INTRODUCTORT. 29 



creation of a greatly enlarged episcopate, to colleges and 

 schools. But his own necessities and perhaps the necessities 

 of his own situation made him hold his hand. He spent much, 

 and he gave much to his nobles, whom he gorged with gifts, 

 and so made partners in his rapine. That a reform was neces- 

 sary, I do not doubt. That England in the end gained much 

 by the extinction of a number of corporations which had long 

 ceased to be useful, and had now become noxious, is most 

 probable. Much suffering intervened before the good came, 

 not a little from the transfer of property to ennobled adveiv 

 turers. For whenever a nation possesses an aristocracy as a 

 permanent element in its institutions, it is very seldom that 

 a reform can be effected in the distribution of any property 

 which forms the subject of change, except by bribing the aris- 

 tocracy with a portion. Henry was, we may be convinced, 

 constrained to share the plunder with his nobles, timid and 

 subservient as they were. Mary found these nobles perfectly 

 ready to embrace the faith which they had repudiated during 

 her brother's reign, but she could not induce them to re- 

 linquish the abbey lands, and the Pope, who was anxious 

 above all things to regain England to the Roman see, saw 

 that it was necessary to confirm the spoilers in their pos- 

 sessions. 



Lord Herbert estimated the annual value of the monastic 

 lands at 1 61,000. It is not unlikely however that the real 

 value was double this amount. It is said that the abbots and 

 priors of the religious houses, foreseeing or fearing what might 

 happen, had granted long leases of their lands at low rents and 

 with large fines. The practice of taking fines on leases had 

 certainly begun by this time, but the fines, originally a present, 

 perhaps a mere handsel, to those who granted the lease, had 

 not become large as yet. There is, however, nothing intrinsi- 

 cally improbable in the statement. Corporations, before the 

 disabling act of Elizabeth, had large powers of alienation, if 

 the head of the corporation and probably the visitor with 

 the assent of the members, agreed to make grants of land from 



