But there are certain bounds, beyond which the most slavish submission cannot be extended.

All the late innovations, particularly the dissolution of the smaller monasteries, and the imminent danger to which all the rest were exposed,[*] [11] had bred discontent among the people, and had disposed them to revolt.

The expelled monks, wandering about the country, excited both the piety and compassion of men; and as the ancient religion took hold of the populace by powerful motives, suited to vulgar capacity, it was able, now that it was brought into apparent hazard, to raise the strongest zeal in its favor.[**] Discontents had even reached some of the nobility and gentry, whose ancestors had founded the monasteries, and who placed a vanity in those institutions, as well as reaped some benefit from them, by the provisions which they afforded them for their younger children.
* See note L, at the end of the volume.
** Strype, vol.i.p.

249.
The more superstitious were interested for the souls of their fore-fathers, which, they believed, must now lie during many ages in the torments of purgatory, for want of masses to relieve them.

It seemed unjust to abolish pious institutions for the faults, real or pretended, of individuals.