“All governors of shires, cities, towns, etc., shall find and keep every aged poor and impotent person which was born or dwelt three years within the same limit, by way of voluntary and charitable alms, etc., with such convenient alms as shall be thought meet by their discretion,” etc. It was in this year (1535) that the lesser monasteries were dissolved. So the first poor law was enacted, to provide for the poor and impotent, in the same year in which the dissolution occurred. The total annual revenue of _all_ the monastic and chantry estates, together with the episcopal and chapter estates surrendered to the Crown, was about £300,000, which, if carefully managed—say by a Board of Commissioners—to provide for the poor, would now realize an annual revenue of eight and a half millions sterling, sufficiently adequate to defray all the expenses of the poor of England and Wales, without a penny expense to the ratepayers. All the vast properties were disgracefully granted away to unprincipled, poor, avaricious favourites and courtiers of Henry VIII., and his children. It was Cromwell who, in his desire to promote the Reformation, advised the King to divide the abbey lands among the nobles and gentry, either by grant or sale on easy terms; and that by being thus bound by the sureties of private interest, they might always oppose any return towards the dominion of Rome.[232] Cromwell’s views turned out to be correct, as we know from the conduct of members of Parliament who were in possession of monastic property. In Mary’s reign her Parliament, which was so obsequious in all matters of religion, adhered with a firm grasp to their Church lands. Nor could the papal supremacy be re-established by Mary until her sanction was given that they should be allowed the full enjoyment of their Abbey lands, and we may ascribe the zeal of the same class, in bringing back and preserving the reformed Church under Elizabeth, to a similar motive; that, according to the general laws of human nature, they gave a readier reception to truth, which made their estates more secure.[233] They would be any religion, provided they retained their church lands.[234]