sacrifice the Religious houses, in the hope that the misunderstanding between the King and the Pope would be soon adjusted and the monks restored, yielded to the King; others, unworthy of their office, as it must be admitted, worldly men, courtly prelates, who dreaded the King's displeasure, obsequiously obeyed his mandate. Besides his greed for gold, the King had another potent motive for suppressing the monasteries, one that gave a zest to this disgraceful act: he wanted the further to spite the Pope by inflicting such an unheard-of injury on religion. Other motives, too, were not wanting, such as state policy, so the King alleged, and the want of constant affection towards his person on the part of the Religious, particularly in his new capacity. This, Lord Herbert (who was no friend of the monks) admits in his Life of the King. His Lordship writes: "The monks were looked upon as a body of reserve for the Pope, and always ready to appear in his quarrels." Perhaps, their opposition to the King's assumption of spiritual power precipitated matters. At all events, one of them, zealous for God's law, had the courage to reproach him to his face in a sermon preached at Greenwich before the King's marriage with Anne Boleyn. This fearless champion of justice, this intrepid son of St. Francis, thus addressed the dissolute monarch:--"I am that Micheas, O King, whom you will hate because I must tell you truly that this marriage is unlawful; and I know that I shall eat the bread of affliction and drink the water of sorrow; yet, because our Lord has put it in my mouth, I must speak it." And when he and another faithful brother friar were brought before the King's council, who rebuked them, and declared them deserving of being shut up in a sack, and thrown into the Thames, for the boldness of their language in the matter of the King's marriage, his companion smiling said: "Threaten these things to the rich and dainty persons, who are clothed in purple, and fare deliciously, and have their chiefest hope in this world; for we esteem them not, but are joyful, that, for the discharge of our duty we are driven hence; and, with thanks to God, we know the way to heaven to be as ready by water as by land." (Stowe, _Church Chronicle_.)