The following interesting passage from Sir Edward Coke’s Institutes, shows that Henry sought to quiet the fears of the people by making the most captivating promises concerning the decrease of taxes, and other magnificent schemes for the general welfare:  “On the king’s behalf, the members of both houses were informed in Parliament that no king or kingdom was safe but where the king had three abilities:  1.  To live of his own and able to defend his kingdom upon any sudden invasion or insurrection. 2.  To aid his confederates, otherwise they would never assist him. 3.  To reward his well-deserving servants.  Now the project was, that if Parliament would give unto him all the abbeys, priories, friaries, nunneries, and other monasteries, that forever in time then to come he would take order that the same should not be converted to private uses, but first, that his exchequer, for the purpose aforesaid, should be enriched; secondly, the kingdom should be strengthened by a continual maintenance of forty thousand well-trained soldiers; thirdly, for the benefit and ease of the subject, who never afterwards (as was projected), in any time to come, should be charged with subsidies, fifteenths, loans or other common aids; fourthly, lest the honor of the realm should receive any diminution of honor by the dissolution of the said monasteries, there being twenty-nine lords of Parliament of the abbots and priors, ... that the king would create a number of nobles.”

The king was granted the revenues of the monasteries.  About half the money was expended in coast defences and a new navy; and much of it was lavished upon his courtiers.  With the exception of small pensions to the monks and the establishment of a few benefices, very little of the splendid revenue was ever devoted to religious or educational purposes.  Small sums were set apart for Cambridge, Oxford and new grammar schools.  Not-withstanding the pensions, there was much suffering; it is said many of the outcast monks and nuns starved and froze to death by the roadside.  Latimer and others wanted the king to employ the revenues for religious purposes, but Henry evidently thought the church had enough and refused.  He did, however, intend to allot eighteen thousand pounds a year for eighteen new bishoprics, but once the gold was in his possession, his pious intentions suffered a decline, and he established only six, with inferior endowments, five of which exist to-day.

Was the Suppression Justifiable?

It is quite common to restrict this inquiry to a consideration of the report made by the commissioners against the monks, and to the methods employed by them in their investigations.  The implication is that if the accusations against the monasteries can be discredited, or if it can be shown that the motives of the destroyers were selfish and their methods cruel, then it follows that the overthrow of the monasteries was a most iniquitous and unwarrantable proceeding.  Reflection will show that the question cannot be so restricted.  It may be found that the monastic institution should have been destroyed, even though the charges against the monks were grossly exaggerated, the motives of the king unworthy, and the means he employed despicable.