"The lady of the house aye stille sat, Till she had herde what the friar said." And "Now stood the lorde's squire at the board, That carved his meat, and hearde every word Of all the things of which I have you said." And it needs little help of the imagination to complete this contemporary picture of an English fourteenth-century village, with its lord and its well-to-do farmer, and its villagers, its village inn, its parish church and priest, and the fortnightly visit of the itinerant friars. * * * * * We have now completed our sketch of the rise of the religious orders, and of their general character; we have only to conclude this portion of our task with a brief history of their suppression in England. Henry VIII. had resolved to break with the pope; the religious orders were great upholders of the papal supremacy; the friars especially were called "the pope's militia;" the king resolved, therefore, upon the destruction of the friars. The pretext was a reform of the religious orders. At the end of the year 1535 a royal commission undertook the visitation of all the religious houses, above one thousand three hundred in number, including their cells and hospitals. They performed their task with incredible celerity--"the king's command was exceeding urgent;" and in ten weeks they presented their report. The small houses they reported to be full of irregularity and vice; while "in the great solemne monasteries, thanks be to God, religion was right well observed and kept up." So the king's decree went forth, and parliament ratified it, that all the religious houses of less than £200 annual value should be suppressed. This just caught all the friaries, and a few of the less powerful monasteries for the sake of impartiality. Perhaps the monks were not greatly moved at the destruction which had come upon their rivals; but their turn very speedily came. They were not suppressed forcibly; but they were induced to surrender. The patronage of most of the abbacies was in the king's hands, or under his control. He induced some of the abbots by threats or cajolery, and the offer of place and pension, to surrender their monasteries into his hand; others he induced to surrender their abbatial offices only, into which he placed creatures of his own, who completed the surrender. Some few intractable abbots--like those of Reading, Glastonbury, and St. John's, Colchester, who would do neither one nor the other--were found guilty of high treason--no difficult matter when it had been made high treason by act of Parliament to "publish in words" that the king was an "heretic, schismatic, or tyrant"--and they were disposed of by hanging, drawing, and quartering. The Hospitallers of Clerkenwell were still more difficult to deal with, and required a special act of Parliament to suppress them. Those who gave no trouble were rewarded with bishoprics, livings, and pensions; the rest were turned adrift on the wide