LONG STRUGGLE BETWEEN ENGLAND AND ROME 247 V rejection tion the respecting his relations with the Pope; but it is also CHAP instructive to find that his new opinions were those which wiser men had long entertained. In fact it may be said that when Henry finally established his independence of the Court of Rome, he was but giving the last effective stroke to a policy which had been maintained-as far as it could be without royal support for many years of Wolsey's administration. Final We may even go further back, and say with a once of Papal zealous writer of the English Church, who in later jurisdiclife became titular archbishop of the Roman sect in climax of England, that Henry's act was but the finishing contest stroke to a work that had been going on for centuries." "If any man will look down along the line of early English history, he will see a standing contest between the rulers of this land and the bishops of Rome. The Crown and Church of England, with a steady opposition, resisted the entrance and encroachment of the secularized ecclesiastical power of the Pope in England. The last rejection of it was no more than a successful effort after many a failure in struggles of the like kind." a standing at last by After the advocation of the divorce cause to Provoked Rome, it became clear that this long-threatened divorce separation of England from the jurisdiction of the business popes was now becoming imminent and looking back on the steps taken by Clement and the King, we may say that no such outrageous provocation having ever been offered before to an independent 9 In 1512 there had been a movement in France for throwing off the papal jurisdiction: and in 1525 Francis I. proposed a Patriarchate of France and England to Wolsey. [Ellis' Orig. Lett., III. 1 Manning on the Unity of the CHAP Sovereign, it was met in the first instance very temperately. V A. D. 1530 In 1530 Dr. Benet was endeavouring to obtain a commission for three English bishops, or for Convocation, to take up and decide the cause; and a long despatch exists which he wrote on October 27th of that year, giving the King an account of his interviews with the Pope. Against Clement's advocation of the cause to Rome, the envoys alleged the leged custom of the realm of England, which forbad any against pa- Englishman being called out of the country to plead ment of the before a foreign tribunal; and that for this reason English customs al pal judg cause appeals made to Rome were always sent back to England. This custom the Pope questioned, and the ambassador began to retort, by hinting some doubts as to the grounds of the Papal authority itself. "Then we said, that if his Holiness would examine this custom so exquisitely, and seek the reason of it, which hath been used by time out of mind, and now is certain, he should not do well. For his Holiness should consider how dangerous it is to search for the reason of such things as hath been used long, and so taken for certain, lest those things which are Hint as to taken now for certain should be subverted: and also how weak ten ure of papal grievously he would take it if a man should ask of him the reajurisdiction son why, he being Bishop of Rome, should have jurisdiction in all other churches and bishops. To that he answered and said, that he perceived to what end this matter would grow and said he would prove better his jurisdiction than your Highness could prove your custom, adding, in a great fume, that he would not give us further audience in this cause of matrimony, but in presence of his council."2 It was evidently not without reason that Sir John 2 Dod's Ch. History, Tierney's ed., i. 392. Hacket ventured, in one of his despatches, to call CHAP this Pope "The Unclement Bishop." "3 V Meanwhile, although the Pope could not yet have A.D. 1530 heard of this, the King had taken a first decided step in the direction to which Clement saw events were tending. Apprehensive that the Queen would procure, or had procured, some bull from Rome condemning his conduct or restraining his authority, Henry had set forth a proclamation on September 19, 1530, inhibiting the publication of any such missives in the terms following: tion forbid ding ad bulls "The King's Highness straitly chargeth and commandeth Proclamathat no manner of person of what estate, degree, or condition soever, he or they be of, do purchase or attempt to purchase mission of from the court of Rome or elsewhere, nor use and put in execution, divulge or publish anything heretofore within this year passed purchased, or to be purchased hereafter, containing matter prejudicial to the high authority, jurisdiction and prerogative royal of this his said realm, or to the let, hindrance, or impeachment of his Grace's noble and virtuous intended purposes in the premisses: upon pain of incurring his Highness' indignation, and imprisonment, and further punishment of their bodies, for their so doing, at his Grace's pleasure, to the dreadful example of all other."4 By this politic stroke, the official voice of the Pope was at once silenced as far as England was concerned : and though Henry's proclamation was only the reassertion of a right claimed and exercised long An ancient before by his predecessors, it was issued at a crisis vived which gave it a peculiar significance. 3 State Pap., i. 545. 4 Herbert's H. VIII. 330. The words of the proclamation are sub stantially taken from the Act of right re CHAP 1. WITHDRAWAL OF TRIBUTE AND OBEDIENCE FROM THE SEE OF ROME. V A.D. 1531 of truth as macy After this events marched quickly. The discusGrowing sions of Convocation respecting the royal supremacy perception had thrown much light upon the relations of the to supre- Church to the Pope as well as to the Crown, and the clergy began to see clearly the false position in which they and the nation at large were placed by the medieval system of papal jurisdiction which they had inherited. They therefore took a step which was of the utmost importance to the course of the Reformation, but which is almost entirely unnoticed by historians. In petitioning the King to abolish one of the many payments exacted by the Pope, the Convocation also prayed that in case his Holiness should persist in requiring such payments, the obedience of England should be withdrawn altogether from the See of Rome. This is the first appearance of such an idea in any public document: so that the first official proposal to repudiate the jurisdiction of the Pope over the English Church proceeded from the English Church itself through its representative body, the Convocation of the clergy. Convoca- This petition of Convocation is so important an historical document, that it is worth while to give it at length: tion on An nates "Whereas the Court of Rome hath a long season exacted of such as have been named or elected to be archbishops or bishops of this realm, the annates, that is to say, the first fruits of their bishoprics, before they could obtain their bulls out of the said 5 The original still remains in the British Museum, MS. Cleop. E. 6, p. 263. V court: by reason whereof, the treasure of this realm hath been CHAP had and conveyed to Rome, to no small decay of this land, and to the great impoverishing of bishops; which, if they A.D. 1531 should die within two or three years after their promotion, should die in such debts as should be to the undoing of their friends and creditors: and by the same exaction of annates, bishops have been so extenuate, that they have not been able in Such paya great part of their lives to repair their churches, houses, and manors; which, by reason thereof, have fallen into much decay: bishops and besides, that the bishops have not been able to bestow the goods of the Church in hospitality and alms, and other deeds of charity, which, by the law and by the minds of the donors of their possessions temporal, they were bound to do. ments ham pered the better than "In consideration whereof, forasmuch as it is to be accounted Nothing as simony by the Pope's own law, to take or give any money simony for the collation, or for the consenting to the collation of a bishopric, or of any other spiritual promotion: and to say that the said annates be taken for the vacation, as touching the temporalities, pertaineth of right to the King's Grace; and as touching the spirituality to the Archbishop of Canterbury: and it is not to be allowed, if it should be alleged, that the said court exacteth these annates for parchment and lead, and writing of the bulls. For so should parchment and lead be very dear merchandize at Rome, and in some cases an hundred times more worth than the weight or counterpoise of fine gold. "In consideration also, that it is no reason that the first Temporal fruits of such temporal lands as the King's most noble pro- of bishops allegiance genitors, and other noblemen of this realm, have given to the to crown Church of England, upon high respects, causes, and conditions, should be applied to the court of Rome: which continually getteth by this means, and many other, much goods and profits out of this realm, and never departeth with any portion thereof hither again. For touching the same temporal lands, the bishops be subjects only to the King's Grace, and not to the court of Rome: neither by reason of those possessions ought to pay these annates as a tribute to the said court. Wherefore if there were just cause, as there is none, why any sums of money, besides the competent charges of the writing and sealing, should be demanded for bishops' bulls, the court |