but few men in Britain who had been otherwise since the Romans abandoned the island.  He was superstitious and credulous because few were philosophical or gifted with intellectual courage.  Yet he had, what was possessed by his contemporaries, a faint and intermittent thirst for knowledge, of which he himself hardly knew the meaning.”  Henry was shrewd, tenacious of purpose, capricious and versatile.  In spite of his unrestrained indulgences and his monstrous claims of power, which, be it remembered, he was able to enforce, and notwithstanding any other vices or faults that may be truthfully charged against him, he was, on the whole, a popular king.  Few monarchs have ever had to bear such a strain as was placed upon his abilities and character.  Rare have been the periods that have witnessed such confusion of principles, social, political and religious.  Those were the days when liberty was at work, “but in a hundred fantastical and repulsive shapes, confused and convulsive, multiform, deformed.”  Blind violence and half-way reforms characterized the age because the principles that were to govern modern times were not yet formulated.

Judged apart from his times Henry appears as an arrogant, cruel and fickle ruler, whose virtues fail to atone for his vices.  But still, with all his faults, he compares favorably with preceding monarchs and even with his contemporaries.  If he had possessed less intelligence, courage and ambition, he would not now be so conspicuous for his vices, but the history of human liberty and free institutions, especially in England, would have been vastly different.  His praiseworthy traits were not sufficiently strong to enable him to control his inherited passions, but they were too regnant to permit him to submit without a struggle to the hierarchy which had dominated his country so many centuries.  Such was

                “the majestic lord,
     That broke the bonds of Rome.”

Events Preceding the Suppression

Many causes and incidents contributed to the progress of the reformation in England, and to the demolition of the monasteries.  Only a few of them can be given here, and they must be stated with a brevity that conveys no adequate conception of their profound significance.

Henry VIII. ascended the throne, in the year 1509, when eighteen years of age.  In 1517, Luther took his stand against Rome.  Four years later Henry wrote a treatise in defence of the Seven Sacraments and in opposition to the German reformer.  For this princely service to the church the king received the title “Defender of the Faith” from Pope Leo X.