men down, not to inquire but to condemn, and that they themselves knew the purpose for which they were sent and were indifferent as to the truth of the facts they alleged, so that they lent support to their employers' purpose, why did they send good reports when they knew that evil would be more acceptable? and why did they make out a case against a comparatively small minority of the thousands of 'religious' inhabiting the houses?[1]
The fact to which I have just referred is the point upon which the whole question really turns. It was, after all, to but a minority of the clergy that gross vice was really brought home; and that fact has been used equally by their apologists and their detractors for more than it is really worth. Apologists have said in effect: 'You cannot make men in large bodies perfect. There were of course a few bad men among the monks, as there are and always will be amongst any numerous body of men; but they were the rare exception, and the rest were what they professed to be—men who had forsaken the world and its pleasures and gains, and given up their time to devotion or to pastoral work: and to condemn the body as a body is as unreasonable as it is unjust.' The detractors reply somewhat as follows: '"Ex uno disce omnes." Here were a set of men who were nothing if not better than the rest of the world—who had severed themselves from the world because it was not good enough for them—and yet you find them wallowing in sensual vice which would have disgraced a body of brigands or free-lances, and using the opportunities afforded by their sacred calling to make others twofold more children of hell than themselves; and since they were all one united body, and all trying to make out the best case they could for themselves, and possessed every advantage for successful combination, there can be no doubt that the evil which we know of them was all well established, and was, in fact, far wider spread among them than was ever suffered to appear. Their whole raison d'etre was to be the light of the world, and their own light was darker than the outer darkness itself.' In each instance the case is overstated, but there is no room for real doubt that the second is nearer to the facts than the first.
Still, it may be admitted that, if the reports of Cromwell's commissioners were all the evidence we have, it would not go for much. Their stories, if taken together, as they ought in fairness to be, do not, it is true, look as if they were 'cooked': but, on the other hand, the character of at least some of the men, and the
- ↑ Gasquet, vol. i. p. 352.
