york00orns

278 YORK.
not kept in the different parishes of the diocese with
any degree of regularity until the reign of Elizabeth.
A very large proportion only date, indeed, from the
middle of the 17th century.^
The fall of the greater monasteries appears to have
been accepted with a sort of apathetic resignation
on the part of the people generally. No movement
followed in the north as after the dissolution of the
smaller houses. The way in which the king dealt
with those who took a prominent part in the Pilgrimage
of Grace was too recent to be forgotten.
This
completion of the scheme devised by Cromwell for
the extinction of monasticism was carried out, therefore,
without any overt act of opposition. That there
was a deep undercurrent of regret at the disappearance
of the communities of good and charitable religious,
of both sexes, from their midst, and of utter
repugnance to the ruthless manner in which it was
carried out, cannot be doubted. Even some of the
most prominent of the men of the New Learning,
Latimer amongst others, pleaded earnestly for the
preser\-atlon of some of the religious houses, as centres
of kindly hospitality and loving charity, and places
where the young might be safely placed for education
and training. But such appeals were in vain. It is
quite clear that tlie king and his astute minister were
bent especially upon one line of policy, viz., to establish
a complete independence of the Pope of Rome.
The destruction of the monasteries was essential to
this scheme. The exemptions from episcopal control
'
Cf. Lawton's " CollecLio rerum Ecclesiasticarum in Dicecesi
Eboracensi," &c. Loudon, 1842.