Such was the condition of Mellifont on that fatal day, the 23rd July 1539, when the Commissioners, with an armed band, demanded admission and surrender, in the King's name. Remonstrance with them was vain, and the usual formality was gone through. They seized on the charters, registers, ledgers, etc., together with the keys of the treasury and store-rooms; took an inventory of all the possessions of the monastery, and sealed the Library and strong room. They, then, summoned the Abbot and all the monks to the Chapter-house, to sign the Act of Surrender. In the Calendar of Patent and Close Rolls, Chancery, Ireland, Henry VIII. (edited by James Morrin), the synopsis of it is given as follows at p. 135:--"Surrender of the Abbey or House of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Mellyfount, in the County of Louth, by Richard Contoure, Abbot, with the consent of the Convent; and of the church, belfry, cemetery, manors, lands, and all its possessions in the counties of Dublin, Kildare, and Carlow, with all charters, evidences, muniments, goods, utensils, ornaments and jewels."--July 23, 31o. (1539). "Endorsed on the preceding surrender is a memorandum that the Abbot and Convent, assembled in the Chapter-house, voluntarily acknowledged the preceding surrender, delivered it into the hands of the Lord Chancellor, and prayed it might be enrolled in Chancery, _in perpetuam rei memoriam_. Witness, George, Archbishop of Dublin; Wm. Brabazon, Vice-Treasurer; Robert Cowley, Master of the Rolls." July 23, 31o. How often have these "voluntary" surrenders been flaunted by writers hostile to the monks, as if the farce of signing the document which made them beggars were a free act! They were anxious, forsooth, to shake off the burden of their religious obligations, through the facile dispensation so liberally accorded by the new Head of the Church, in the flush of his accession to ecclesiastical supremacy! The late scholarly and liberal-minded Dean Butler, Protestant Rector of Trim, wrote thus on the subject:--"The form of surrender then executed omitted no property which could belong to the house.... There were added their charters, evidences, writings and manuscripts, their goods, chattels, utensils, ornaments, jewels, and debts, all these were granted to the King, to be disposed of at his good pleasure, without appeal or complaint, and the unhappy men _were forced to declare_, that they thus deprived themselves of house and home _of their own free will_, and that they put an end to a venerable institution, to which they were bound by so many solemn obligations, certain just and reasonable causes thereto moving their minds and their consciences." (_Register of the Priory of All Hallows._ Preface, p. xxix.)