Thus the year 1536, saw the downfall of 376 smaller abbeys, and the transfer of the buildings themselves, and of the estates attached thereto, to the King. Here, Henry appears for a little while to have paused, partly, perhaps, waiting to see the effect of his first blow, and partly engaged by domestic matters and the judicial destruction of Ann; but he was now too deeply embarked in the work of spoliation to stop long. The greater monasteries had taken the alarm, many of them had already divested themselves of whatever they could detach and turn into money; fines were passed to the detriment of the rent-roll, and furniture and plate sold to the dismantling of the house; so that upon the whole, the personal property of these greater houses was not found to be near so rich a booty as that of the less, on which the storm had burst unawares. Besides, what had been as yet done was enough to irritate, but not enough to disarm the regulars; Henry had made them implacable without making them impotent; and a rebellion which they were understood secretly to have fomented in various parts of England, and especially in the north (the quarter whence some of the most serious of the English rebellions have issued,) was sufficient to attest at once their spirit and their strength. Once more, therefore, the visiters were put in motion. Their commission was made out to examine and report the state of the religious societies yet subsisting; and as the inquiry embraced the purity, the sincerity, and what was more questionable still, the loyalty of the parties, a verdict of guilty, as might be anticipated, was soon returned. In many cases, indeed, the inquisitors were spared their investigation, and some parties feeling their approaching condemnation to be just, and more feeling it to be inevitable, determined to take their sea of troubles at half-tide and make at once a confession and a surrender. To induce this, however, much machinery was set to work by the commissioners themselves; for it was with a heavy heart, and a strong sense of the injustice of the demand, that the honest head of a religious house resigned that, which “was not his to geve,” (as the prior of Henton wrote to his brother, reflecting herein a very general feeling,) “being dedicate to Allmyghtye Gode for service to be done to hys honoure continuallye, with other many goode deeds off daylye charite to christen neybors.”[248] Still some resignations were obtained by promises of pensions; some, again, by threats of exposure, real, or pretended. If a superior was after all refractory, he was put out of the way by force; and some disorderly substitute having been previously provided by the visiter, the latter was formally ejected, and thus appearances were saved.[249] Nor, probably, were there wanting amongst the young and adventurous, those who were glad to be released from retreats which, like the Happy Valley, were too free from pain to be