1

1. _The yearly exactions from the people taken by this greedy
sort of sturdy idle holy thieves_ 3

They have a Tenth part of all produce, wages and profits 4

What money pull they in by probates of testaments, privy
tithes, men's offerings to their pilgrimages and at their
first masses; by masses and _diriges_, by mortuaries, hearing
of confessions (yet keeping thereof no secrecy), hallowing of
churches, by cursing of men and absolving them for money; by
extortion &c.; and by the quarterage from every household to
each of the Five Orders of begging Friars, which equals
L43,333 6s. 8d. [= _over L500,000 in present value_] a year 4

400 years ago, of all this they had not a penny 4

These locusts own also one Third of the land 5

Or in all more than half of the substance of the realm 5

Yet they are not in number, one to every hundred men, or one
in every four hundred men women and children 5

Neither could the Danes or Saxons haue conquered this land, if
they had left such a sort [_company_] of idle gluttons behind
them; nor noble King ARTHUR have resisted the Emperor LUCIUS,
if such yearly exactions had been taken of his people; nor the
Greeks so long continued the siege of Troy, if they had had to
find for such an idle sort of cormorants at home; nor the
Romans conquered the world, if their people had been thus
yearly oppressed; nor the Turk haue now so gained on
Christendom, if he had in his empire such locusts to devour
his substance 5

2. _What do they with these exactions?_ 6

Nothing but to translate all rule, power &c. from your Grace
to themselves, and to incite to disobedience and rebellion 6

3. _Yea, and what do they more?_ 7

Truly nothing but to have to do with every man's wife, every
man's daughter &c. 7

4. _Yea, who is able to number the great and broad bottomless
ocean sea full of evils, that this mischievous and sinful
generation is able to bring upon us? unpunished!_ 7

5. _What remedy? Make laws ag