followed by the
abolition of the Roman Catholic worship, nor any of the rites and
ceremonies of that church. Nor was religious toleration secured. Every
thing was subservient to the royal conscience, and a secular, instead
of an ecclesiastical pope, still reigned in England.

[Sidenote: Abolition of Monasteries.]

Henry soon found that his new position, as head of the English Church,
imposed new duties and cares: he therefore established a separate
department for the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs, over which he
placed the unscrupulous, but energetic Cromwell--a fit minister to
such a monarch. A layman, who hated the clergy, and who looked solely
to the pecuniary interests of his master, was thus placed over the
highest prelates of the church. But Cromwell, in consulting the
pecuniary interests of the king, also had an eye to the political
interests of the kingdom. He was a sagacious and practical man of the
world, and was disgusted with the vices of the clergy, and especially
with the custom of sending money to Rome, in the shape of annates and
taxes. This evil he remedied, which tended greatly to enrich the
country, for the popes at this time were peculiarly extortionate. He
then turned his attention to the reform of the whole monastic
institution, but with an eye also to its entire destruction. Cromwell
hated the monks. They were lazy, ignorant, and debauched. They were a
great burden on the people, and were as insolent and proud as they
were idle and profligate. The country swarmed with them. The roads,
taverns, and the houses of the credulous were infested with them.
Cranmer, who sympathized with the German reformers, hated them on
religious grounds, and readily cooeperated with Cromwell; while the
king, whose extortion and rapacity knew no bounds, listened, with
glistening eye, to the suggestions of his two favorite ministers. The
nation was suddenly astounded with the intelligence that parliament
had passed a bill, giving to the king and his heirs all the monastic
establishments in the kingdom, which did not exceed two hundred pounds
a year. Three hundred and eighty thus fell at a blow, whereby the king
was enriched by thirty-two thousand pounds a year, and one hundred
thousand pounds ready money--an immense sum in that age. By this
spoliation, perhaps called for, but exceedingly unjust and harsh, and
in violation of all the rights of property, thousands were reduced to
beggary and misery, while there was s