and the pope withdrawn his claims it is impossible to know.  The fact is that the monks grew worse instead of better, and the arrogance of foreigners became more unendurable.  “The corruption of the church establishment, in fact,” says Lea, “had reached a point which the dawning enlightenment of the age could not much longer endure....  Intoxicated with centuries of domination, the muttered thunders of growing popular discontent were unheeded, and its claims to spiritual and temporal authority were asserted with increasing vehemence, while its corruptions were daily displayed before the people with more careless cynicism.”  In view of this condition of affairs, the existence of which even the adherents of modern Rome must acknowledge, one cannot but wonder that the ruin of the monasteries should be attributed to Henry’s desire “to overthrow the rights of women, to degrade matrimony and to practice concubinage.”  Such an explanation is too superficial; it ignores a multitude of historical facts.

The monasteries had to fall if England was to be saved from the horrors of civil war, if the hand of the pope was to remain uplifted from her, if the insecure gains of the Reformation were to become established and glorious achievements; if, in fact, all those benefits accompanying human progress were to become the heritage of succeeding ages.

Whatever benefits the monks had conferred upon mankind, and these were neither few nor slight, they had become fetters on the advancement of freedom, education and true religion.  They were the standing army of the pope, occupying the last and strongest citadel.  They were the unyielding advocates of an ideal that was passing away.  It was sad to see the Carthusian house fall, but in spite of the high character of its inmates, it was a part of an institution that stood for the right of foreigners to rule England.  It was unfortunate they had thrown themselves down before the car of progress but there they were; they would not get up; the car must roll on, for so God himself had decreed, and hence they were crushed in its advance.  Their martyrdom was truly a poor return for their virtues, but there never has been a moral or political revolution that has furthered the general well-being of humanity, in which just and good men have not suffered.  It would be delightful if freedom and progress could be secured, and effete institutions destroyed or reformed, without the accompaniment of disaster and death, but it is not so.

The monks stood for opposition to reform, and therefore came into direct conflict with the king, who was blindly groping his way toward the future, and who was, in fact, the unconscious agent of many reform forces that concentrated in him.  He did not comprehend the significance of his proceedings.  He did not take up the cause of the English people with the pure and intelligent motive of encouraging free thought and free religion.  He did not realize that he was leading the mighty army of Protestant reformers.  He little dreamed that the people whose cause he championed would in turn assert their rights and make it impossible for an English sovereign to enjoy the absolute authority which he wielded.  Truly “there is a power, not ourselves,” making for freedom, progress and truth.