The superiors of the suppressed houses were promised small pensions for life, which were very irregularly paid. All the monks not twenty-four years of age were absolved from their vows, and turned loose upon the world without any kind of provision; the rest, if they wished to continue in the profession, were divided among the greater houses that were still left standing. The poor nuns were turned adrift to beg or starve; having nothing given to them, save one common gown for each.[116] “These things,” says Godwin, “were of themselves distasteful to the vulgar sort, of whom each one did, as it were, claim a share in the goods of the church; for many being neither monks, nor allied to monks, did, notwithstanding, conceive that it might hereafter come to pass that either their children, friends, or kindred, might obtain their share; whereas, when all their property was once confiscated, they could never hope for any such advantages. But the popular commiseration for the thousands of monks and nuns who were, almost without warning given, thrust out of doors, and committed to the mercy of the world, became a more forcible cause of discontent. There were not wanting desperate men to take advantage of this state of public feeling; and it was diligently rumoured in all parts, that this was but the beginning of greater evils and more general spoliations--only a trial of their patience; that, as yet, the shrubs and underwood were but touched; but unless a speedy remedy were applied, the end would be with the fall of the lofty oaks.” At the same time, the crowds of poor, who, by an ancient but defective system, had derived their support from the monastic establishments, became furious at finding their resources cut off, and at seeing the monks who had fed them now begging like themselves by the roadsides.
In the midst of these general discontents, Cranmer and Cromwell issued certain doctrinal injunctions to the clergy, which were too novel to find immediate favour with the multitude; and certain Protestant reformers, who had more courage than they, ventured to print books about Iconolatria, image-worship, auricular confession, transubstantiation, and other fundamental tenets and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. The king, who assumed all the authority in matters of dogmas that had ever been claimed by the popes, and much more than they had ever put in practice in England, pronounced rewards and sentences which irritated both parties alike, and all these questions were referred to him--thus occupying a good deal of his time, and keeping in dangerous activity his old political bile.[117] We find the Lord Chancellor Audley writing in great perturbation to Cromwell, telling him that “there is a book come forth in print, touching the taking away of images, and begging to know whether he was privy to the publishing thereof,” which Cranmer probably was,[118] though, had such a fact been known to his master at that moment, his neck would have been in jeopardy. The chancellor says, “I assure you, in the parts where I have been, some discord there is, and diversity of opinion among the people, touching the worshipping of saints and images; and for creeping, kneeling at cross, and such like ceremonies heretofore used in the church, which discord it were good should be put to silence; and this book will make much business in the same, if it should go forth. Wherefore,” he continues, “I pray you, I may be advised whether you know it or no, for I intend to send for the printers and stop them; but there may be many abroad. It were good that the preachers and people abstained from opinions of such things, till such time as by the report of such as the king’s highness hath appointed for the searching and ordering of laws of the church, his grace may put a final order on such things, how his people and subjects shall use themselves without contention. And if the people were thus commanded by proclamation to abstain till that time, such proclamation, drawn in honest terms, would do much good to avoid contention.”[119]