Immense as were his private resources, they could not bear the strain of his magnificent plans. He therefore seized upon the idea of appropriating the property of the regular clergy and applying it to the foundation and endowment of Cardinal's College. The time was ripe for some such conversion. Monasticism was outworn. Whatever the merits of some few monasteries might be, whatever the piety of an occasional Abbot Samson, or the popularity of a monkish institution which did its duty of charity and instruction in this or that part of the country, the monks as a rule had ceased to live up to their original standard. They had accumulated wealth and lost their hold on the people. And where they were popular, it was in many cases with the people they had pauperised. To a statesman with so keen an insight and so broad a mind as Wolsey, it must have seemed both wise and safe to take this opportunity of suppressing some of the English priories. Had not Chicheley, when the alien priories had been suppressed on political grounds, secured some of their lands for the endowment of his foundation, All Souls' College? His first step was to obtain a bull from the Pope and the assent of the King, authorising him (1524) to suppress the Priory of S. Frideswide and transfer the canons to other houses of the Augustinian order. Their house and revenues, amounting to nearly £300, were assigned to the proposed college of secular clerks. The scale of that college is indicated by the fact that it was to consist of a dean and sixty canons, forty canons of inferior rank, besides thirteen chaplains, twelve lay clerks, sixteen choristers and a teacher of music, for the service of the Church. Six public professors were to be appointed in connection with the college. A few months later another bull, which premised that divine service could not be properly maintained in monasteries which contained less than seven professed members, empowered Wolsey to suppress any number of such small religious houses all over the country. This he proceeded to do, and to transfer the inmates to other monasteries. Their revenues, to an amount not exceeding 3000 golden ducats, were to be devoted to the new college. The plan of thus concentrating the resources of the small and scattered religious houses was both economical and statesmanlike. But, in its execution, it gave rise to fear and irritation, of which Wolsey's political enemies were quick to avail themselves. The perturbation of the monks is well expressed in Fuller's happy metaphor: "His proceedings made all the forest of religious foundations in England to shake, justly fearing the King would finish to fell the oaks, seeing the Cardinal began to cut the underwood."