[101] Burnet; Strype. Wolsey alleged as the ground for this suppression, the great wickedness that prevailed therein. Strype says the number is twenty; but Collier, ii. 19, reckons them at forty. [102] Collier, though not implicitly to be trusted, tells some hard truths, and charges Cromwell with receiving bribes from several abbeys, in order to spare them. P. 159. This is repeated by Lingard, on the authority of some Cottonian manuscripts. Even Burnet speaks of the violent proceedings of a Doctor Loudon towards the monasteries. This man was of infamous character, and became afterwards a conspirator against Cranmer, and a persecutor of protestants. [103] Burnet, 190; Strype, i. ch. 35, see especially p. 257; Ellis's _Letters_, ii. 71. We should be on our guard against the Romanising high-church men, such as Collier, and the whole class of antiquaries, Wood, Hearne, Drake, Browne, Willis, etc., etc., who are, with hardly an exception, partial to the monastic orders, and sometimes scarce keep on the mask of protestantism. No one fact can be better supported by current opinion, and that general testimony which carries conviction, than the relaxed and vicious state of those foundations for many ages before their fall. Ecclesiastical writers had not then learned, as they have since, the trick of suppressing what might excite odium against their church, but speak out boldly and bitterly. Thus we find in Wilkins, iii. 630, a bull of Innocent VIII. for the reform of monasteries in England, charging many of them with dissoluteness of life. And this is followed by a severe monition from Archbishop Morton to the abbot of St. Alban's, imputing all kinds of scandalous vices to him and his monks. Those who reject at once the reports of Henry's visitors will do well to consider this. See also Fosbrooke's _British Monachism, passim_. [104] The preamble of 27 H. 8, c. 28, which gives the smaller monasteries to the king, after reciting that "manifest sin, vicious, carnal, and abominable living, is daily used and committed commonly in such little and small abbeys, priories, and other religious houses of monks, canons, and nuns, where the congregation of such religious persons is under the number of twelve persons," bestows praise on many of the greater foundations, and certainly does not intimate that their fate was so near at hand. Nor is any misconduct alleged or insinuated against the greater monasteries in the act 31 H. 8, c. 13, that abolishes them; which is rather more remarkable, as in some instances the religious had been induced to confess their evil lives and ill deserts. Burnet, 236.