It was to show to the whole world that he was in earnest and that he meant indeed to be Head of the Church, that Henry caused the execution of the Carthusian monks, of Bishop Fisher, and Sir Thomas More. All Christendom shuddered when those holy men were dragged forth to suffer the degrading and horrible death of traitors; yet all Christendom recognised that there was a King in England who would brook no interference, who knew his own mind, and would work his own will. I need not follow the course and the development of the Reformation, for its history belongs to the whole country. As regards London, two or three points present themselves for consideration: as, for instance, the condition of the Houses; the manners and morality of the Religious; and the mind of the people. Let us consider these points from the position of a contemporary Londoner, so far as is possible. First, as to the condition of the Houses. The enormous wealth of the Church could not fail to impress every one with the incongruity of ecclesiastical professions and practices. The sight of those scores of able-bodied men, most of them with no pretensions to be considered scholars, or divines, or even gentlemen—a qualification which, at the time, might have been sufficient justification for living on the work of others—but men of low origin and of narrow attainments, lounging about the streets and in the taverns—some, as the friars, with no apparent duties at all; some, like the chantry priests, with half an hour’s work every day; many of them without the least pretence to piety or virtue—could not but become a powerful aid in the popular approval of the Dissolution. In London alone, a very large part of the City belonged to the Church. The streets swarmed with ecclesiastics who, in the midst of a busy and industrial population, seemed idle and useless. In the Italian _Relations of England_ the writer speaks of the vast wealth of the Church and the power of the ecclesiastics. “I for my part,” he says, “believe that the English priests would desire nothing better than what they have got, were it not they are obliged to assist the Crown in time of war, and also to keep many poor gentlemen, who are left beggars in consequence of the inheritance devolving to the eldest son. And if the Bishops were to decline this expense they would be considered infamous, nor do I believe that they would be safe in their own churches.” [Illustration: CARTHUSIAN MARTYRS From a historical print in the British Museum.] There is surely some confusion here. It is true that younger sons attached themselves to the following of the great Lords Spiritual as well as Temporal, but I have nowhere else found it stated that it was the duty of the Church to keep them. Also many of them, as we have seen, had City connections and embarked in trade. For “Church” we should perhaps read “the Monastic Houses.”