universities in Europe have pronounced, and Pope Clement, when at Marseilles, sent a message to the King, that he was ready to pronounce her dispensation bad, her marriage null and void.' The bishop added, 'I have now changed my former opinion. I would exhort you to do the same, and cease to usurp the name of Queen.' Foaming with passion, she replied that they might seize her goods and take her life, but they should never force her to renounce that name of Queen. They tried to soothe her, but the more they sighed the more she stormed. "Your Archbishop is a shadow. I appeal from Canterbury to Rome!'

CHAPTER VIII.

CONFLICT.

1534.

1. ROME answered Catharine in a worldly and divided sense. Cardinal de Bellay was in Rome. Bellay had never varied in his view, that heaven itself had settled the dispute. Clement held the same opinion; but the voice of Cæsar was too strong for Cardinal and Pope. A meeting of imperial cardinals was called, at which Symonetta, deputy of the Rota, opened the imperialist pleas, and nineteen cardinals obeyed their orders by declaring the original dispensation good in law. Bellay protested and the Pontiff paused. This vote reversed the judgments of learned men and famous universities. Oxford and Cambridge, Paris and Orleans, Padova and Bologna, were against the nineteen cardinals. The Pope was against them; the King of France, the clergy of France, were all against them. Could the Pontiff act on that imperialist and partizan vote? Cardinal de Bellay warned him of the perils he must face should he allow his personal fears to overbear his duty to the Church. England was ripening for revolt. A new

order was in conflict with the old; and nothing less than the support of government could keep the new opinions down. If Rome deserted justice, England would abandon Rome. But Clement had no means of holding out against Quiñones and the other partizans of Charles. Against his own opinion of the law, against his own opinion of the policy, Clement was forced to issue a decree, affirming that the English Parliament, the English clergy, and the English court were wrong; annulling the sentence given by Cranmer, and commanding Henry to remove his concubine and restore his wife.

2. From what his agents told him, Charles was led to think this sentence might be easily enforced. England was so rent by factions that a word would set the land on fire. The Irish septs were eager for a fight. The King of Scots was seeking for a wife. Among the Border barons, Catharine had a host of friends. Dacres was with her; Darcy was with her. Cumberland, Northumberland, with all the Cliffords and Percies, might be rallied for the Pope. If James advanced into the Border country, he would find no enemies in the Cheviots and along the Tweed. If foreign troops were wanted, Charles was ready to supply them; but the English were a superstitious race; and he believed the discontented peers, assisted by an Irish rising and a Scotch invasion, strong enough to execute a judgment of the Church.

3. England replied to Rome and Spain by sever

ing her connexion with the Papacy and putting on her armour for a fight with Charles. Peers and burgesses were sitting when the news of Clement's sentence came to hand, and when they rose, the connexion of England and Rome was at an end. Four bills received the royal signature. The King was declared Head of the Church. The Act of Appeals was extended. Bishops were no longer to receive their licenses from the Pope. All spiritual graces and indulgences were in future to be sought in England in the Primate's Court, but subject to appeal in every case to the lay court of Chancery. By these four acts the Papal power was overthrown, the Church was wedded to the country, and the clergy were restored from foreign bondage to their rights as English citizens and priests. Once more the English people had an independent English Church.

4. But bonds which have endured for centuries are never rent in peace; nor were the friars who got their orders from Quiñones willing to obey these laws. A blow was struck at them by way of warning, so that they might see what sort of men they had to meet. The epileptic woman, known as the Maid of Kent, was tried, along with her accomplices, Risby and Rich, friars of Greenwich, Bocking, Gould, and Dering, friars of Canterbury, and Marten, parish priest of Aldington. All seven were sentenced to be hung; but Anne, no daughter of the Inquisition, was engaged in trying to save her slanderers from the gallows; and as several weeks

had passed since they were tried, their lives at least seemed safe. The news from Rome was fatal to that foolish woman and to these infatuated men. Away to Tyburn they were drawn; the woman in her habit as a nun; the men in frock and gown. No living man had seen a priest in priestly habit dangling from the gallows; for in case of men whose crimes could neither be concealed nor pardoned, the Church had always been allowed to strip offenders of their priesthood and reduce them to the common level ere she gave them over to the secular power. Risby and his brethren died as they had lived, conspirators of the convent, traitors of the Church. All seven were hung; the weeping nun confessing her impostures; but asserting that the shame of her offences lay on her companions, who were learned clerks, while she was nothing but a simple village wench.'

5. Wolsey had set the fashion of despoiling and suppressing convents. Henry wished to follow suit, but feared to lay his hands on priory and shrine, lest peers and gentry should fly to arms in their defence. 'Butter the rooks' nests,' said Wyat, and they will never trouble you.' Henry took the hint, and shared the spoil of these rich houses with the active families in every shire.

6. Far greater men than Rich and Gould were menaced by this news from Rome. Fisher and More had been compromised by the Nun, and touched by the bill of attainder. Abell and four other friars were