money coming thereof when the house is suppressed. And I promise you of my faith and conscience ye shall have your part, and of every penny that I have during my life; and thereupon,' he concluded, 'the brethren agreed thereunto.'[1]
Had there been no discovery of treason, a less severe Government than that of Henry VIII. would have refused to tolerate conduct of this kind. Those who decline to recognize the authority of an Act of Parliament over the property of corporate bodies, cannot pretend that a right of ownership was vested in persons whose tenure, at its best and surest, was limited by their lives. For members of religious houses to make away their plate was justly construed to be felony; and the law, which was necessarily general, could not recognize exceptions on the ground of piety of motive, when such an exception would but have furnished a screen behind which indiscriminate pillage might have been carried on with impunity. The visitors had been warned to be careful,[2] and practice had made them skil-
- ↑ Confession of the Abbot of Barlings: MS. Cotton. Cleopatra, E 4.
- ↑ 'And for as much as experience teacheth that many of the heads of such houses, notwithstanding their oaths, taken upon the holy evangelists, to present to such the King's Majesty's commissioners as have been addressed unto them, true and perfect inventories of all things belonging to their monasteries, many things have been left out, embezzled, stolen, and purloined—many rich jewels, much rich plate, great store of precious ornaments, and sundry other things of great value and estimation, to the damage of the King's Majesty, and the great peril and danger of their own souls, by reason of their wilful and detestable perjury: the said commissioners shall not only at every such house examine the head and convent substantially, of all such things so concealed or unlawfully alienated, but also
