[Verse 1] Fifteen thirty-six, the ledger opens wide, Houses under two hundred pounds get swept aside, Small priories folding like cheap linen sheets, Henry's men with inventories walking through the keeps. Three years later, thirty-nine seals up the rest, Westminster, Glastonbury, the wealthiest and best, No abbey too grand and no chapel too obscure, The crown wants the rent roll, not the vows, not the cure. [Chorus] Thirty-six takes the small, thirty-nine takes it all, Augmentations counts the coin behind the chancel wall, One hundred thirty-six thousand pounds a year, Pouring into coffers once the altars disappear, Remember: small then great, the windfall and the weight, A kingdom cashing chapels just to renovate its fate. [Verse 2] Picture the Court of Augmentations, quills in hand, Surveyors measuring orchards, fishponds, grazing land, Lead stripped from roofs, old bells melted down for guns, Every reliquary tallied, every psalter done, It isn't about Luther, isn't about creed, It's balance sheets and borders, it's a treasury in need, A brand-new ministry built just to strip and sell, Converting prayer books into promissory spells. [Chorus] Thirty-six takes the small, thirty-nine takes it all, Augmentations counts the coin behind the chancel wall, One hundred thirty-six thousand pounds a year, Pouring into coffers once the altars disappear, Remember: small then great, the windfall and the weight, A kingdom cashing chapels just to renovate its fate. [Verse 3] Then France snarls and Scotland rattles at the gate, Boulogne needs an army and an army cannot wait, So the land that could have paid forever, rent by rent, Gets auctioned in a hurry till the ready cash is spent, Two-thirds of holy acreage sold off, piece by piece, By fifteen forty-seven, when the old king finds release, A river turned to flood, then the flood runs dry and gone, The crown that owned the harvest now must borrow going on. [Bridge] This is capital consumption, hear the lesson plain, You don't eat the seed corn just to fund one short campaign, Swap a stream for a splash, and the splash can't last, Watch the domain state wither once its own domain has passed, Centuries ahead in France the churches fall again, Biens nationaux echoes with the selfsame Tudor pen, And when you privatize the water, the railway, or the toll, You're auctioning tomorrow's rent to patch today's hole. [Chorus] Thirty-six takes the small, thirty-nine takes it all, Augmentations counts the coin behind the chancel wall, One hundred thirty-six thousand pounds a year, Pouring into coffers once the altars disappear, Remember: small then great, the windfall and the weight, A kingdom cashing chapels just to renovate its fate. [Outro] Small and great, the acts in order, sell and spend and sigh, Augmentations counting as the old foundations die, Two-thirds gone, the lesson sewn, from Henry to today, Sell the engine for the fuel, and watch the engine rot away.
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