Government Strengths

• Government propaganda stressed that a wholesale dissolution was not intended. In fact, the King hoped to save and preserve monasticism by weeding out corrupt elements.
• Landowners in Parliament and elsewhere saw the chance to acquire new lands in a land market, which was usually pretty static.
• Abbots were offered pensions and monks and nuns were given some financial compensation.
• Three abbots, (Colchester, Reading and Glastonbury) who refused to surrender their abbeys, were executed. This served as a warning to others.