And thus the work was finished. Within five years of the time that the first visitation of the monasteries had begun, a complete devastation of all the religious houses had been accomplished, and a torrent of wealth had been poured in upon the Crown, ‘such,’ says Hallam, ‘as has seldom been equalled in any country, by the confiscations following a subdued rebellion[427].’ The suppression which included the larger houses was evidently a far greater financial success than the first. A new device for gaining revenue had been invented, and put in operation during the last few years. It consisted in imposing a fine on every place in which a religious house had existed, ‘for the toleracyon and contynuaunce of the monastery ther[428]’; an ingenious device, which yielded a most substantial income. ‘The King had then in his hand,’ says Burnet, ‘the greatest opportunity of making royal and noble foundations that ever King of England had. But whether out of policy, to give a general content to the gentry by selling to them at low rates, or out of easiness to his courtiers, or out of an unmeasured lavishness of expense, it came far short of what he had given out he would do.... He designed to convert £18,000 into a revenue for eighteen bishoprics and cathedrals. But of these he only erected six.... Great sums were indeed laid out on building and fortifying many ports in the Channel, and other parts of England[429].’
Lacking any evidence from the sources on the subject of the use to which the revenues from the suppression of the monasteries were put, one must judge from this passage, and from subsequent events. An Act giving Henry the power to erect bishoprics by letters patent, was passed in Parliament, May 23, 1539[430]. It was by the authority of this statute, that the King founded the six new bishops’ sees above mentioned, and also converted some of the old houses, such as Beverley, Ripon, and Manchester, into collegiate churches. But the passage in Burnet also hints at other methods of employing the money gained from the suppression of the monasteries, which it seems likely that Cromwell suggested. The use of the funds to strengthen the coast defences along the Channel was always one of his favourite schemes; it is probable that he found no difficulty in persuading the King how necessary such a precaution was, in view of the danger of foreign invasion, which threatened England at the close of 1539. But the plan of selling the lands of the confiscated houses to the nobles at low prices, is even more Cromwellian. It immediately reminds the reader of the course which Wolsey, ten years before, had pursued at his servant’s advice, when he bought off the popular hatred by grants out of his own lands and revenues. Cromwell plainly saw that after the suppression, steps must be taken to ensure the permanence of the reform he had effected. By judicious grants he turned aside the hatred of some of the rural gentry, who were at first opposed to the destruction of the monasteries, and thus, by rendering the work popular at home, he secured himself and it from the attacks of Catholic potentates abroad. But his action at this juncture had another more subtle and more important result. For by the grants which he made to the rural gentry, he laid the basis for the foundation of a territorial aristocracy, destined at a later day to wrest from the Crown the power which he had wrung from the older nobility, lay and clerical. This after-effect of Cromwell’s policy, which was in direct opposition to the aims of his government, did not take place till long after his fall. It was rendered possible solely by the movement of events over which he had no control, and he could have scarcely anticipated it. But it is only fair to mention it here, in order that we may be able to look on the suppression of the monasteries and its after-effects as a connected whole. If we do this, the cruelty and treachery of Cromwell and his agents in gaining their ends will not make us blind to the fact, that in the end the destruction of the religious houses in England certainly accomplished other and better results than those it was originally intended to compass.