Note 108 — VOL. XXVI., No. 154.—JANUARY, 1878. (continued 2)

See, for the true character of this much-maligned and really lamb-like sovereign, Froude’s History of England. Yet—so harsh is the judgment of men—it is this very prince of whose robber—we should say resumption of the church lands the Protestant antiquary, Sir Henry Spelman, writes: “God’s blessing, it seemeth, was not on it; for within four years after he had received all this, and had ruined and sacked three hundred and seventy-six of the monasteries, and brought their substance to his treasury, ... he was drawn so dry that Parliament was constrained to supply his wants with the residue of all the monasteries of the kingdom, great ones and illustrious, ... by reason whereof the service of God was not only grievously wounded and bleedeth at this day, but infinite works of charity were utterly cut off and extinguished.”