that, when they were all suppressed, one
hundred and thirty thousand pounds a year—
in those days an immense sum—came to the
Crown.

These things were not done without causing
great discontent among the people. The
monks had been good landlords and
hospitable entertainers of all travellers, and had
been accustomed to give away a great deal of
corn, and fruit, and meat, and other things.
In those days it was difficult to change
goods into money, in consequence of the
roads being very few and very bad, and
the carts and waggons of the worst
description; and they must either have given
away some of the good things they
possessed in enormous quantities, or have
suffered them to spoil and moulder. So,
many of the people missed what it was more
agreeable to get idly than to work for; and
the monks who were driven out of their
homes and wandered about, encouraged their
discontent, and there were consequently great
risings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. These
were put down by terrific executions, from
which the monks themselves did not escape,
and the King went on grunting and growling
in his own fat way, like a Royal pig.

I have told all this story of the religious
houses at one time, to make it plainer, and to
get back to the King's domestic affairs.

The unfortunate Queen Catherine was by
this time dead; and the King was by this
time as tired of his second Queen as he had
been of his first. As he had fallen in love with
Anne when she was in the service of Catherine,
so he now fell in love with another lady in
the service of Anne. See how wicked deeds
are punished, and how bitterly and self-
reproachfully the Queen must now have
thought of her own rise to the throne! The
new fancy was a LADY JANE SEYMOUR; and
the King no sooner set his mind on her than
he resolved to have Anne Boleyn's head. So,
he brought a number of accusations against
Anne, accusing her of dreadful crimes which
she had never committed, and implicating in
them her own brother and certain gentlemen
in her service, among whom one Norris, and
Mark Smeaton, a musician, are best remembered.
As the lords and councillors were as
afraid of the King and as subservient to him
as the meanest peasant in England, they
brought in Anne Boleyn guilty, and the other
unfortunate persons accused with her, guilty
too. Those gentlemen died like men, with
the exception of Smeaton, who had been
tempted by the King into telling lies, which
he called confessions, and who had expected
to be pardoned; but who, I am very glad
to say, was not. There was then only the
Queen to dispose of. She had been surrounded
in the Tower with women spies, had been
monstrously persecuted and foully slandered,
and had received no justice. But her spirit
rose with her afflictions, and, after having
in vain tried to soften the King by writing
an affecting letter to him which still exists,
"from her doleful prison in the Tower," she
resigned herself to death. She said to those
about her, very cheerfully, that she had heard
say the executioner was a good one, and that
she had a little neck (she laughed and clasped
it with her hands as she said that), and would
soon be out of her pain. And she was soon out
of her pain, poor creature, on the Green inside
the Tower, and her body was flung into an
old box and put away in the ground under
the chapel.

There is a story that the King sat in his
palace listening very anxiously for the sound
of the cannon which was to announce this new
murder; and that, when he heard it come
booming on the air, he rose up in great spirits
and ordered out his dogs to go a-hunting. He
was bad enough to do it; but whether he did
it or not, it is certain that he married Jane
Seymour the very next day.

I have not much pleasure in recording that
she lived just long enough to give birth to a
son who was christened EDWARD, and then to
die of a fever; for, I cannot but think that
any woman who married such a ruffian, and
knew what innocent blood was on his hands,
deserved the axe that would assuredly have
fallen on the neck of Jane Seymour, if she
had lived much longer.

Cranmer had done what he could to save
some of the Church property for purposes of
religion and education; but, the great families
had been so hungry to get hold of it, that
very little could be rescued for such objects.
Even MILES COVERDALE, who did the people
the inestimable service of translating the
Bible into English (which the unreformed
religion never permitted to be done), was left
in poverty while the great families clutched
the Church lands and money. The people
had been told that when the Crown came
into possession of these funds it would not
be necessary to tax them; but they were
taxed afresh directly afterwards. It was
fortunate for them, indeed, that so many
nobles were so greedy for this wealth; since,
if it had remained with the Crown, there
might have been no end to tyranny for
hundreds of years. One of the most active
writers on the Church's side against the King
was a member of his own family—a sort of
distant cousin, REGINALD POLE by name—
who attacked him in the most violent manner
(though he received a pension from him all
the time), and fought for the Church with
his pen, day and night. As he was beyond
the King's reach—being in Italy—the King
politely invited him over to discuss the
subject; but he, knowing better than to come,
and wisely staying where he was, the King's
rage fell upon his brother Lord Montague,
the Marquis of Exeter, and some other
gentlemen: who were tried for high treason in
corresponding with him, and aiding him—
which they probably did—and were all
executed. The Pope made Reginald Pole a