HISTORY EXPLORER The dissolution of the monasteries
Adam Morton and Nige Tassell visit Fountains Abbey, the most recognisable reminder of Henry VIII’s campaign to eradicate Rome from English life
here are few more awesome sights in the depths of winter than the ruins of Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire. Abandoned and ruined it may be, yet the abbey stands proud and majestic, its crumpled walls bearing the scars of Henry VIII’s campaign to dissolve the monasteries nearly 500 years ago.
We’re visiting in February half-term, so the shrieks of children fill the chilly air while a procession of dog-walkers take to the paths of the 273-hectare (674-acre) National Trust estate in which the abbey sits. The only sign of conflict is when a cocker spaniel strains at his lead in an attempt to disturb a brace of pheasants lurking in the undergrowth.
Things weren’t always so peaceful. During the early decades of the 16th century, Fountains was the country’s richest Cistercian monastery – before it became one of the biggest casualties of Henry’s attempt to wipe the influence of Rome from the English landscape. The sweeping programme of closures – orchestrated by the king’s right-hand man, Thomas Cromwell – left Fountains, and hundreds of other monasteries and abbeys, empty and at the mercy of the elements.
The decision to dissolve England’s monasteries was a consequence of Henry’s split from the Catholic church after Pope Clement VII refused to annul the king’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon in 1527. Not that this was merely an act of revenge by an angry monarch, as the University of Newcastle’s Adam Morton explains as we stroll down the estate’s gentle slopes towards the ruins.
“There’s a danger of seeing Henry as a stage villain,” he says. “He’s often viewed in black-and-white terms – as someone who was motivated by lust or who was unstable. But above all else, the Dissolution was an exertion of power. Henry now had this new type of kingship – royal supremacy. It made him head of church and state – and there was no better demonstration of that than dissolving the monasteries.”
By the mid-1530s, a quarter of a century into his reign, Henry had spent much of his inheritance, while the monasteries were known for being cash-rich. Again, though, Morton warns that we shouldn’t interpret the king’s actions as mono-causal. Rather than being a simple cash grab, the financial aspect was part of a wider restructuring of society. “However, accusing the monasteries of avarice or of hypocrisy – preaching charity while being very, very rich – was certainly part of the polemical strategy to downgrade them in the eyes of the populace or parliament.
“We also have to consider how Henry saw himself. It’s very easy for us to think of him as greedy or avaricious, but he saw himself as an Old Testament monarch. Rightly or wrongly, he viewed his break from Rome as biblical – as the way in which a king should act. He often described