20. The greatest man in the kingdom next to the king, was his minister, Cardinal Wolsey, who governed the country for many years, and was so rich, that he not only lived in as much splendour as the king, but he built the palaces of Hampton-court and Whitehall, and founded the College of Christ Church at Oxford. 21. A Cardinal is a priest of high dignity in the Catholic Church, being next in rank to the Pope. 22. Wolsey was clever and learned; but he was very proud, so he had many enemies, and at last fell into disgrace with the king, and died of grief. 23. Soon after this Henry chose to be separated from his good wife, Catharine, because he had seen a young lady named Anna Boleyn, whom he thought he should like to marry; so he sent the queen and his daughter Mary, away from court, and made Anna Boleyn queen; but he soon began to dislike her, and said she had done some very wicked things, as an excuse for sending her to the Tower, where he had her head cut off; and then he married another young lady, named Jane Seymour, who soon died. She left a little baby, who was king Edward the Sixth; and Anna Boleyn also had a baby, who was queen Elizabeth. 24. I must now tell you of a great change made by Henry the Eighth, with regard to religion, and called the Reformation. 25. The church of England had, till this period, been the same as that of Rome, and the people were Roman Catholics; but there were a good many people in Germany, and in England also, who thought that some of the forms of the Catholic religion were not right, and ought to be altered, and these persons were called reformers, and all who adopted their opinions took the name of Protestants, because they protested against certain things. 26. Now Henry the Eighth had a disagreement with the Pope, about his second marriage; so he determined to abolish the Catholic religion, to seize on and destroy the monasteries and nunneries, and to have Protestant clergymen to preach and read the prayers in the churches. 27. It would be too long a story to tell you how he accomplished all this; but it was done. There were nearly a thousand religious houses, that is, convents, abbeys, and priories, in England, inhabited by monks and nuns, clerks and friars, of different orders, who had no other homes, nor any means of living, but on the property of the establishments to which they belonged; and these were all suppressed, together with many colleges and hospitals, which also supported a great many poor people. 28. The poor were very sorry the convents were broken up, for they had been accustomed to go there when they were in distress, for food, clothing, or medicine; and now they did not know where to get relief, as there were no workhouses; the hospitals, and all other charitable institutions, except some alms-houses, having been destroyed; nor was it till almost the middle of the reign of queen Elizabeth that any provision was made by law for the destitute poor.