received £32,000 per annum from the estates, and also he received jewels and personal effects valued at £100,000. He gave small pensions to some abbots, priors, and monks; others he transferred to larger monasteries. The houses were stripped of their lead, bells, glass, and materials, which were sold to the neighbouring gentry. The conditions upon which all the vast monastic property was given by Parliament to the King were, “That they were to be used to the pleasure of God and to the honour and profit of this realm.” Did Henry VIII. or his successors carry out these conditions? They certainly did not. The property of the alien priories was insignificantly small as compared with the enormous properties which Parliament granted to Henry VIII. But there was this distinction between them. Almost all the former properties were devoted to religious and educational purposes. Laymen received little or nothing. But the case was very different with Henry VIII.’s confiscations. The courtiers and favourites were most eager to share, and did obtain, monastic estates and tithes, and also episcopal and capitular landed estates, which some of their successors still hold, others sold them, and thus much of the property has been handed down to the present time through a long line of purchasers. Henry VIII. intended to create twenty-one new bishoprics, and out of the proceeds of the monastic properties to suitably endow them. But he created and endowed only six. The courtiers and favourites of Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, who received inferior monastic lands, induced these sovereigns to make certain of the archbishops, bishops, and chapters exchange their good lands for the inferior lands of the courtiers and favourites, and also to exchange impropriated tithes for lands of equal value belonging to episcopal and capitular corporations. These exchanges were very numerous in the reigns of Edward and Elizabeth. Hasted, in his “History of Kent,” makes the following remark, “Cranmer observing that his stately palaces excited the envy of the courtiers, _passed them away with their estates to the King_.” For example, Otford Palace and its beautiful parks. Archbishop Warham spent £33,000, an enormous sum in those days, in rebuilding the palace. Cranmer, in 1538, was ordered to surrender the palace and the manor of Otford and Sergeants Otford to Henry VIII. Edward VI. granted the Little Park of Otford on lease to Sir Henry Sidney. Elizabeth granted Sergeants Otford and the Little Park on lease to Sir Robert Sidney. James I. granted the palace and Greater Park to Sir Thomas Smith. Edward VI. granted the parsonage and advowson of Shoreham with the Chapel of Otford to Sir Anthony Denny, who exchanged them with the Dean and Chapter of Westminster for the advowson of Cheshunt in Herts. The Chapter had £702, tithe rent charge from Otford; there was no vicar; and £806 10_s._ from Shoreham; total £1,508 16_s._