98 LAND REFORM 



nearly the whole of this vast area of the soil of 

 England in the hands of private owners. These lands 

 were distributed mainly to a limited number of cour- 

 tiers and "satellites who revolved around them," 

 together forming a shameless oligarchy which had 

 the control of public affairs. Not only they, but 

 others of lesser degree, who were their favourites 

 and hangers on, shared the spoil. "A great number 

 of men, when appointed to office, were possessed only 

 of inkhorn and pen — were after two years able to 

 rank in wealth and estate with the highest in the 

 land."^ 



Old writers and modern historians are agreed as to 

 the unrestrained rapacity of those pilferers during the 

 reigns of Henry VIII and that of his son, the boy king, 

 Edward VI. 



Taking the reign of Edward VI alone, Froude 

 estimates that at a low computation the ministers of 

 the Crown and their friends had appropriated, " I sup- 

 pose I must not say stolen," he adds, estates worth in 

 modern currency about five millions sterling, and 

 divided them among themselves." 



In this reign the chantries — chapels, most of them 



' Arundel MS. 151, fo. 386b. See also Sloane MS. 2495, fo. 49b. 



Spelman gives a list of the principal families into whose hands these 

 estates passed. Some of them secured from one to twenty abbeys or 

 priories, and one of them no less than thirty. Sec " History and Fate of 

 Sacrilege." 



J'urlher particulars are given of these proceedings in Strype's "Eccle- 

 siastical Memorials," Book II, Chaps, xxvui., XXX. and following. 



See also "Rolls Publications," "State Calendars," Vol. XII, Part i, 

 and ii., edited by James Gairdner. In this volume lists and particulars are 

 given of between three and four hundred "grants" made in one year 

 (1537). Each grant contains a list of the property disposed of. In some 

 cases a single grant includes a number of manors, abbeys, advowsons, 

 priories, tithe rents, etc. 



'^ " History of England," Vol. V, p. 467. 



