“Is this your boasted freedom, to slay these men in cold blood, not for immorality, but because they honestly did not acknowledge what no Protestant of to-day admits, viz.:  that King Henry was the Supreme Head of the Church?” Having pointed out the exaggerations in the charges against the monks and having made us weep for the aged fathers of the Charterhouse, they skillfully lead the unwary to the conclusion that the suppression should never have taken place.  This conclusion is illogical.  The case is still open.

Furthermore, if one cared to indulge in historical reminiscences, he might justly express astonishment that Rome should object to an investigation conducted by men whose minds were already made up, or that she should complain because force was employed to carry out a needed reform.  Did the commissioners take a few altar-cloths and decorate their horses?  Did Rome never adorn men in garments of shame and parade them through streets to be mocked by the populace, and finally burned at the stake?  Were the altar-cloths dear to Catholic hearts?  Were not the Bibles burned in France, in Germany, in Spain, in Holland, in England, dear to the hearts of the reformers?  But however justifiable such a line of argument may be, there is little to be gained by charging the sins of the past against the men of to-day.  Nevertheless, if these facts and many like them were remembered, less would be said about the cruelties that accompanied the suppression of the monasteries.

Were the charges against the monks true?  It seems impossible to doubt that in the main they were, although it should be admitted that many monasteries were beyond reproach.  Eliminating gross exaggerations, lies and calumnies, there still remains a body of evidence that compels the verdict of guilt.  The legislation of the church councils, the decrees of popes, the records of the courts, the reports of investigating committees appointed by various popes, the testimony of the orders against each other, the chronicles, letters and other extant literature, abound in such detailed, specific charges of monastic corruption that it is simply preposterous to reject the testimony.  All the efforts at reformation, and they were many, had failed.  Many bishops confessed their inability to cope with the growing disorders.  It is beyond question that lay robbers were encouraged to perpetrate acts of sacrilege because the monks were frequently guilty of forgery and violence.  Commenting upon the impression which monkish lawlessness must have made upon the minds of such men as Wyclif, Pike says:  “They saw with their own eyes those wild and lawless scenes, the faint reflection of which in contemporaneous documents may excite the wonder of modern lawyers and modern moralists.”  The legislation of church and state for a century before Henry VIII. shows that the monks were guilty of brawling, frequenting taverns, indulging in licentious pleasures and upholding unlawful games.