nuns, especially in houses where they suspected hostility to the
recent laws. They used every means in their power to break up the
harmony of religious life, and to unsettle the minds of the younger
members of the communities. In a few months the visitations were
finished, and the reports of the visitors were presented to Cromwell.
According to these reports most of the monasteries and convents were
homes of sin and vice, and many of the monks and nuns were guilty of
heinous crimes, but, though in particular instances there may have
been some grounds for these charges, there is good reason for not
accepting as trustworthy this account of monastic discipline. In the
first place the royal visitors traversed the country with such
lightning-like rapidity that it would have been impossible for them to
arrive at a correct judgment even had they been impartial and honest
men. That they were neither honest nor impartial is clear enough from
their own correspondence. They were sent out by Cromwell to collect
evidence that might furnish a decent pretext for suppressing the
monasteries and for confiscating the monastic possessions, and they
took pains to show their master that his confidence in them had not
been misplaced. Their only mistake was that in their eagerness to
black the character of the unfortunate religious they exceeded the
limits of human credulity. They positively revelled in sin, and the
scandals they reported were of such a gross and hideous kind that it
is impossible to believe that they could have been true, else the
people, instead of taking up arms to defend the religious houses,
would have risen in revolt to suppress such abominations. Nor is it
correct to say that the /Comperta/ were submitted to Parliament for
discussion, and that the members were so shocked by the tale they
unfolded that they clamoured for the suppression of these iniquitous
institutions. There is abundant evidence to prove that Parliament was
reluctant to take any action against the religious houses, that it was