353.  Effects of the Destruction of Monasteries.

The sweeping character of this act had a twofold effect.  First, it made the King more absolute than before, for, since it removed the abbots, who had held seats in the House of Lords, that body was made just so much smaller and less able to resist the royal will.

Next, the abolition of so many religious institutions necessarily caused much misery, for the greater part of the monks and all of the nuns were turned out upon the world destitute of means.  In the end, however, no permanent injury was done, since the monasteries, by their profuse and indiscriminate charity, had undoubtably encouraged much of the very pauperism which they had relieved.

354.  Distress among the Laboring Classes.

An industrial revolution was also in progress at this time, which was productive of widespread suffering.  It had begun early in Henry’s reign through the great numbers of discharged soldiers, who could not readily find work.

Sir Thomas More had given a striking picture of their miserable condition in his “Utopia,” a book in which he urged the government to consider measures for their relief; but the evil had since become much worse.  Farmers, having discovered that wool growing was more profitable than the raising of grain, had turned their fields into sheep pastures; so that a shepherd with his dog now took the place of several families of laborers.

This change brought multitudes of poor people to the verge of starvation; and as the monasteries no longer existed to hold out a helping hand, the whole realm was overrun with beggars and thieves.  Bishop Latimer, a noted preacher of that day, declared that if every farmer should raise two acres of hemp, it would not make rope enough to hang them all.  Henry, however, set to work with characteristic vigor and made away, it is said, with great numbers, but without materially abating the evil (S403).

355.  Execution of Anne Boleyn; Marriage with Jane Seymour (1536).

Less than three years after her coronation, the new Queen, Anne Boleyn (SS343, 349), for whom Henry had “turned England and Europe upside down,” was accused of unfaithfulness.  She was sent a prisoner to the Tower.  A short time after, her head rolled in the dust, the light of its beauty gone out forever.

The next morning Henry married Jane Seymour, Anne’s maid of honor.  Parliament passed an act of approval, declaring that it was all done “of the King’s most excellent goodness.”  It also declared Henry’s two previous marriages, with Catharine and with Anne Boleyn, void, and affirmed that their children, the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, were not lawfully the King’s daughters.  A later act of Parliament gave Henry the extraordinary power of naming his successor to the crown.[1] A year afterwards Henry’s new Queen died, leaving an infant son, Edward.  She was no sooner gone than the King began looking about for some one to take her place.