There was only one particular in which Henry was quite decisive; because he was there impelled by his avarice, or, more properly-speaking, his rapacity, the consequence of his profusion: this measure was the entire destruction of the monasteries.
Anew visitation was appointed of all the monasteries in England; and a pretence only being wanted for their suppression, it was easy for a prince, possessed of such unlimited power, and seconding the present humor of a great part of the nation, to find or feign one.
The abbots and monks knew the danger to which they were exposed; and having learned by the example of the lesser monasteries that nothing could withstand the king's will, they were most of them induced, in expectation of better treatment, to make a voluntary resignation of their houses.
They built enormous monasteries with well filled cellars, and lived on the fat of the land, while the people lived in wretched hovels, working their lives away for a crust of bread. The beasts, the domestic animals lived a more comfortable life than did the men, women, and children of the people.
From the introduction of Christianity among the Saxons, there had been monasteries in England; and these establishments had extremely multiplied by the donations of the princes and nobles, whose superstition, derived from their ignorance and precarious life, and increased by remorses for the crimes into which they were so frequently betrayed, knew no other expedient for appeasing the Deity, than a profuse liberality towards the ecclesiastics.