seeking employment in a market that was already overstocked with
labour, and endeavouring to earn a livelihood by means to which they
had never been accustomed.[985] They met with no little sympathy from
the commons, who were oppressed with a like scarcity of work, and who
had looked to the monasteries for such relief as charity could afford.
Nowhere were these feelings so strong as in the north of England, and
there the commissioners for dissolving the monasteries were often met
with open resistance. Religious discontent was one of the motives for
revolt, but probably the rebels were drawn mainly[986] from evicted
tenants, deprived of their holdings by enclosures or by the conversion
of land from tillage to pasture, men who had nothing to lose and
everything to gain by a general turmoil. In these men the wandering
monks found ready listeners to their complaints, and there were (p. 353)
others, besides the monks, who eagerly turned to account the prevailing
dissatisfaction. The northern lords, Darcy and Hussey, had for years
been representing to Chapuys the certainty of success if the Emperor
invaded England, and promising to do their part when he came. Darcy
had, at Christmas 1534, sent the imperial ambassador a sword as an
intimation that the time had come for an appeal to its arbitrament;
and he was seeking Henry's licence to return to his house in Yorkshire
in order to raise "the crucifix" as the standard of revolt.[987] The
King, however, was doubtful of Darcy's loyalty, and kept him in London
till early in 1536. It would have been well had he kept him longer.

[Footnote 983: _E.g._, the Prioress of Tarent
received L100 a year, the Abbot of Evesham, L240
(Gasquet, ii., 230, 310); these sums must be
multiplied by ten to bring them to their present
value. Most of these lavish pensions were doubtless
given as bribes or rewards for the surrender of
monasteries.]

[Footnote 984: _L. and P._, xi., 385, 519.]

[Footnote 985: _Ibid._, xi., 42.]

[Footnote 986: The exact proportion is of course
difficult to determine; Mr. E.F. Gay in an
admirable paper (_Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, N.S.,
xviii., 208, 209) thinks that I have exaggerated
the part played by the