ok the oath of allegiance. Threats, bribes and
violence were used to overcome the opposition of the unwilling.

_The Monks and the Oath of Supremacy_

It is quite evident that the king's purpose to destroy the whole
monastic institution was partly the result of the determined resistance
which the monks offered to his authority. The contest between the king
and the monks was exceedingly fierce and bloody. Many good men lost
their lives and many innocent persons suffered grievously. Perhaps the
most pathetic incident in the sanguinary struggle between the king and
the monks was the tragic fall of the Charterhouse of London. The facts
are given at length by Froude, in his "History of England," who bases
his account on the narrative of Maurice Channey, one of the monks who
escaped death by yielding to the king. The unhappy monk confesses that
he was a Judas among the apostles, and in a touching account of the ruin
that came upon his monastic retreat he praises the boldness and fidelity
of his companions, who preferred death to what seemed to them dishonor.

The pages of Channey are filled with the most improbable stories of
miracles, but his charming picture of the cloister life of the
Carthusians is doubtless true to reality. The Carthusian fathers were
the best fruit of monasticism in England. To a higher degree than any of
the other monastic orders they maintained a good discipline and
preserved the spirit of their founders. "A thousand years of the world's
history had rolled by," says Froude, "and these lonely islands of prayer
had remained still anchored in the stream; the strands of the ropes
which held them, wearing now to a thread, and very near their last
parting, but still unbroken." In view of the undisputed purity and
fearlessness of these noble monks, a recital of their woes will place
the case for the monastic institution in the most favorable light.

Channey says the year 1533 was ushered in with signs,--the end of the
world was nigh. Yes, the monk's world was drawing to a close; the moon,
for him, was turning into blood, and the stars falling from heaven.

More and Fisher were in the Tower. The former's splendid talents and
noble character still swayed the people. It was no time for trifling;
the Carthusian fathers must take the oath of allegiance or perish. So
one morning the royal commissioners appeared before the monastery door
of the Charterhouse to demand submission. Prior Houghton answered them: