For the age was one in which expediency had supplanted principle, and worldly prosperity was the one thing that mattered. The Dissolution of the Monasteries was to a very large extent prompted by cupidity. Their wealth was an irresistible attraction to the Government; to emphasise their shortcomings was a useful after-thought, and the question of justice was hardly raised by anyone. In all the correspondence connected with the fall of the Staffordshire houses there is no hint of immorality or even unworthiness. Indeed, the rights and wrongs of the business are never alluded to: the one and only topic is the personal gain for which the petitioners hoped, and the pecuniary inducements they tried to hold out to persons in authority in the hope of gaining their help. But, in the irony of fate, circumstances proved too strong for the Government, whose cupidity was largely disappointed. Begun as a source of new supplies for a prodigal king, as the work progressed it developed into a huge scheme for the wholesale bribery of the classes which had political power. Thus, the Dissolution of the Monasteries served rather to illustrate the power of the monarchy than materially to increase its wealth. The confiscated possessions were dissipated in innumerable directions, and the royal treasury received but little permanent enrichment. Had anything like the greater proportion of the wealth of which the Church was deprived been retained by the Crown, the throne would have been rendered independent of Parliament and the constitutional victory over the Stuarts might not have been won. APPENDIX I EXAMPLE OF A LICENSE TO CONTINUE, GRANTED TO A “LESSER MONASTERY” _Patent Roll (Chancery), 29 Henry VIII, Part 3, Mem. 23_ (18) DE RENOUACIONE MONASTERII DE CROXDON