So Henry remodelled the
Star Chamber, in 1486, [Footnote: 3 Henry 7, C 1.] to deal with the
martial gentry, and before long a new type of intelligence possessed the
kingdom.
The feudal soldiers being disposed of, it remained to evict the monks, who
were thus left without their natural defenders. No matter of faith was
involved. Henry VIII boasted that in doctrine he was as orthodox as the
pope. There was, however, an enormous monastic landed property to be
redistributed This was confiscated, and appropriated, not to public
purposes, but, as usually happens in revolutions, to the use of the
astutest of the revolutionists. Among these, John Russell, afterward Earl
of Bedford, stood preeminent. Russell had no particular pedigree or
genius, save the acquisitive genius, but he made himself useful to Henry
in such judicial murders as that of Richard Whiting, Abbot of Glastonbury.
He received in payment, among much else, Woburn Abbey, which has since
remained the Bedford country seat, and Covent Garden or Convent Garden,
one of the most valuable parcels of real estate in London. Covent Garden
the present duke recently sold, anticipating, perhaps, some such
legislation as ruined the monks and made his ancestor's fortune. As for
the monks whom Henry evicted, they wandered forth from their homes
beggars, and Henry hanged all of them whom he could catch as vagrants.
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