, and with the foulest and most
revolting crimes. The character of the visitors, the sweeping nature of
their report, and the long debate which followed on its reception leave
little doubt that these charges were grossly exaggerated. But the want
of any effective discipline which had resulted from their exemption from
all but papal supervision told fatally against monastic morality even in
abbeys like St. Albans; and the acknowledgment of Warham, as well as a
partial measure of suppression begun by Wolsey, goes some way to prove
that, in the smaller houses at least, indolence had passed into crime.

A cry of "down with them" broke from the commons as the report was read.
The country, however, was still far from desiring the utter downfall of
the monastic system, and a long and bitter debate was followed by a
compromise which suppressed all houses whose income fell below two
hundred pounds a year. Of the thousand religious houses which then
existed in England, nearly four hundred were dissolved under this act
and their revenues granted to the crown.

The secular clergy alone remained; and injunction after injunction from
the vicar-general taught rector and vicar that they must learn to regard
themselves as mere mouth-pieces of the royal will. The Church was
gagged. With the instinct of genius, Cromwell discerned the part which
the pulpit, as the one means which then existed of speaking to the
people at large, was to play in the religious and political struggle
that was at hand; and he resolved to turn it to the profit of the
monarchy.

The restriction of the right of preaching to priests who received
licenses from the Crown silenced every voice of opposition. Even to
those who received these licenses theological controversy was forbidden;
and a high-handed process of "tuning the pulpits," by express directions
as to the subject and tenor of each special discourse, made the
preachers at every crisis mere means of diffusing the royal will. As a
first step in this process every bishop, abbot, and parish priest was
required by the new vicar-general to preach against the usurpation of
the papacy, and to proclaim the King as supreme head of the Church on
earth. The very topics of the sermon were carefully prescribed; the
bishops were held responsible for the compliance of the clergy with
these orders; and the sheriffs were held responsible for the obedience
of the bishops.

While the great revolution which struck down the