It was acknowledged that about a third of the houses, including the bulk of the larger abbeys, were fairly and decently conducted.

The rest were charged with drunkenness, with simony, and with the foulest and most revolting crimes.

The character of the visitors, the sweeping nature of their report, and the long debate which followed on its reception, leaves little doubt that these charges were grossly exaggerated.

But the want of any effective discipline which had resulted from their exemption from all but Papal supervision told fatally against monastic morality even in abbeys like St.Albans; and the acknowledgement of Warham, as well as a partial measure of suppression begun by Wolsey, go some way to prove that in the smaller houses at least indolence had passed into crime.

A cry of "Down with them" broke from the Commons as the report was read.