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The Rhine's gay stream has a gory gleam, The cloister's nests are robbed by roysters; The church-lands now are changed to lurch-lands; Abbacies, and all other holy foundations Now are but robber-sees rogues' habitations. And thus is each once-blest German state, Deep sunk in the gloom of the desolate! Whence comes all this?
Jeanie, alarmed at this sudden change of subject, replied in the affirmative. "Well! I wish it had been ten thousand fathoms under ground, with its church-lands, and tithes, and all that belongs to it.
And he told me, upon my several inquiries to that purpose, that he did believe it was not yet resolved whether the Parliament should ever meet more or no, the three great rulers of things now standing thus: The Duke of Buckingham is absolutely against their meeting, as moved thereto by his people that he advises with, the people of the late times, who do never expect to have any thing done by this Parliament for their religion, and who do propose that, by the sale of the Church-lands, they shall be able to put the King out of debt: my Lord Keeper is utterly against putting away this and choosing another Parliament, lest they prove worse than this, and will make all the King's friends, and the King himself, in a desperate condition: my Lord Arlington knows not which is best for him, being to seek whether this or the next will use him worst.
This may occasion your Majesty to consider, that there is such a sin as Sacrilege; and to incline you to prevent the Curse that will follow it, I beseech you also to consider, that Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, and Helena his Mother; that King Edgar, and Edward the Confessor; and indeed many others of your predecessors, and many private Christians, have also given to God, and to his Church, much land, and many immunities, which they might have given to those of their own families, and did not; but gave them for ever as an absolute right and sacrifice to God: and with these immunities and lands they have entailed a curse upon the alienators of them: God prevent your Majesty and your successors from being liable to that Curse, which will cleave unto Church-lands as the leprosy to the Jews.
"Not a whit, Tony," answered the master of the horse; "he dotes on her, and will forsake the court for her. Then down go hopes, possessions, and safety church-lands are resumed, Tony, and well if the holders be not called to account in Exchequer." "That were ruin," said Foster, his brow darkening with apprehensions; "and all this for a woman!
"They are more numerous, and think more deeply concerning you, than you seem to be aware," answered Catherine. "But perhaps they think wrong You are the best judge in your own affairs; and if you prefer gold and church-lands to honour and loyalty, and the faith of your fathers, why should you be hampered in conscience more than others?"
"Then," said Varney, going on without appearing to notice the interruption, "he must have his lawyers deep, subtle pioneers to draw his contracts, his pre-contracts, and his post-contracts, and to find the way to make the most of grants of church-lands, and commons, and licenses for monopoly. And he must have physicians who can spice a cup or a caudle.
As to the church-lands, it hath been the opinion of many writers, that, in England, they amounted to a third part of the whole kingdom. And therefore, if that wicked prince above-mentioned, when he had cast off the Pope's power, had introduced some reformation in religion, he could not have been blamed for taking away the abbey-lands by authority of parliament.
I left it to him to do as the Duke of York pleases; and so fell to other talk, and with great freedom, of public things; and he told me, upon my several inquiries to that purpose, that he did believe it was not yet resolved whether the Parliament should ever meet more or no, the three great rulers of things now standing thus: The Duke of Buckingham is absolutely against their meeting, as moved thereto by his people that he advises with, the people of the late times, who do never expect to have any thing done by this Parliament for their religion, and who do propose that, by the sale of the Church-lands, they shall be able to put the King out of debt: my Lord Keeper is utterly against putting away this and choosing another Parliament, lest they prove worse than this, and will make all the King's friends, and the King himself, in a desperate condition: my Lord Arlington know not which is best for him, being to seek whether this or the next will use him worst.
He made sport of the legislature ruled by the commune, and made up not of men of experience, but of adventurers, stock-jobbers, directors of assignats, trustees for the sale of church-lands, who "took a constitution in hand as savages would a looking-glass," a body made up of those courtiers who wished to cut off the head of their king, of those priests who voted religion a nuisance, of those lawyers who called the laws a dead letter, of those philosophers who admitted no argument but the guillotine, of those sentimentalists who chanted the necessity of more blood, of butchers and bakers and brewers who would exterminate the very people who bought from them.
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