onkes were too few." The
petitioner suggests that the king shall "tie these holy idell theves
to the cartes, to be whipped naked about every market towne till they
will fall to laboure!"

#Church History#

King Henry did not follow this suggestion precisely, but he took away
the property of the religious orders for the expenses of his many
wives and mistresses, and forced the clergy in England to forswear
obedience to the Pope and make his royal self their spiritual head.
This was the beginning of the Anglican Church, as distinguished from
the Catholic; a beginning of which the Anglican clergy are not so
proud as they would like to be. When I was a boy, they taught me what
they called "church history", and when they came to Henry the Eighth
they used him as an illustration of the fact that the Lord is
sometimes wont to choose evil men to carry out His righteous purposes.
They did not explain why the Lord should do this confusing thing, nor
just how you were to know, when you saw something being done by a
murderous adulterer, whether it was the will of the Lord or of Satan;
nor did they go into details as to the motives which the Lord had been
at pains to provide, so as to induce his royal agent to found the
Anglican Church. For such details you have to consult another set of
authorities--the victims of the plundering.

When I was in college my professor of Latin was a gentleman with bushy
brown whiskers and a thundering voice of which I was often the
object--for even in those early days I had the habit of persisting in
embarrassing questions. This professor was a devout Catholic, and not
even in dealing with ancient Romans could he restrain his propaganda
impulses. Later on in life he became editor of the "Catholic
Encyclopedia", and now when I turn its pages, I imagine that I see the
bushy brown whiskers, and hear the thundering voice: "Mr. Sinclair, it
is so because I tell you it is so!"

I investigate, and find that my ex-professor knows all about King
Henry the Eighth, and his motives in founding the Church of England;
he is ready with an "economic interpretation", as complete as the most
rabid muckraker could desire! It appears that the king wanted a new
wife, and demanded that the Pope should grant the necessary
permission; in his efforts to browbeat the Pope into such betrayal of
duty, King Henry threatened the withdrawal of the "annates" and the
"Peter's pence". Later on he forced the clergy to declare that