1523-1529.] HIS CONTEST WITH THE POPE. 173 at the Blackfriars' Convent in London, on the 31st of May, 1529. Katherine was summoned, and appeared in person; but she refused to submit to the tribunal, and appealed to the court of Rome. The trial proceeded in her absence, and was procrastinated to the 23rd of July, when Campeggio prorogued it till the 23rd of October; before which time it was abandoned by Campeggio, by the order of the pope, without any sentence having been pronounced, and the queen's demand of an appeal to Rome was affirmed. Wolsey lost the king's favour through the failure of the trial, and Thomas Cranmer now appears upon the scene, called from Jesus College, Cambridge, in consequence of Henry having been told of a scheme he had suggested for influencing the pope, or at least for justifying independent action. The advice which he gave to the king, was to submit the question of the lawfulness of marriage with a brother's widow, to the principal foreign, and to the English universities. That advice was followed: several of the universities of Europe gave their decision in the king's favour; the universities of Oxford and Cambridge alone hesitated; but they finally pronounced an opinion conformable to that of the universities of Europe. Cranmer became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533. The king had gained confidence by the uniform opinion of the universities in his favour, and he instituted a court of inquiry, over which Cranmer presided, to decide upon the validity of the marriage. Cranmer pronounced sentence of divorce, on the 23rd of May, 1533. The king had married Anne Boleyn on the 14th of November, 1532; the marriage was publicly owned on the 12th of April, 1533, and she became the mother of Elizabeth on the 7th of September, 1533. After Henry was irretrievably committed to his course of action, the pope gave sentence, which was pronounced at Rome on the 23rd of March, 1534. The Conclave was in a rage, and urged the pope to extreme measures against Henry; but Clement, probably unwilling to strike a blow which should render impossible the restoration of England under the papal power, contented himself, for the present, with declaring the nullity of Cranmer's sentence, and of the second marriage; and he only threatened excommunication if, before the 1st of November following, Henry did not replace everything in the condition in which it formerly stood.1 These dates will enable a comparison to be made of the course of Henry's legislation, with the progress of his suit at Rome. Whilst the issue of it was uncertain, Henry summoned a parliament, which assembled in London on the 3rd of November, 1529. No parliament had met for nearly seven years. The pope had so temporized and procrastinated, that Henry's temper was roused, and there was imminent danger of a rupture between them; perhaps to be followed by war with the Emperor of Germany and the King of France, as supporters of the pope. Cardinal Wolsey was disgraced, and Henry was thus relieved from the councils of a cardinal of Rome. The new ministers, especially Cranmer, were favourers of the Reformation. It was now the object to conciliate the people, and to have all secure at home, in order to proceed more confidently abroad in the negotiations still pending. The parliament which so assembled, was continued, by prorogations, for seven years. The whole work of demolition was done by the same parliament. The commons were the principal movers and actors; and they evinced their willingness to undertake the work, by presenting, soon after their first meeting, a petition to the king, containing severe reflections on the vices and corruptions of the clergy, "which were believed to flow from men who had Luther's doctrines in their hearts."2 In the first session of the parliament no attack was made on the authority of the pope; but three statutes were passed in restraint or diminution of the privileges of the clergy. The first of these acts restrained the power which the bishops exercised, of levying fees on the probates of wills. So long before as the reign of Edward III. the extortion of 1 Hume's History, cap. 30, citing Le Grand, vol. iii. p. 566. 2 Burnet's History of the Reformation, part 1, book 2, p. 133. 1529.] STATUTES AGAINST THE CLERGY. 175 "the ministers of the bishops and ordinaries, in taking of the people grievous and outrageous fine for the probate of testaments," called forth a statute, which empowered the king's justices to inquire of such oppressions and extortions, and to hear and determine them, as well at the king's suit, as at the suit of the party. Another statute, in the reign of Henry V., imposed penalties upon the ordinaries for such extortions; but that statute endured but for one parliament, "by reason that the ordinaries did then promise to reform and amend their oppressions and exactions." The statute of Henry fixed the fees to be taken by the ordinaries and officials, for probates of wills, and grants of administration of intestates' estates, on a graduated scale, according to the value of the property.3 The second statute was passed to regulate the fees paid to the clergy as mortuaries: the motive stated was "doubt as to the form of demanding mortuaries or corse-presents, which, as lately taken, were thought over-excessive to poor people." Mortuaries were fixed on a graduated scale, according to the value of the property left by the deceased, the lowest mortuary fee to be three shillings and fourpence, and the highest ten shillings; it was not to be paid for a married woman, a child, for a person not keeping house, nor for a wayfaring man.4 The third statute was to disable the clergy from taking lands to farm, and from holding pluralities of livings. It prohibited spiritual persons, secular or regular, from taking or occupying, by lease or otherwise, lands to farm, and declared that leases to them should be void. It also prohibited them from entering into any kind of trade. It prohibited persons having one benefice with cure of souls, of the yearly value of £8 or above, from accepting any other; and if inducted into a second benefice, the first should be void, and the patron might present. It imposed penalties 1 31 Edward III., stat. i. cap. 4. 23 Henry V., cap. 8. on those who should procure, at the court of Rome or elsewhere, a license or dispensation to hold more than one benefice; but it empowered the lords spiritual and temporal, and certain of the king's officers and judges, and some others of lower rank, to have chaplains, (the number varying according to rank,) and their chaplains were privileged to hold two benefices.1 The parliament held in 1530 passed no statute either against the clergy or the pope, but in the session of 1531 the attack upon the privileges of the clergy was renewed. The first series (which we have noticed) referred to their personal privileges, the next act was directed against their ecclesiastical authority. It is called, "An Act to restrain the Abuses of the Ecclesiastical Courts." "Great number of the king's subjects, (the preamble states,) men, wives, and servants, dwelling in divers dioceses of England and Wales, are cited to appear in the court of Arches, and other high courts of the archbishops, far from their dwellings, and many times, to answer feigned causes, suits of defamation, withholding of tithes, and such-like causes and matters, sued more for malice and for vexation than any just cause of suit; and not appearing, they are excommunicated, or at least suspended from all divine services, and can only be absolved on payment of the fees of court." The citation of a person out of the diocese in which he lived, was declared illegal, except in the cases of spiritual persons for spiritual offences; of appeals from the bishops' courts, and for heresy.2 In the same parliament we find the first statute that was directed expressly against the pope. Henry was waiting, and his ambassadors at Rome were negotiating, for a favourable decision in his suit; and this statute was evidently put forth to indicate what might be expected if the pope procrastinated much longer. In the meantime its operation was suspended by postponing the royal assent; which Henry was empowered to give at his pleasure, by letters-patent 1 21 Henry VIII., cap. 13. 2 23 Henry VIII., cap. 9. 1531.] STATUTES AGAINST THE POPE. 177 under the great seal. The pope is treated with outward respect, but full provision is made for depriving him of his authority and placing it elsewhere, in the event of the royal assent being given. of The object of the act was to deprive the pope of the revenue he enjoyed from the consecration of the English bishops, for which he received the first year's income of their sees, under the name of annates or first-fruits. It recites "that the pope's holiness, and his predecessors at the court of Rome, have taken of all archbishops and bishops elected, annates or first-fruits, which they were compelled to pay before they could receive the pope's bulls for their elections to be confirmed; insomuch that it is known that there had passed out of the realm, since the second year King Henry VII., for the expedition of bulls of archbishoprics and bishoprics, £160,000 at the least. It ordained that payments of annates or first-fruits, and all manner of contributions for an archbishopric or bishopric, or for any bulls from Rome, should cease; and if any bishop paid annates or first-fruits to Rome, he should forfeit all his goods and lands to the king. If any person presented by the king to the pope to be a bishop, should be delayed at Rome by means of the pope's bulls, or should be denied the requisite bulls, then the person so presented should be consecrated in England by the archbishop of the province. If then delayed for lack of bulls from Rome, he should be consecrated by two bishops to be nominated by the king. Bishops so consecrated should be installed, accepted, and obeyed, and should enjoy their spiritualities and temporalities as completely as if they had obtained their bulls from Rome. And forasmuch as the king and the parliament did not intend to use, in this or any other like cause, extremity or violence, before gentle courtesy or friendship first attempted, they had therefore thought convenient to commit the final determination of the premises to the king, to move the pope's holiness amicably to compound, rather than to extinguish, the annates; or else by some friendly, loving, |