Note 103 — Chapter II

Burnet, 190; Strype, i. ch. 35, see especially p. 257; Ellis's Letters, ii. 71. We should be on our guard against the Romanising high-church men, such as Collier, and the whole class of antiquaries, Wood, Hearne, Drake, Browne, Willis, etc., etc., who are, with hardly an exception, partial to the monastic orders, and sometimes scarce keep on the mask of protestantism. No one fact can be better supported by current opinion, and that general testimony which carries conviction, than the relaxed and vicious state of those foundations for many ages before their fall. Ecclesiastical writers had not then learned, as they have since, the trick of suppressing what might excite odium against their church, but speak out boldly and bitterly. Thus we find in Wilkins, iii. 630, a bull of Innocent VIII. for the reform of monasteries in England, charging many of them with dissoluteness of life. And this is followed by a severe monition from Archbishop Morton to the abbot of St. Alban's, imputing all kinds of scandalous vices to him and his monks. Those who reject at once the reports of Henry's visitors will do well to consider this. See also Fosbrooke's British Monachism, passim.