The Church and the clergy at that time had grave cause for anxiety. The spirit of discontent was abroad. It was shown by the late rebellion of the Essex and the Kentish men; it was shown by the falling off in bequests and donations and foundations of chantries, obits, and anniversaries; it was shown by the general hatred of the mendicant orders, and especially of the Franciscans, formerly so widely, and so deservedly loved; it was shown by the murmurings, deep and low, against the wealth of the Church, against the laziness and luxury of the Religious, against the general immorality imputed, rightly or wrongly, to the Ecclesiastics of all kinds—there were sixty clerks in Holy Orders caught in the act of adultery in the years 1400 to 1440: there were notoriously women who kept disorderly houses for priests and procured girls for them (see Riley’s _Memorials_). The spirit of revolt was shown by the action of the City when it prayed for the dissolution of St. Martin’s Sanctuary on the ground that the place was a mere receptacle of murderers, thieves, and bankrupts; it was shown most decisively and unmistakably in the remarkable prayer of Parliament that the King would take over into his own hands the whole of the Church lands. This petition demands larger notice. The following is Fabyan’s account:— “In this yere (xi Henry IV.) the kyng helde his parliament at Westmynster, during the whiche the commons of this lande put up a bylle to the kyng, to take the temporall landes out from spiritual mene’s handes or possession. The effect of whiche bylle was, that the temporaltes, disordynately wasted by men of the churche, myghte suffice to find for the kyng xv erles, xv C knyghts, xi M and CC esquyers and C houses of almes, to the releef of poore people, more than at these dayes were within Englande. And over all thyse aforesayd charges the kynge myght put yerely in his coffers xx M pounds. Provyded that every erle should have of yerely rent iii M marke, every knyght an C marke & iiii ploughe lande, every esquyer xl marke by yere, with ii plughe land, and every house of almesse an C marke and oversyght of ii trewe seculers into every house. And also with provicion that every township shoulde kepe all poore people of theyr owne dwellers, whiche myght not labour for theyr lyvynge, with condycyon that if more fell in a towne than the towne myght maynteyn, that the said almesse houses to releve suche townshyppes. And for to bere thyse charges, they allegyd by theyr sayd bylle, that the temporalyties beyng in the possession of spirituell men, amounted to CCC and xxii M marke by yere, whereof they affermyd to be in the see of Caunterbury, with the abbeys of Cristes Churche, of Seynt Augustyns, Shrowsbury, Coggeshale, and Seynt Osiys xx M marke by yere.