But the king had not yet finished with the Pope; urged thereto by Cromwell, who earned for himself the name "The Hammer of the Monks," he proceeded to attack all the monasteries and religious houses in England, and there were many hundreds of them, which were under the immediate jurisdiction of Rome. To these religious houses England owed no small debt of gratitude: the monks had been teachers, scholars, chroniclers, architects, carvers, painters, translators, and illuminators; they had nursed the sick, they had relieved the needy; they had been the great employers of labour, the tillers of the soil, and, untouched by the ebb and flow of the tide outside, they had gone quietly on with their daily round of work and prayer, keeping their lights ever burning before the altar to signify that their house was "always watchynge to God." But, as they became rich and powerful, they fell away from their high ideals; the threefold vow of poverty, obedience, and purity ceased to sanctify their lives; luxury took the place of plain, frugal living; the monks no longer laboured with their own hands, but kept great retinues of servants, and the money that should have been spent for the glory of God and the church was squandered in extravagant living. The abbots were under no control save that of Rome, and Rome was far away, so that there was no power from outside to correct, to reform, and to purify. Gradually, too, the monasteries had lost their hold over the people; resting on their past, they made no effort to keep pace with the present; they bitterly opposed any education save that which they held in their own hands; they resented progress and enlightenment; they were no longer centres of light and learning; their fire had burnt out, quenched by covetousness, by wrong-doing and by luxurious living.