Charlie Fenton’s Reviews > A Visitor's Companion to Tudor England > Status Update

'Between 1536 and 1540, over 800 religious houses were suppressed, and 7,000 monks, nuns, friars and their servants were turned out into the community. It was an act of incalculable cultural vandalism: invaluable medieval libraries were ransacked, irreplaceable jew-ellery was dissipated, finely crafted plate was melted down and architecturally important Gothic buildings were demolished.'

'In early 1537, between 144 and 153 people were executed for their involvement in the revolts, and the leader Robert Aske was 'hanged in chains' (in the gibbet irons) in York. Convinced that monks were leading figures in the rebellion, the Pilgrimage of Grace was also pivotal to Henry's decision to suppress not only the 'lesser monastic houses', as ordered in March 1536, but all 800 religious houses in England.'

‘Somewhat ironically, the most prestigiously placed Tudor tomb is that of Henry VIII’s most overlooked wife, Anne of Cleves. Anne’s tomb, erected in her memory by Mary I (probably because Anne was one of the only people who showed the adult Mary affection), is to the right of the thirteenth-century mosaic pavement in front of the High Altar, and befits her wisely adopted status as the ‘King’s sister’.’