Реферат: Henry Viii 2 Essay Research Paper Henry

Though the people were cowed, these measures were not carried out

without much disaffection, and, to stamp out any overt expression of this,

Cromwell and his master now embarked upon a veritable reign of terror.

The martyrs already referred to were most of them brought to the

scaffold in the course of 1535, but fourteen Dutch Anabaptists also

suffered death by burning in the same year. There followed a visitation of

the monasteries, unscrupulous instruments like Layton, Legh, and Price

being appointed for the purpose. They played, of course, into the king’s

hand and compiled comperta abounding in charges of disgraceful

immorality, which have been shown to be at least grossly exaggerated. In

pursuance of the same policy Parliament, in February, 1536, acting under

great pressure, voted to the king the property of all religious houses with

less than 200 pounds a year of annual income, recommending that the

inmates should be transferred to the larger houses where “religion happily

was right well observed.” The dissolution, when carried out, produced

much popular resentment, especially in Lincolnshire and the northern

counties. Eventually, in the autumn of 1536, the people banded together

in a very formidable insurrection known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. The

insurgents rallied under the device of the Five Wounds, and they were

only induced to disperse by the deceitful promises of Henry’s

representative, the Duke of Norfolk. The suppression of the larger

monasteries rapidly followed, and with these were swept away

numberless shrines, statues, and objects of pious veneration, on the

pretext that these were purely superstitious. It is easy to see that the lust

of plunder was the motive which prompted this wholesale confiscation.

(See SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES.)

Meanwhile, Henry, though taking advantage of the spirit of religious

innovation now rife among the people whenever it suited his purpose,

remained still attached to the sacramental system in which he had been