Many pathetic pleas were addressed to Thomas Cromwell in behalf of the convents at the time of the Reformation. The abbess of the famous convent of Godstow, in Oxfordshire, wrote to Cromwell as follows: "Pleaseth hit your Honour with my moste humble dowyte, to be advertised, that where it hath pleasyd your Lordship to be the verie meanes to the King's Majestie for my preferment, most unworthie to be Abbes of this the King's Monasterie of Godstowe.... I trust to God that I have never offendyd God's laws, neither the King's, wherebie this poore monasterie ought to be suppressed." She then continues in an earnest strain to set forth that the recommendation for the suppression of her convent arose from private malice on the part of her enemies, and closes with a denial of the charges preferred, as follows: "And notwithstanding that Dr. London, like an untrew man, hath informed your Lordship that I am a spoiler and a waster, your good Lordship shall know that the contrary is trew; for I have 'not alienated one halporthe' of goods of this monastery, movable or unmovable, but have rather incres'd the same, nor never made lease of any farme or peece of grounde belonging to this House, or thet hath been in times paste, alwaies set under Convent Seal for the wealthe of the House." The convents were charitable as well as educational centres, although their benevolent methods would not meet the approval of modern ideas as to wise almsgiving. At the set time for the disbursement of alms, the mendicants thronged the institution, and, by the liberality of the donors, were encouraged to continue in a life of shiftlessness and beggary. The disbursement of alms was really regarded by the recipients not so much as an act of charity as something which they had a right to expect.