After the suppression of the rebellions in the north and the failure
of Cardinal Pole to bring about an European coalition against Henry,
the war against the greater monasteries was begun (1537). Those
situated in the northern counties were charged with having been
implicated in the rebellion. Many of the abbots were put to death or
imprisoned, and the goods of the communities were confiscated. Several
others in order to escape punishment were induced to surrender their
property to the king's commissioners. In some cases the abbots were
bribed by promises of special favours for themselves, in others they
were forced to yield up their titles to avoid charges of treason on
account of documents supposed to have been discovered in their houses
or evidence that had been extracted from some of their monks or
retainers. During the years 1538 and 1539 the monasteries fell one by
one, while during the same period war was carried on against shrines
and pilgrimages. The images of Our Lady of Ipswich and of Our Lady of
Walsingham were destroyed; the tomb of St. Thomas à Becket was rifled
of its precious treasures, and the bones and relics of the saint were
treated with the greatest dishonour. Everywhere throughout the country
preachers inspired by Cromwell and Cranmer, the latter of whom aimed
at nothing less than a Lutheran revolution in England, were at work
denouncing images, pilgrimages, invocation of saints, and Purgatory.
So long as money poured into the royal treasury from the sale of
surrendered monastical property and of the ecclesiastical goods, or so
long as a blow could be struck at the Papacy by desecrating the tomb
of a saint who had died as a martyr in defence of the Holy See, Henry
looked on with indifference if not with pleasure.

But the news of such outrages could not fail to horrify the Catholic
world, and to prove to Paul III. that there was little hope of any
favourable change in Henry's religious policy. It was determined to