_Item_ ij brasse pottes sold to Edward Scudamor iiij^s _Item_ a vestment and ij tynakles of old prest velvet sold to Johan Savage baylyf xiij^s iiij^d _Item_ ij pannes vi^d _Item_ a cope of tawny damaske xij^d _Item_ a image of Seynt Katerine sold to Lee vj^d _Item_ sold to John Webbe the tymber worke of the hyegh quyer, and a auter of alablaster in the body of the churche ix^s viij^d[405]. It will be noticed that the sums for which these articles were sold, were very small. It is said that not more than £100,000 were obtained from the sale of the jewels, plate, lead, bells, and other valuables, which were seized in the first suppression of the monasteries. The annual incomes of the three hundred and seventy-six houses which were suppressed, however, probably amounted to about £32,000, a sum which was quite sufficient to render the measure a successful one from a financial point of view. In spite of the Act of Parliament, which declared that the monks were either to be pensioned, or else moved to some other religious house, there is no doubt that great misery and wretchedness invariably accompanied the dissolutions. Chapuys writes: ‘It is a lamentable thing to see a legion of monks and nuns, who have been chased from their monasteries, wandering miserably hither and thither, seeking means to live, and several honest men have told me, that what with monks, nuns, and persons dependent on the monasteries suppressed, there were over 20,000, who knew not how to live[406].’ The Act for the protection of the exiled inmates cannot have been at all strictly enforced, and there were certainly many monks, to whom no homes or means of living were assigned. Sir Henry Ellis has printed a document, concerning the dissolution of some of the monasteries, which was written in 1591 by one whose father and uncle witnessed the scenes he describes. It tells how ‘it would have made an heart of flint to have melted and wept to have seen the breaking up of the House, and their sorrowful departing; and the sudden spoil that fell the same day of their departure from the House. And every person had everything good cheap; except the poor Monks, Friars, and Nuns, that had no money to bestow of any thing.’ The people entered the church, ‘and took what they found, and filched it away.... It would have pitied any heart to see what tearing up of the lead there was, and plucking up of boards, and throwing down of the sparres; ... and the tombs in the Church (were) all broken, ... and all things of price either spoiled, carped away, or defaced to the uttermost[407].’ Nor is this tendency of the people of the neighbourhood to plunder in the least to be wondered at. They knew that as the monasteries were to be pulled down they would lose all the old