professing¹⁰¹ to despise learning and devoting themselves more to evangelistic work among the poorer classes, soon followed the example set them by the Dominicans and{12} eventually became the most learned body of men in England, greatly extending their influence over political matters. But unfortunately, as time went on, the Friars succumbed¹⁰³ to temptation in its various forms, and degeneration set in amongst them as it had in the older orders. The reforms of Wycliffe and his party, known as the Lollards, in the 15th century, are too familiar to need description. In 1416 the alien Priories—houses dependent on foreign monasteries, having sprung up as a result of the Norman Conquest—were suppressed, and as it was deemed politic¹⁰² in the following reign to use the property and money thus gained for religious purposes, Henry VI. founded Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge. University life grew and prospered in the 15th century, and the introduction of printing into England greatly furthered the advance of knowledge.

Public opinion being against monastic life in the 16th century Wolsey’s proposals for the suppression of some of the smaller monasteries were supported by the people. The Cardinal appealed to Henry VIII. saying that there were many “exile and small monasteries wherein neither God is served nor religion kept,” with the result that he was permitted to suppress forty monasteries in various counties, and particularly those of the Benedictine and early orders. The Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536-1540, on the cause and effect of which so much controversy¹⁰⁴ has arisen, and about which difficult subject it is consequently wise not to expatiate¹⁰⁵, took place in two divisions. In 1536, 375 small houses were dissolved, provision being made for the monks, either by pensioning them or by removing them to other monasteries “where good religion is observed as shall{13} be limited by the King” (27 Henry VIII., c. 28). Unlike Wolsey, who at least used the money gained by the first suppression for the furtherance of Church work in other forms, it is not evident that Henry did anything of the kind. The Pilgrimage of Grace, a movement in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in 1536-37 against Henry’s new laws, led to the final suppression of the monasteries, and by the end of 1538 few religious houses flourished. Many abbots surrendered their houses to the

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