Powerful Monastery in our nation

The monasteries of our nation harbor some of the oldest and finest lineages in our nation and have therefore always been influential. They have, however, over the years come to grow more and more powerful and have also come to cultivate a disturbingly close relationship to other powers in the region. It is hard by now to find any person of influence in one of the monasteries that do not come from one of the richer noble families in the region. Monastic discipline is important but attacking a powerful Monastery as entrenched as this is not done lightly, a tempting option is to simply ally with the monks and let them lend their power to ours.