28 INTRODUCTORY. 



nunneries in order to endow his colleges in Oxford and Ipswich. 

 The quarrel with the Pope afforded a pretext for annihilating 

 those institutions which were far more loyal to the see of Rome 

 than to their natural sovereign, and Henry obtained in a few 

 years possessions, which have been reckoned at one third the 

 land in the country, a vast amount of impropriated tithe, about 

 one third of the whole endowment, with gold, silver, and jewels, 

 the savings of centuries, to an incredible amount. 



It has been stated that Henry was strangely profuse. He 

 was perpetually building, and that on the most extensive scale. 

 He built or enlarged palaces incessantly. Much of the informa- 

 tion which I have obtained as to the prices of certain commo- 

 dities and the rates of labour in the first half of the sixteenth 

 century is derived from numerous account books kept by one 

 Needham 1 , a clerk of some of Henry's works, who probably 

 took away these books as waste paper after the account had 

 been audited and checked, as they regularly are, by four of the 

 principal workmen who sign every page. Needham purchased 

 a small estate in Bedfordshire with the savings of his employ- 

 ment, or perhaps with some fragment of monastic property. 

 He was probably only one of many such supervisors of royal 

 works. The charges of Henry's housekeeping too were enor- 

 mous. Not only was his own household lavishly provided, but 

 the establishments of his two daughters (for one or two of 

 their accounts are preserved in the Public Record Office) were 

 on a scale of expense which far exceeded the whole annual 

 expenditure of his thrifty father. Several of his nobles were 

 lodged by him in his different palaces. That he sold much of 

 the monastic property is probable. But he gave away more 

 than he sold. At the dissolution he doubtlessly intended to 

 devote a great part of the spoil to new foundations, to the 



1 These books were purchased by Rawlinson and given to the Bodleian Library. In 

 one of the volumes a descendant of Needham gives an account of the charges he was 

 put to during the civil war of King and Parliament. If many were taxed as he was, it is 

 not wonderful that the Restoration spake of the Protectorate as a period of 'oppression, 

 thraldom, and misery.' 



