The Monks and the Oath of Supremacy

     
     
      It is quite evident that the king's purpose to destroy the whole monastic institution was partly the result of the determined resistance which the monks offered to his authority. The contest between the king and the monks was exceedingly fierce and bloody. Many good men lost their lives and many innocent persons suffered grievously. Perhaps the most pathetic incident in the sanguinary struggle between the king and the monks was the tragic fall of the Charterhouse of London. The facts are given at length by Froude, in his “History of England,” who bases his account on the narrative of Maurice Channey, one of the monks who escaped death by yielding to the king. The unhappy monk confesses that he was a Judas among the apostles, and in a touching account of the ruin that came upon his monastic retreat he praises the boldness and fidelity of his companions, who preferred death to what seemed to them dishonor.
      The pages of Channey are filled with the most improbable stories of miracles, but his charming picture of the cloister life of the Carthusians is doubtless true to reality. The Carthusian fathers were the best fruit of monasticism in England. To a higher degree than any of the other monastic orders they maintained a good discipline and preserved the spirit of their founders. “A thousand years of the world's history had rolled by,” says Froude, “and these lonely islands of prayer had remained still anchored in the stream; the strands of the ropes which held them, wearing now to a thread, and very near their last parting, but still unbroken.” In view of the undisputed purity and fearlessness of these noble monks, a recital of their woes will place the case for the monastic institution in the most favorable light.
      Channey says the year 1533 was ushered in with signs,—the end of the world was nigh. Yes, the monk's world was drawing to a close; the moon, for him, was turning into blood, and the stars falling from heaven.
      More and Fisher were in the Tower. The former's splendid talents and noble character still swayed the people. It was no time for trifling; the Carthusian fathers must take the oath of allegiance or perish. So one morning the royal commissioners appeared before the monastery door of the Charterhouse to demand submission. Prior Houghton answered them: “I know nothing of the matter mentioned; I am unacquainted with the world without; my office is to minister to God, and to save poor souls from Satan.” He was committed to the Tower for one month. Then Dr. Bonner persuaded the prior to sign with “certain reservations.” He was released and went back to his cloister-cell to weep. Calling his monks together he said he was sorry; it looked like deceit, but he desired to save his brethren and their order. The commissioners returned; the monks were under suspicion; the reservations were disliked, and they must sign without conditions. In great consternation the prior assembled the monks. All present cried out: “Let us die together in our integrity, and heaven and earth shall witness for us how unjustly we are cut off.” Prior Houghton conceived a generous idea. “If it depends on me alone; if my oath will suffice for the house, I will throw myself on the mercy of God; I will make myself anathema, and to preserve you from these dangers, I will consent to the king's will.” Thus did the noble old man consent to go into heaven with a lie on his conscience, hoping to escape by the mercy of God, because he sought to save the lives of his brethren. But all this was of no avail; Cromwell had determined that this monastery must fall, and fall it did. The monks prepared for their end calmly and nobly; beginning with the oldest brother, they knelt before each other and begged forgiveness for all unkindness and offence. “Not less deserving,” says Froude, “the everlasting remembrances of mankind, than those three hundred, who, in the summer morning, sate combing their golden hair in the passes of Thermopylae.” But rebellion was blazing in Ireland, and the enemies of the king were praying and plotting for his ruin. These monks, with More and Fisher, were an inspiration to the enemies of liberty and the kingdom. Catholic Europe crouched like a tiger ready to spring on her prostrate foe. It is sad, but these recluses, praying for the pope, instilling a love for the papacy in the confessional, these honest and conscientious but dangerous men must be shorn of their power to encourage rebels. There was a farce of a trial. Houghton was brought to the scaffold and died protesting his innocence. His arm was cut off and hung over the archway of the Charterhouse, as other arms and heads were hideously hanging over many a monastic gate in Merry England. Nine of the monks died of prison fever, and others were banished. The king's court went into mourning, and Henry knotted his beard and henceforth would be no more shaven—eloquent evidence to the world that whatever motive dominated the king's heart, these bloody deeds were unpleasantly disturbing. Certainly such a spectacle as that of a monk's arm nailed to a monastery was never seen by Englishmen before.
      The Charterhouse fell, let it be carefully noted, because the monks could not and would not acknowledge the king's supremacy, and not because the monks were immoral. Some spies in Cromwell's service offered to, bring in evidence against six of these monks of “laziness and immorality.” Cromwell indignantly refused the proposal, saying, “He would not hear the accusation; that it was false, wilfully so.”
      The news of these proceedings, and of the beheading of More and Fisher, awakened the most violent rage throughout Catholic Europe. Henry was denounced as the Nero of his times. Paul III. immediately excommunicated the king, dissolved all leagues between Henry and the Catholic princes, and gave his kingdom to any invader. All Catholic subjects were ordered to take up arms against him. Although these censures were passed, the pope decided to defer their publication, hoping for a peaceful settlement. But Henry knew, and the Catholic princes of Europe knew, that the blow might fall at any time. He had to make up his mind to go further or to yield unconditionally to the pope. The world soon discovered the temper of the enraged and stubborn monarch. He might vacillate on speculative questions, but there were no tokens of feeble hesitancy in his dealings with Rome. The hour of doom for the monasteries had struck.
      Having thus glanced at the character of Henry VIII., the prime mover in the attack upon the monasteries, and having surveyed some of the events leading up to their fall, we are now prepared to consider the actual work of suppression, which will be described under the following heads: First, The royal commissioners and their methods of investigation; Second, The commissioners' report on the condition of affairs; Third, The action of Parliament; Fourth, The effect of the suppression upon the people; and Fifth, The use Henry made of the monastic possessions. These matters having been set forth, it will then be in order to inquire into the justification, real or alleged, of the suppression.