Dissolution of the monasteries: Difference between revisions

Though the policy was originally envisioned as a way to increase the regular income of the Crown, much former monastic property was sold off to fund Henry's military campaigns in the 1540s. HeHenry was given the authority to dodid this in England and Wales byunder the [[First Act of Supremacy|Act of Supremacy]], passed by [[Parliament of England|Parliament]] in 1534, which made him [[Supreme Head of the Church of England|''Supreme Head'' of the Church in England]]. He had broken from Rome the previous year, separating England from's [[papal authority]] the previous year. The monasteries were dissolved by two Acts of Parliament, those being the [[Suppression of Religious Houses Act 1535|First Suppression Act]] in 1535 and the [[Suppression of Religious Houses Act 1539|Second Suppression Act]] in 1539.

While [[Thomas Cromwell]], vicar-general and [[vicegerent]] of England, is often considered the leader of the dissolution, he merely oversaw the project—he had hoped for reform of the monasteries, not theireliminating closure orthe seizurepractice. The dissolution project was created by England's Lord Chancellor, [[Thomas Audley, 1st Baron Audley of Walden|Thomas Audley]], and Court of Augmentations head, [[Richard Rich]].

At the time of their suppression, aonly small number ofsome English and Welsh religious houses could trace their origins to [[Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England|Anglo-Saxon]] or [[Celtic Christianity|Celtic]] foundations before the [[Norman Conquest]]. The overwhelming majority of the 625 monastic communities dissolved by Henry VIII had developed in the wave of monastic enthusiasm that swept [[western Christendom]] in the 11th and 12th centuries. Few English houses had been founded later than the end of the 13th century; the most recent foundation of those suppressedyoungest was the [[Bridgettine]] nunnery of [[Syon Abbey]], founded in 1415.

Typically, 11th and 12th-century founders had endowed monastic houses with both temporal income in the form of revenuesrevenue from landed estates, and spiritual income in the form of [[tithes]] [[Appropriation (law)|appropriated]] from parish churches under the founder's patronage. As a consequence, religious houses in the 16th century controlled appointment to about two-fifths of all parish [[benefice]]s in England,{{sfn|Dickens|1989|p=175}} disposed of about half of all ecclesiastical income,{{sfn|Dickens|1989|p=75}} and owned around a quarter of the nation's landed wealth. An English medieval proverb said that if the abbot of [[Glastonbury Abbey|Glastonbury]] married the abbess of [[Shaftesbury Abbey|Shaftesbury]], their heir would have more land than the king of England.{{sfn|Keen|1999}}

The 200 more houses of [[friar]]s in England and Wales constituted a second distinct wave of foundations, almost allmonastic occurringzeal in the 13th century. [[Friaries]], for the most part, were concentrated in urban areas. Unlike monasteries, friaries had eschewedno income-bearing endowments; the friars, as [[mendicants]], expected to bewere supported financially by offerings and donations from the faithful, while ideally being self-sufficient inand producing their own basic foods fromraising extensive urban kitchen gardens.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

The dissolution of the monasteries in England and Ireland took place in the political context of other attacks on the ecclesiastical institutions of Western Roman Catholicism, which had been under way for some time. Many of these were related to the [[Reformation]] in [[Continental Europe]]. By the end of the 16th century, monasticism had almost entirely disappeared from those European states whose rulers had adopted [[Lutheran]] or [[Calvinism|Reformed]] confessions of faith (Ireland being the only major exception). They continued in those states that remained Catholic, and new community orders such as the [[Jesuits]] and [[Order of Friars Minor Capuchin|Capuchins]] emerged alongside the older orders.<ref>{{Britannica | id=140219 | title=Counter-Reformation}}</ref>

The religious and political changes in England under Henry VIII and [[Edward VI]] were of a different nature from those taking place in Germany, [[Bohemia]], France, [[Scottish Reformation|Scotland]] and [[Geneva]]. Across much of continental Europe, the seizure of monastic property was associated with mass discontent among the common people and the lower levellevels of clergy and civil society against powerful and wealthy ecclesiastical institutions. Such popular hostility against the church was rare in England before 1558; the [[Reformation in England]] and Ireland was directed from the king and highest levels ofhigh society. These changes were initially met with widespread popular suspicion; on some occasions and in particular localities, there was active resistance to the royal programme.

Dissatisfaction with the general state of regular religious life, and with the gross extent of monastic wealth, was near universal amongst late medieval secular and ecclesiastical rulers in the Latin West. Bernard says there was:

# the monasteries, almost without exception, were deeply involved in promoting and profiting from the veneration of [[Christian relic|relics]], in the form of [[pilgrimages]] and purported [[miracle|miraculous]] tokens. The cult of relics was by no means specific to monasteries, but Erasmus was scandalised by the extent to which well-educated and highly regarded monks and nuns would participate in thefraud perpetration of what(as he consideredthought to be fraudsit) against gullible and credulous lay believers.{{sfn|Marshall|2017|pp=29-30}}

Pilgrimages to monastic [[shrine]]s continued to be widely popular, until forcibly suppressed in England in 1538 by order of Henry VIII, but the dissolution resulted in few modifications to the practice of religion in England's parish churches. In general theThe English religious reforms of the 1530s corresponded inlittle few respects towith the preceptsmovement ofby Protestant Reformers, and encountered much popular hostility when they did. In 1536, [[Convocations of Canterbury and York|Convocation]] adopted and Parliament enacted the [[Ten Articles]], of which the first halfcontaining usedsome terminology and ideas drawn from [[Martin Luther|Luther]] and [[Melanchthon]]; but any momentum towards Protestantism stalled when Henry VIII expressed his desiresupport for continued orthodoxy with the [[Six Articles (1539)|Six Articles of 1539]], which remained in effect until after his death.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Six Articles |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100509361 |access-date=2022-04-19 |website=Oxford Reference |language=en }}</ref>{{sfn|Marshall|2017}}{{pn|date=April 2022}}

[[Cardinal Wolsey]] had obtained a [[papal bull]] authorising some limited reforms in the English Church as early as 1518, but reformers (both conservative and radical) had become increasingly frustrated at their lack of progress. Henry wanted to change this, and inIn November 1529, Parliament passed Acts reforming apparent abuses in the English Church. They set a cap on fees, both for the probate of wills and mortuary expenses for burial in hallowed ground; tightened regulations covering rights of [[sanctuary]] for criminals; and reduced to two the number of church benefices that could in the future be held by one man. These Acts soughtwere meant to demonstrate that establishing royal jurisdiction over the Church would ensure progress in "religious reformation" where papal authority had been insufficient.{{citation needed|date= October 2019}}

The stories of monastic impropriety, vice, and excess that were to be collected by [[Thomas Cromwell]]'s visitors to the monasteries may have been biased and exaggerated but the religious houses of England and Wales—with the notable exceptions of those of the [[Carthusian]]s, the [[Observant Franciscan]]s, and the Bridgettine nuns and monks—had long ceased to play a leading role in the spiritual life of the country. Other than in these three orders, observance of strict monastic rules was partial at best.{{sfn|Dickens|1989|p=79}} The exceptional spiritual discipline of the Carthusian, Observant Franciscan and Bridgettine orders had, over the previous century, resulted in their being singled out for royal favour, in particular with houses benefitting from endowments confiscated by the Crown from the suppressed alien priories.{{citation needed|date= October 2019}}

Otherwise in this later period, donationsDonations and legacies had tended to go instead towards parish churches, university colleges, grammar schools and collegiate churches, which suggests greater public approbation of such purposes. Levels of monastic debt were increasing, and average numbers of [[professed religious]] were falling,{{sfn|Dickens|1989|p=74}} although the monasteries continued to attract recruits right up to the end. Only a few monks and nuns lived in conspicuous luxury, but most were very comfortably fed and housed by the standards of the time, and few anyorders longer set standards ofdemanded ascetic piety or religious observance.{{sfn|Dickens|1989|p=77}} Only a minority of houses could now support the twelve or thirteen professed religious usually regarded as the minimum necessary to maintain the full [[canonical hours]] of the Divine Office. Even in houses with adequate numbers, the regular obligations of communal eating and shared living had not been fully enforced for centuries, as communities tended to sub-divide into a number of distinct ''familiae''. In most larger houses, the full observance of the Canonical Hours had become the task of a sub-group of 'Cloister Monks', such that the majority of the professed members of the houseinhabitants were freed to conduct their business and live much of their lives in the secular world. Extensive monastic complexes dominated English towns of any size, but most were less than half full.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

From 1534 onwards, Cromwell and King Henry were constantly seeking wayswanted to redirect ecclesiastical income to the benefitCrown—they ofjustified the Crown—efforts they justifiedthis by contending that muchthey ecclesiasticalwere revenuereclaiming had been improperly diverted from royal resources in thewhat firstwas placetheirs. Renaissance princes throughout Europe were facing severe financial difficulties due to sharply rising expenditures, especially to pay for armies, fighting ships and fortifications. MostMany tended,had sooneralready or later, to resortresorted to plundering monastic wealth, and to increasing taxation on the clergy. Protestant princes would justify this by claiming divine authority; Catholic princes would obtain the agreement and connivance of the papacy. Monastic wealth, regarded everywhere as excessive and idle, offered a standing temptation for cash-strapped secular and ecclesiastical authorities.{{citation needed|date= October 2019}}

In consequence, almostAlmost all official action in respectthe of theEnglish dissolution in England and Wales was directed at the monasteries and monastic property. The closing of the monasteries aroused popular opposition, but recalcitrant monasteries and abbotsresistors became the targets of royal hostility. The surrender of the friaries, from an official perspective, arose almost as an afterthought, as an exercise in administrative tidiness once it had been determined that all religious houses would have to go. In terms of popular esteem, however, the balance tilted the other way. Almost all monasteries supported themselves from their endowments; in late medieval terms 'they lived off their own'. Unless they were notably bad landlords or scandalously neglected those parish churches in their charge, they tended to enjoy widespread local support; particularlythey as theyalso commonly appointed local notables to fee-bearing offices. The friars, not being self-supporting, were by contrast much more likely to have been the objects of local hostility, especially since their practice of soliciting income through legacies appears often to have been perceived as diminishing anticipated family inheritances.{{citation needed|date= October 2019}}

By the time Henry VIII turned his mind to the business of monastery reform, royal action to suppress religious houses had a history of more than 200 years. The first case was that of the so-called '[[Alien priory|alien priories]]'. As a result of the [[Norman Conquest]], some French religious orders held substantial property through their daughter monasteries in England.

Some of these were merely [[Monastic grange|granges]], agricultural estates with a single foreign monk in residence to supervise things; others were rich foundations in their own right (e.g., [[Lewes Priory]] was a daughter of [[Cluny Abbey|Cluny]] and answered to the abbot of that greatthe French house).

Owing to the fairly constant state offrequent warwars between England and France in the late [[Middle Ages]], successive English governments had objected to money going overseas to France from these alien priories, as the hostile French king might get hold of it. They also objected to foreign prelates having jurisdiction over English monasteries.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

Furthermore, afterAfter 1378, French monasteries (and hence alien priories dependent on them) maintained allegiance to the continuing [[Avignon Papacy]]. Their suppression was supported by the rival [[Western Schism|Roman Popes]], conditional on all confiscated monastic property eventually being redirected into other religious uses. The king's officers first sequestrated the assets of the alien priories in 1295–1303 under [[Edward I]], and the same thing happenedpattern repeatedlyrepeated for long periods over the course of the 14th century, most particularly in the reign of [[Edward III]].{{citation needed|date= October 2019}}

Those alienAlien priories that hadwith functioning communities were forced to pay large sums to the king, while those that were mere estates were confiscated and run by royal officers, the proceeds going to the king's pocket. Such estates were a valuable source of income for the Crown in its French wars. Most of the larger alien priories were allowed to becomebecame naturalised (for instance [[Castle Acre Priory]]), on payment of heavy fines and bribes, but for around ninety90 smaller houses and granges, their fates were sealed when [[Henry V of England|Henry V]] dissolved them by act of Parliament in 1414.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

The properties were taken over by the Crown; some were kept, some were subsequently given or sold to Henry's supporters, others were assigned to his new monasteries of [[Syon Abbey]] and the Carthusians at [[Sheen Priory]]; others were used for educational purposes. All these suppressions enjoyed papal approval but successive 15th-century popes continued to press for assurances that, now that the Avignon Papacy had been defeated, the confiscated monastic income would revert to religious and educational uses.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

The medieval understanding of religious houses as institutions associated monasteries and nunneries with their property, that is to say,: their endowments of land and spiritual income, and not with their current personnel of monks and nuns. If the property with which a house had been endowed by its founder were to be confiscated or surrendered, then the house ceased to exist, whether its members continued in the religious life or not. Consequently, theThe founder, and their heirs, had a continuing (and legally enforceable) interest in certain aspects of the house's functioning; their nomination was required at the election of an abbot or prior, they could claim hospitality within the house when needed, and they could be buried within the house when they died. In addition, though this scarcely ever happened, the endowments of the house would revert to the founder's heirs if the community failed or dissolved. The status of 'founder' was considered in [[Civil law (common law)|civil law]] to be [[real property]], and could consequently be bought and sold, in which case the purchaser would be termedcalled the [[patron]]. Furthermore, likeLike any other real property, in [[intestacy]] and some other circumstances the status of 'founder' would revert to the Crown—a procedure that many houses actively sought, as it might be advantageous in their legal dealings in the King's courts.{{citation needed|date= October 2019}}

The founders of the alien priories had been foreign monasteries refusing allegiance to the English Crown. These property rights were therefore automatically forfeited to the Crown when their English dependencies were dissolved by Act of Parliament, but thetheir example created by these events prompted questions as to what action might be taken should houses of English foundationhouses cease for any reason to exist. Much would depend on who, at the time the house ended, held the status of founder or patron; and, as with other such disputes in real property, the standard procedure was to empanel a jury to decide between disputing claimants. In practice, the Crown claimed the status of 'founder' in all such cases that occurred. Consequently, when a monastic community failed (e.g., through the death of most of its members, or through insolvency), the bishop would seek to obtain papal approval for alternative use of the house's endowments in [[canon law]]. This, with royal agreement claiming 'foundership', would be presented to an 'empanelled jury' for consent to disposaluse of the property of the house in civil law.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

The royal transfer of alien monastic estates to educational foundations inspired bishops and, as the 15th century waned, theythis advocatedpractice more such actions, which becamewas common. The subjects of these dissolutions were usually small, poor, and indebted [[Benedictine]] or [[Augustinians|Augustinian]] communities (especially those of women) with few powerful friends; the great abbeys and orders exempt from diocesan supervision such as the [[Cistercians]] were unaffected.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

The consequent new foundationsresources were mosttransferred often to [[Oxford University]] and [[Cambridge University]] colleges: instances of this include [[John Alcock (bishop)|John Alcock]], [[Bishop of Ely]] dissolving the Benedictine [[St Radegund's Priory, Cambridge]] to found [[Jesus College, Cambridge]] (1496), and [[William Waynflete]], [[Bishop of Winchester]] acquiring [[Selborne Priory]] in Hampshire in 1484 for [[Magdalen College, Oxford]].

In 1522, Fisher himself dissolved the women's monasteries of [[Bromhall Priory|Bromhall]] and [[Higham, Kent|Higham]] to aid [[St John's College, Cambridge]]. That same year, Cardinal Wolsey dissolved [[St Frideswide's Priory]] (now [[Oxford Cathedral]]) to form the basis of his [[Christ Church, Oxford]]; in 1524, he secured a [[papal bull]] to dissolve some twenty20 other monasteries to provide an endowment for his new college. In all these suppressions, theThe remaining friars, monks and nuns were absorbed into other houses of their respective orders. Juries found the property of the househouses to have reverted to the Crown as founder.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

The conventional wisdom of the time was that the proper daily observance of the [[Liturgy of the Hours|Divine Office]] of prayer required a minimum of twelve professed religious, but by the 1530s, onlyfew a minority of religious housescommunities in England could provide this. Most observers were in agreement that a systematic reform of the English church must necessarily involve the drastic concentration of monks and nuns into fewer, larger houses, potentially making much monastic income available for more productive religious, educational and social purposes.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

However, thisThis apparent consensus often faced strong resistance in practice. Members of religious houses proposed for dissolution might resist relocation; the houses invited to receive them might refuse to co-operate; and local notables might resist the disruption in their networks of influence. Moreover, reformingReforming bishops found they faced intractable opposition when urging the heads of religious houses to enforce rigorous observation of their monastic rules, especially in respect ofthose requiring monks and nuns to remain within their cloisters. Monks and nuns in almost all late medieval English religious communities, although theoretically living in religious poverty, were nevertheless paid an annual cash wage ({{lang|la|peculium}}) and were in receipt ofreceived other regular cash rewards and [[pittance]]s, which accorded considerable effective freedom fromsoftened [[Cloister|claustral]] rules for those disinclined to be restrictedwho bydisliked them. Religious superiors met their bishops' pressure with the response that the austere and cloistered ideal was no longeronly acceptable to more than a tiny minority of regular clergy, and that any attempt on their part to enforce their order's stricter rules could be overturned in counter-actions in the secular courts, wereif aggrieved monks and nuns to obtainobtained a writ of [[praemunire]].{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

The King actively supported Wolsey, Fisher and [[Richard Foxe]] in their programmes of monastic reform; but even so, progress was painfully slow, especially where religious orders had been exempted from episcopal oversight by papal authority. Moreover, itIt was byalso no meansnever certain that juries would always find in favour of the Crown in disposing of the property of dissolved houses; any action that impinged on monasteries with substantial assets might be expected to be contested by a range of influential claimants. In 1532, the priory of [[Christchurch Aldgate]], facing financial and legal difficulties, petitioned the King as founder for assistance, only to find themselves dissolved arbitrarily. Rather than risk empanelling a jury, and with papal participation at this juncture no longer being welcome, the [[Lord Chancellor]], [[Thomas Audley, 1st Baron Audley of Walden|Thomas Audley]], recommended that dissolution should be legalised retrospectively through a special act of Parliament.

While these transactions were going on in England, elsewhere in Europe events were taking place which presaged a storm. In 1521, [[Martin Luther]] had published {{lang|la|De votis monasticis}} (''On the monastic vows''),<ref>{{Cite book

}}</ref> a treatise which declared that the monastic life had no scriptural basis, was pointless and also actively immoral, in that it was not compatibleincompatible with the true spirit of Christianity. Luther also declared that monastic vows were meaningless and that no one should feel bound by them. Luther, a one-time [[Augustinian friar]], found some comfort when these views had a dramatic effect: a special meeting of the German province of his order held the same year accepted them and voted that henceforth every member of the [[regular clergy]] should be free to renounce their vows, resign their offices, and marry. At Luther's home monastery in [[Wittenberg]] all the friars, save one, did so.

News of these events did not take long to spread among Protestant-minded rulers across Europe, and some, particularly in Scandinavia, moved very quickly. In the {{lang|sv|[[Riksdag]]}} of [[Västerås]] in 1527, initiating the [[Reformation in Sweden]], King [[Gustav I of Sweden|Gustav Vasa]] secured an edict of the Diet allowing him to confiscate any monastic lands he deemed necessary to increase royal revenues, and to allow the return of donated properties to the descendants of thosethe who had donated them, should they wish to retract themdonors. By the following [[Reduction of Gustav I of Sweden]], Gustav gained large estates, as well as loyal supporters among the nobility who chose to use the permission to retractreclaimed donations donegiven by their families to the convents. The Swedish monasteries and convents were simultaneously deprived of their livelihoods. They were banned from accepting new novices, as well asand forbidden to prevent their existing members from leaving if they wished to do so. However, the former monks and nuns were allowed to reside in the convent buildings for life on state allowance, and many of them consequentlycommunities survived the Reformation for decades. The last of them was [[Vreta Abbey]], where the last nuns died in 1582, and [[Vadstena Abbey]], from which the last nuns emigrated in 1595, about half a century after the introduction of reformationReduction. {{sfn|Andersson|Jörälv|2003}}

In [[Denmark–Norway]], King [[Frederick I of Denmark|Frederick I]] made a similar act in 1528, confiscating 15 of the houses of the wealthiest monasteries and convents. Further laws underby his successor over the course ofin the 1530s banned the friars and forced monks and nuns to transfer title to their houses to the Crown, which passed them out to supportive nobles who soon acquired former monastic lands. Danish and Norwegian monastic life was to vanish in a way identical to that of Sweden.{{citation needed|date= October 2019}}

In France and Scotland, by contrast, royal action to seize monastic income proceeded along entirely different lines. In both countries, the practice of nominating abbacies {{lang|la|in [[commendam]]}} had become widespread. Since the 12th century, it had become universal in Western Europe for the household expenses of abbots and conventual priors to be separated from those of the rest of the monastery, typically appropriating more than half the house's income. With papal approval, these funds might be diverted on a vacancy to support a non-monastic ecclesiastic, commonly a bishop or member of the Papal [[Curia]]; and although such arrangements were nominally temporary, commendatory abbacies often continued long-term. Then, by the [[Concordat of Bologna]] in 1516, [[Pope Leo X]] granted to [[Francis I of France|Francis I]] effective authority to nominate almost all abbots and conventual priors in France. Ultimately aroundAround 80 per cent of French abbacies came to be held {{lang|la|[[in commendam]]}}, the commendators often being lay courtiers or royal servants; and by this means around half the income of French monasteries was diverted into the hands of the Crown, or of royal supporters;, all entirely with the Popes' blessing. Where the French kings led, the Scots kings followed. In Scotland, where the proportion of parish [[tithe|tiends]] appropriated by higher ecclesiastical institutions exceeded 85 per cent, in 1532 the young [[James V]] obtained from the Pope approval to appoint his illegitimate infant sons (of which he eventually acquired nine) as commendators to abbacies in Scotland. Other Scots aristocratic families were able to strikestuck similar deals, and consequently over £40,000 (Scots) per annum was diverted from monasteries into the royal coffers.{{citation needed|date= October 2019}}

It is inconceivable that these moves went unnoticed by the English government and particularly by [[Thomas Cromwell]], who had been employed by Wolsey in his monastic suppressions, and who was shortly towould become Henry VIII's [[Secretary of State (England)|King's Secretary]]. However, Henry himself appears to have been much more influenced by the opinions on monasticism of the humanists [[Erasmus|Desiderius Erasmus]] and [[Thomas More]], especially as found in Erasmus's work ''[[In Praise of Folly]]'' (1511) and More's ''[[Utopia (More book)|Utopia]]'' (1516). Erasmus and More promoted ecclesiastical reform while remaining faithful to the [[Catholic Church|Church of Rome]] and had ridiculed such monastic practices as repetitive formal religion,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cummings |first=Thomas |title=Erasmus and the Second Vatican Council |url=https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/erasmus-and-the-second-vatican-council/ |access-date=2022-05-05 |website=Church Life Journal |date=17 October 2016 |language=en}}</ref> superstitious pilgrimages for the veneration of relics, and the accumulation of monastic wealth. Henry appears from the first to have shared these views, never having endowed a religious house and only once{{citation needed|date=September 2020}} having undertaken a religious pilgrimage, to [[Walsingham]] in 1511. From 1518, Thomas More was increasingly influential as a royal servant and counsellor, in the course of which his correspondence included a series of strong condemnations of the idleness and vice in much monastic life, alongside his equally vituperative attacks on Luther. Henry himself corresponded continually with Erasmus, prompting him to be more explicit in his public rejection of the key tenets of Lutheranism and offering him church preferment should he wish to return to England.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

On famously failing to receive from the Pope a declaration of nullity regarding his marriage, Henry had himself declared [[Supreme Head of the Church of England]] in February 1531, and instigated a programme of legislation to establish this Royal Supremacy in law and enforce its acceptance throughout his realm. In April 1533, an [[Act in Restraint of Appeals]] eliminated the right of clergy to appeal to "foreign tribunals" (Rome) over the King's head in any spiritual or financial matter. All ecclesiastical charges and levies that had previously been payable to Rome, would now go to the King. By the [[Submission of the Clergy]], the English clergy and religious orders subscribed to the proposition that the King was, and had always been, the Supreme Head of the Church in England. Consequently, in Henry's view, any act of monastic resistance to royal authority would not only be treasonable, but also a breach of the monastic [[vow of obedience]]. Under heavy threats, almost all religious houses joined the rest of the Church in acceding to the Royal Supremacy; and in swearing to uphold the validity of the King's divorce and remarriage. Opposition was concentrated in the houses of Carthusian monks, [[Observant Franciscan]] friars and Bridgettine monks and nuns, which were to the Government's embarrassment, exactly those orders where the religious life was acknowledged as being fully observed. Great efforts were made to cajole, bribe, trick and threaten these houses into formal compliance, with those religious who continued in their resistance being liable to imprisonment until they submitted or if they persisted, to execution for treason. All the houses of the Observant Friars were handed over to the mainstream Franciscan order; the friars from the [[Greenwich]] house were imprisoned, where many died from ill-treatment. The Carthusians eventually submitted, other than the monks of the London house which was suppressed; some of the monks were executed for high treason in 1535, and others starved to death in prison. Also opposing the Supremacy and consequently imprisoned were leading Bridgettine monks from [[Syon Abbey]], although the Syon nuns, being strictly enclosed, escaped sanction at this stage, the personal compliance of the abbess being taken as sufficient for the government's purposes. {{ citation needed| date= October 2019}}