It must be replied that a large number, in fact all who could by any contrivance be brought under the scope of either of the numerous laws involving capital punishment, perished by the hand of the executioner. For example, begging in the first instance was punished by whipping, in the second by mutilation, and in the third the beggar was doomed “to suffer pains and execution of death as a felon, and enemy of the commonwealth.”[2] This cruel law, which was probably drawn up by Henry himself, was doubtless aimed especially at the unfortunate monks, who unfitted for labour by their sedentary lives, and unable to obtain work, would often be forced to the dreadful alternative of starvation or hanging. How many starving monks must have fallen into this dreadful trap, for their pensions even if regularly paid were miserably insufficient, and preferred to hang than to starve; doubtless they formed a large proportion of the eighty thousand criminals, who are said to have perished, by the hands of the executioner, in this dreadful reign. Secondly: what became of the monastic property amounting, it has been said, to a sum equivalent to fifty millions sterling of our present money, which was to have almost superseded taxation, and accomplished other wonderful ends? It disappeared under Henry’s incomprehensible extravagance, and at the hands of his greedy courtiers; and not only was he forced in his latter days to debase the currency, but moreover in the last November of his life, his venal parliament conferred upon him the absolute disposal of all colleges, charities, and hospitals in the kingdom, with all their manors, lands, and hereditaments, receiving only in return his gracious promise that they should all be applied for the public good. Had God not summoned the tyrant to give an account of his stewardship, within two months of the act, we might not have had a college, school, almshouse, or hospital left in England, any more than a monastery; “had he survived a little while longer,” says the impartial writer I have before quoted, “he would not have left an hospital for the care of the sick, or a school for the instruction of youth.” But I have already taxed the patience of my readers; I have promised them a tale and instead I am writing an essay. A. D. C. _December, 1883._ FOOTNOTES [1] The reader will find this subject fully and fairly treated in the sixth chapter of the Rev. J. H. Blunt’s “History of the Reformation” and the first introductory chapter of the first volume of the new series of Dean Hook’s “Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury,” from which I have already quoted. [2] 22 Henry VIII. Cap. 12, and 27 Henry VIII. Cap. 25. INDEX. CHAP. PAGE. PART I.--The Last Abbot. PROLOGUE 1 1.--ALL HALLOW EVEN 7