Editing Dissolution of the monasteries (section)

===Second round of dissolutions===
As 1538 proceeded, applications for surrender flooded in. Cromwell appointed a local commissioner in each case to ensure rapid compliance with the King's wishes, to supervise the orderly sale of monastic goods and buildings, to dispose of monastic endowments, and to ensure that the former monks and nuns were provided with pensions, cash gratuities and clothing. Existing tenants would have their tenancies continued, and lay office holders would continue to receive their incomes and fees (even without duties or obligations). Monks or nuns who were aged, handicapped or infirm were given more generous pensions, and care was taken throughout that there should be nobody cast out of their place unprovided for (who might otherwise have increased the burden of charity for local parishes). In a few instances, even monastic servants were provided with a year's wages on discharge.{{cn|date=July 2020}}

The endowments of landed property and appropriated parish [[tithes]] and [[glebe]] were transferred to the Court of Augmentations, who would pay out life pensions and fees at the agreed rate. Pensions averaged around £5 per annum before tax for monks, with those for superiors typically assessed at 10% of the net annual income of the house and were not reduced if the pensioner obtained other employment. If the pensioner accepted a royal appointment or benefice of greater annual value than their pension, the pension would be extinguished. In 1538, £5 compared with the annual wages of a skilled worker—and although the real value of such a fixed income would suffer through inflation—it remained a significant sum.{{cn|date=July 2020}}

To save money on pensions for former heads of monastic houses, at least twenty monks and canons were granted established or newly-created bishoprics within a decade of the dissolution.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=McGOVERN |first1=Jonathan |title=Newly Discovered Notes of a Sermon by Hugh Latimer |journal=The Journal of Ecclesiastical History |date=July 2020 |volume=71 |issue=3 |pages=596–601 |doi=10.1017/S002204691900174X}}</ref>

Pensions granted to nuns were less generous, averaging £3 per annum. During Henry's reign, former nuns, like monks, continued to be forbidden to marry, therefore it is more possible that genuine hardship resulted, especially as former nuns had little access to opportunities for gainful employment. Where nuns came from well-born families, as many did, they seem commonly to have returned to live with their relatives. Otherwise, there were a number of instances where former nuns of a house clubbed together in a shared household. There were no retrospective pensions for those monks or nuns who had already sought secularisation following the 1535 visitation, nor for those members of the smaller houses dissolved in 1536 and 1537 who had not remained in the religious life, nor for those houses dissolved before 1538 due to the conviction for treason of their superior such as support for the [[Pilgrimage of Grace]], and no friars were pensioned.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

The future of the ten monastic cathedrals came into question. For two of these, [[Bath Abbey|Bath]] and [[St Mary's Priory and Cathedral|Coventry]], there was a second secular cathedral church in the same diocese, and both surrendered in 1539; but the other eight would necessarily need to continue in some form. It remained to determine what that form might be. A possible model was presented by the [[collegiate church]] of [[Stoke College|Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk]], where, in 1535 the evangelically minded Dean, [[Matthew Parker]], had recast the college statutes away from the saying of [[chantry]] masses and towards preaching, observance of the [[Canonical hours|office]], and children's education.{{Sfn|MacCulloch|2018|p=489}}

In May 1538, the monastic cathedral community of [[Norwich Cathedral|Norwich]] surrendered, adopting new collegiate statutes as secular priests along similar lines. The new foundation in Norwich provided for around half the number of clergies as had been monks in the former monastery, with a dean, five [[prebendaries]] and sixteen [[minor canon]]s. This change corresponded with ideas of a reformed future for monastic communities that had been a subject of debate and speculation amongst leading Benedictine abbots for decades, and sympathetic voices were being heard from a number of quarters in the late summer of 1538.{{cn|date=July 2020}}

The Lord Chancellor, [[Thomas Audley, 1st Baron Audley of Walden|Thomas Audley]], proposed [[St Osyth's Priory|Colchester and St Osyth's Priory]] as a possible future college. [[Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk]] and Lord Treasurer proposed [[Thetford Priory]], making extensive preparations to adopt statutes similar to those from Stoke-by-Clare, and expending substantial sums into moving shrines, relics and architectural fittings from the dissolved Castle Acre Priory into Thetford priory church. Cromwell himself proposed [[Walsingham Priory|Little Walsingham]] (once purged of its "superstitious" shrine), and [[Hugh Latimer]], the evangelical bishop of Worcester, wrote to Cromwell in 1538 to plead for the continuation of [[Great Malvern Priory]], and of "two or three in every shire of such remedy".{{sfn|MacCulloch|2018|p=490}} By early 1539, the continuation of select great monasteries as collegiate refoundations had become an expectation. When the [[Suppression of Religious Houses Act 1539|Second Suppression Act]] was presented to Parliament in May 1539, it was accompanied by an Act giving the King authority to establish new bishoprics and collegiate cathedral foundations. While the principle had been established, the numbers of successor colleges and cathedrals remained unspecified.{{cn|date=July 2020}}

King Henry's enthusiasm for creating new bishoprics was second to his passion for building fortifications. When an apparent alliance of France and the Holy Roman Empire against England was agreed at Toledo in January 1539, this precipitated a major invasion scare. Even though by midsummer the immediate danger had passed, Henry still demanded from Cromwell unprecedented sums for the [[Device Forts|coastal defence works]] from [[St Michael's Mount]] to [[Lowestoft]]. The scale of the proposed new foundations was drastically cut back.{{sfn|MacCulloch|2018|p=490}} In the end, six abbeys were raised to be cathedrals of new dioceses, and only two more major abbeys, [[Burton Abbey|Burton-on-Trent]] and [[Thornton Abbey|Thornton]], were re-founded as non-cathedral colleges. To the intense displeasure of Thomas Howard, Thetford was not spared, and was amongst the last houses to be dissolved in February 1540, while the Duke was out of the country on a hastily arranged embassy to France.{{Sfn|MacCulloch|2018|p=511}}

Even late in 1538, Cromwell himself appears to have hoped that a select group of nunneries might be spared, where they were able to demonstrate both a high quality of regular observance and a commitment to the principles of religious reform. One was [[Godstow|Godstow Abbey]] near [[Oxford]], whose abbess, Lady Katherine Bulkeley, was one whom Cromwell had personally promoted. Godstow was invaded by [[John London (priest)|Dr John London]], Cromwell's commissioner, in October 1538, demanding the surrender of the abbey; but following a direct appeal to Cromwell himself, the house was assured that it could continue. Lady Katherine assured Cromwell that "there is neither pope nor purgatory, image nor pilgrimage nor praying to dead saints used or regarded amongst us".{{sfn|Erler|2013|pages=60–72}} Godstow Abbey was providing highly regarded boarding and schooling for girls of notable families. This was the case for several other nunneries, a factor which may have accounted for their surviving so long. Diarmaid MacCulloch further suggests that "customary male cowardice" was also a factor in the reluctance of the government to confront the heads of female religious houses.{{sfn|MacCulloch|2018|p=463}} But the stay of execution for Godstow Abbey lasted just over a year: the abbey was suppressed in November 1539 along with all other nunnery survivors, as Henry was determined that none should continue.{{Sfn|MacCulloch|2018|p=491}}