Would You Agree that the Monasteries Were Framed in Order to Dissolve Them Circa 1536 to 1540?

To argue the statement "would you agree that the monasteries were framed in order to dissolve them circa 1536 to 1540" in and of itself from would be incorrect. The definition of being framed it is 'conspiracy to make an innocent person appear guilty'. By its very definition the monasteries themselves could not be framed, however the inhabitants of the monasteries indeed were ' framed'.

The monks and nuns of the monasteries of England and Wales were used by King Henry VIII in order to secure and justify his position as head of the Church of England and to denounce Pope and Catholicism as wrongful and unwise. Henry's actions were those of a man whose ideology was that of personal glory and self-gratification. The Pope and his unwillingness to give the Henry a divorce was no doubt a decision that greatly angered the King. Henry sought not only to rid the country of the perpetuators of the Roman Catholic faith, but also to sell off the lands and the contents of the monasteries. Nevertheless, history has shown that Henry's motives were far more devious than what showed on the surface.

Henry needed to assure himself that there would be no one with any connection to Rome would rise up to denounce his position as the supreme head of the Church of England. However, perhaps his greatest desire was to pillage and plunder the vast lands and material wealth that the monasteries had accumulated over centuries, in order to fill up the Crown's coffers, which had been depleted by during the War of the Roses, and to build up a fine Navy to protect the country. Henry's true motives may be for ever mired in the annals of history, but his destruction of the monasteries was, essentially, complete.

Background