronounced on the 17th of May by Cranmer, and the proceeding was afterwards confirmed by convocation and parliament. Wilkins, Conc., vol. iii. p. 803; 28 Hen. VIII. c. 7. Anne was executed on the 19th, and on the next morning Henry married Jane Seymour.

4 28 Hen. VIII. c. 7. This was followed by the third succession act (35 Hen. VIII. c. 1), passed after the marriage of Catherine Parr. As to the first succession act, see above, p. 73.

premises thereunto belonging, to such person or persons as shall please your Highness.

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lion in the

the "Pil

grimage of

Grace;"

From this time onward the king's reign became more and great rebelmore troubled. The ghastly domestic tragedy which had north, ended on the block was soon followed by a great rebellion in 1536–37, the north, which grew out of the disaffection of the country gentlemen and the older nobles, who looked with horror and contempt upon the innovations in the ancient faith which had been brought about by king and commons in the face of their sullen disapproval. Emboldened by the ruin of the queen, which was generally accepted as an ill omen to the cause with which she had become identified, and aroused by the brutal conduct of the commissioners in the spoliation of the monasteries, which were specially popular in the north, the party of reaction inaugurated the movement, ultimately known as the "Pilgrimage of Grace," 1 by resisting in arms the visita- known as tion which began at Louth in October, 1536. Although this rising in Lincolnshire collapsed for the want of an organizing hand, Yorkshire soon broke into revolt, where a leader was found in the person of Robert Aske, a country gentleman and lawyer, in whose name an appeal was made to all good Englishmen to make a stand "for the commonwealth; and make your proclamation every man to be true to the king's issue and the noble blood; to preserve the church of God from spoiling, and to be true to the commons and the wealths." Around Aske's apAske, who clearly distinguished the king from his evil coun-commoncillors in his zeal for the "commonwealth " -the term then wealth," used to express the growing political idea of the age-gath- a term ered the whole of the northern nobility, who, with thirty thou- bodied the sand men at their backs, demanded that the king should be growing political rid of his base-born councillors (Cromwell and "other villern idea of the blood"), that a reunion with Rome should be effected, that Mary's right to the throne should be recognized, that the Statute of Uses 2 should be repealed, that the monasteries should be restored, and that the wrongs done to the church should be righted. In the midst of this peril Cromwell, who was the real object of attack, stood undaunted. By diplomacy,

99

1 The banner of the "Pilgrimage was borne by monks and marked with the five wounds of Christ.

2 27 Hen. VIII. c. 10.

peal for the

which em

age;

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