All classes of society had become disgusted with the monasteries: the common people would say to the monks: 'We labor painfully, while you lead easy and comfortable lives.' The nobility regarded them with looks of envy and irony which threatened their wealth. The lawyers considered them as parasitical plants, which drew away from others the nutriment they required. These things made the religious orders cry out with alarm: 'If we no longer have the pope to protect us, it is all over with us and our monasteries.' And they set to work to prevent Henry from separating from the pope: they circulated anonymous stories, seditious songs, trivial lampoons, frightful prophecies and biting satires against the king, Anne Boleyn, and the friends of the Reformation. They held mysterious interviews with the discontented, and took advantage of the confessional to alarm the weak-minded. 'The supremacy of the pope,' they said, 'is a fundamental article of the faith: none who reject it can be saved.' People began to fear a general revolt. When Luther was informed that Henry VIII. had abolished the authority of the pope in his kingdom, but had suffered the religious orders to remain, he smiled at the blunder: 'The king of England,' he said, 'weakens the body of the papacy but at the same time strengthens the soul.'[162] That could not endure for long. [Sidenote: CROMWELL'S ADVICE.] Cromwell had now attained high honors and was to mount higher still. He thought with Luther that the pope and the monks could not exist or fall one without the other. After having abolished the Roman pontiff, it became necessary to abolish the monasteries. It was he who had prevailed on the king to take the place of head of the Church; and now he wished him to be so really. 'Sire,' he said to Henry, 'cleanse the Lord's field from all the weeds that stifle the good corn, and scatter everywhere the seeds of virtue.[163] In 1525, 1528, 1531 and 1534 the popes themselves lent you their help in the suppression of monasteries; now you no longer require their aid. Do not hesitate, Sire: the most fanatical enemies of your supreme authority are to be found in the convents. There is buried the wealth necessary to the prosperity of the nation. The revenues of the religious orders are far greater than those of all the nobility of England. The cloister schools have fallen into decay, and the wants of the age require better ones. To suppress the pope and to keep the monks is like deposing the general and delivering the fortresses of the country up to his army. Sire, imitate the example of the protestants and suppress the monasteries.'