MUCHELNEY ABBEY. 87 



not so much on account of any irregularities in the estab- 

 lishment itself, as from the desire of the more powerful 

 neighbour to add to its already comprehensive dominion. 

 Means would hardly be wanting to effect, if possible, so 

 cherished a design. 



Be this, however, as it may, the storm which indiscri- 

 minately assailed every religious establishment in the 

 country during the first half of the sixteenth Century, put 

 a summary termination to these and all other differences, 

 if they still survived, by exterminating the contending 

 parties. Long before that tiine, doubtless, all such causes 

 of dispute had been laid to rest, and the Abbat and 

 Convent of Muchelney had been allowed to hold their 

 own, in the terms of the ancient charters — bene, quiete, et 

 in pace — so as to carry out into good effect the sacred 

 purposes for which they were instituted. At last, 

 however, after centuries of benefit and blessing to the 

 land, forgotten by many and ill-requited by more, the 

 tempest descended upon this Hou6e of God. The demons 

 of cruelty, avarice, and wrong, were let loose. Every 

 passion that can degrade man to the brute's level was 

 dominant. The excesses that were committed under pre- 

 tence of religion, for it was but a pretence, would hardly 

 be credited by modern readers, most of whom have been 

 carefully educated to believe the worst of the sufferers, and 

 the best of their unprincipled enemies. Those were, in- 

 deed, the days of " trouble, rebuke, and blasphemy," of 

 which it were well that we knew more, and took to heart 

 the lesson, however painful, that their memorials can so 

 graphically, so touchingly, and so truthfully convey. 



In the 30th year of Henry VIII the king granted the 

 monastery and manor of Muchelney, together with many 

 other lands belonging to the House, to Edward, Earl of 



VOL. VIII., 1«5«, PART II. M 



