But there are some facts connected with the subject of the suppression of the Monasteries, and the confiscation of their property, which ought to be better known, in order to shew how little warrant Roman Catholics have for representing the matter, as they commonly do, as a piece of Protestant sacrilege. There is a valuable chapter in Mr. Froude’s recent History of England on this subject, and much important additional matter is brought forward in a review of his work, in the _Christian Remembrancer_ of July last. From these two sources I have drawn the following facts, which are well worthy of attention. The state of the Monasteries and Religious Houses generally was such, in the reign of Henry IV., as to call from the House of Commons an indignant remonstrance, and a petition for their secularization; and in the reign of his successor, Henry V., when Popery was wholly in the ascendant in this country, one hundred Monasteries were suppressed by order of the King. (_Froude, Vol. 2, p. 411._) But a still more remarkable fact is the following: that a twelve month after the Act of 1536 for the suppression of smaller Monasteries in England, Pope Paul III. appointed a committee of nine of the most eminent ecclesiastics, to examine into the state of the Church. These persons recommended changes far more extensive than any which the English Parliament had contemplated. So hopeless did they consider the reformation of the monastic bodies, that they united in recommending the total suppression of every Monastery in Europe. One of these nine ecclesiastics was Reginald, afterwards Cardinal Pole; and he, firmly as he was attached to the Church of Rome, not only advised this universal sequestration of all Convents, but did not refuse to share in the spoils of their suppression in this country. On his arrival in England, he received from Queen Mary a grant of lands belonging to the dissolved Priory of Newburgh. (_Christian Remembrancer_, _Vol._ XXXII, _p. 92_) Bishop Fisher also, one of the most zealous Prelates of the Romish party in the Church, previous to the passing of the famous Act for the suppression of Monasteries, seized on the Nunnery of Higham, after a vain attempt at its reformation, and by his own act set the example for subsequent confiscations. “In fact, while the reforming[79] party in the Church were pleading for the preservation of some of the Convents, the opposite party were contending for their utter overthrow.” (_Ibid._) Yet notwithstanding these facts, which are attested by existing documents, Roman Catholics still speak as if the suppression of these establishments was exclusively the work of Protestants, to be ascribed to a spirit of impiety and sacrilege which the Reformation has let loose upon the Church. The truth is, that the Monastic and Conventual Establishments had become so totally corrupt, and the moral disorders by which they were affected had been proved