that any magistrates were deprived or punished. The work which they had neglected was done for them by others, and they were left again to themselves with a clearer field.[1] One noticeable victim, however, fell in this year. There were three indeed, with equal claims to interest; but one, through caprice of fame, has been especially remembered. The great abbots, with but few exceptions, had given cause for suspicion during the late disturbances; that is to say, they had grown to advanced age as faithful subjects of the Papacy; they were too old to begin life again with a new allegiance.[2] The Abbot of Colchester had refused to surrender his house, and concealed or made away with the abbey plate, and had used expressions of most unambiguous anxiety for the success of the rebellions, and of disappointment at their failure.[3] On the first visitation of the monasteries,
- ↑ The traditions of severity connected with this reign are explained by these exceptional efforts of rigour. The years of license were forgotten; the seasons recurring at long intervals, when the executions might be counted by hundreds, lived in recollection, and when three or four generations had passed, became the measure of the whole period.
- ↑ 'These three abbots had joined in a conspiracy to restore the Pope.'—Traherne to Bullinger: Original Letters on the Reformation, second series, p. 316.
- ↑ 'Yesterday I was with the Abbot of Colchester, who asked me how the Abbot of St Osith did as touching his house; for the bruit was the King would have it. To the which I answered, that he did like an honest man, for he saith, I am the King's subject, and I and my house and all is the King's; wherefore, if it be the King's pleasure, I, as a true subject, shall obey without grudge. To the which the Abbot answered, the King shall never have my house but against my will and against my heart; for I know, by my learning, he cannot take it by right and law. Wherefore, in my conscience, I cannot be content; nor he shall never have it with my heart and will. To the which I said beware of such learning; for if ye hold such learning as ye learned in Oxenford when ye were young ye will be hanged; and
