Since by early 1538 it was clear that Beaulieu was doomed, the abbot began to make provision for his future. One of his last acts as abbot before he was finally forced to surrender was to grant the mill and parsonage of Beaulieu to a friend and give his sister a manor house belonging to the abbey, a conduct not uncommon practice among heads of institutions suppression by Henry's government, as insurance against not getting a decent pension (compare the similar transactions at neighbouring Titchfield Abbey). The king’s commissioners arrived at the gates of the abbey in March 1538 and, after negotiations, the great monastery surrendered on 2 April 1538, the deed being signed by Thomas and 20 of the monks. It is probable that by now Stevens had had a change of mentality, after all his attachment to Beaulieu was not that of a lifetime, and his appointment there, despite the tensions, had been something of a windfall. Now he was destined to receive a handsome pension of 100 marks a year for a largely ceremonial role in an event he could do nothing to prevent. It made him a wealthy man, and made him disinclined to any great fellow-feeling for his fellow monks. In a letter to Thomas Wriothesley written shortly after the abbey was extinguished, he fell to describing his monks at Beaulieu as "lewd monks, which now, I thank God, I am rid of". On the other hand, he displayed more apparent sympathy for the people who had taken sanctuary at the abbey and who lived in the abbey grounds. He pleaded with the government for their lives, with the result that they were given either pardons or protection and the right to remain living in the former abbey precinct.