V CHAP of Rome might be contented with the annates of the spiritualities alone, without exaction of the first fruits of the A.D. 1531 temporalities: in which they have none interest, right, or superiority. Annates "And further, in consideration that the bishops be sworn at entail per- their consecration, that they shall not alienate the immovable jury or precious movable goods of their bishopric: seeing the payment of these annates be an alienation of the first fruits, being precious movables: by the alienation whereof, the bishop should fall into perjury: "And over this, forasmuch as it was ordained, determined, and concluded in the 21st session at the General Council of Basle, that from time ever after, for and in the confirmation of elections for admission of postulations or presentations, in or for provisions, collations, dispositions, elections, postulations, presentations, though it be made by a layman, in or for the forbidden institutions, installations, investitures of churches, cathedral, by Council metropolitan, monasteries, dignities, benefices, or ecclesiastical of Basle offices, whatever they be: also in or for orders, holy benediction, or palls, nothing at all before or after should be exacted in the court of Rome, by the reason of letters, bulls, seals, annates, common or minute service, first fruits, or deportates, or by whatsoever other title, colour, or name they be called, under the pretext that of any custom, privilege, or statute, or prerogative, or any other cause or occasion, directly or indirectly excepted only to the writers, abbreviators, and registers of the letters, minutes, and bulls, thereto belonging, a competent salary for their labour: whose salary cannot be extended reasonably to the twentieth part of the annates, which be exacted and continually augmented: contrary to which ordinance, determination and canon, made in the said council, if any man exacting, giving, or promising, would presume to do, he should fall into some great pains, as in the said council be expressed: Convoca for their "It may please the King's most noble Grace, having tender tion prays compassion to the wealth of this his realm, which hath been so greatly extenuate and hindered by the payments of the said annates, and by other exactions and slights, by which the treasure of this land hath been carried and conveyed beyond abolition V A.D. 1531 the mountains to the court of Rome, that the subjects of this CHAP realm be brought to great penury, and by necessity be forced to make their most humble complaint for stopping and restraining the said annates, and other exactions and expilations, taken for indulgences and dispensations, legacies, and delegacies, and others feats, which were too long to remember: withdraw from Rome First, to cause the said injust exactions of annates to cease, and to be foredone for ever, by this act of his Grace's high court of Parliament. And in case the Pope would make any process against this realm for the attaining those annates, or else would retain bishops' bulls, till the annates be paid, forasmuch suggests as the exaction of the said annates is against the law of God, al of obeand the Pope's own laws, forbidding the buying or selling of dience spiritual gifts or promotions; and forasmuch as all good Christian men be more bound to obey God than any man; and forasmuch as St. Paul willeth us to withdraw ourselves from all such as walk inordinately; it may please the King's most noble Grace to ordain in this present parliament, that then the obedience of him and the people be withdrawn from the See of Rome: as in like case, the French king withdrew his obedience of him and his subjects from Pope Benedict the XIII. of that name; and arrested, by authority of his parliament, all such annates, as it appeareth by good writing ready to be shewed.” carries out tion of the In consequence of the petition of the Convocation, Parliament a bill was introduced into the House of Lords for the suggesthe purpose of carrying out the request of the clergy. clergy conIt eventually passed the House of Commons, and ditionally received the royal assent; but in accordance with the last clause, its operation was suspended until July 9, 1533, when the King made it effective by means of letters patent of that date, ratifying and confirming it. 6 The Act [23 Hen. VIII. c. 20] opens with a 6 This extraordinary course of legislation is still illustrated by the document itself, which is affixed to to Rome CHAP preamble substantially reciting the petition on which V it was grounded, and then states that since the second A.D. 1531 year of Henry VII. [A.D. 1486] the enormous amount of £160,000 had been paid, "beside other great and Enormous intolerable sums which have yearly been conveyed to tribute paid the said court of Rome by many other ways and means, to the great impoverishment of this realm.” It then proceeds to say, that although the King and his subjects are obedient children of Holy Church, yet the said exactions being intolerable, the estates have represented that the King is bound to repress them, especially now when several of the prelates are in extreme old age, and great sums of money likely otherwise to be soon sent to Rome under this Payment unreasonable system. It is enacted, therefore, that to cease in all such payments shall cease, and that if, in con1533 sequence of their cessation the Pope refuses to grant his bulls for the consecration of any bishop, he shall (having been nominated by the King) be consecrated by the archbishop of the province, or by Provision bishops to be named by the King, "according and for doing in like manner as divers other archbishops and Pope bishops have been heretofore in ancient time by without the sundry the King's most noble progenitors made, consecrated, and invested within this realm." Provision is, however, made for a payment to the Pope for his bulls at the rate of five per cent. on the one year's value of the see for which they are desired. The latter portion of the Act shows how strong a desire there was to carry out such necessary reforms on amicable terms if it were possible to do so. The Parliament, it says, is unwilling to go to extremities without urgent cause, and so have empowered the 7 About £45,000 a year in modern money. CHAP King to make an equitable compromise with the court of Rome, and the Act is only to be accounted a statute of the realm when the King has so de- A.D. 1531 clared it be (after any modifications that such composition with the Pope may make necessary) by his letters patent. The determination of the clergy and nation no longer to be overridden by the Bishop of Rome is however shown at the same time by a concluding provision. If no redress can be secured by His adamicable negotiation, and the Pope should endea- tion to be vour to enforce the payment of annates by excommunications, interdicts, &c., in such case these papal instruments are to be disregarded, and there shall be no interruption whatever of divine service or the administration of the sacraments.8 verse ac disre garded a declaration cí dence Thus the last Act of the Session of 1531 em- Practically bodied the suggestions of Convocation; and the principal tribute which Rome had exacted from the indepenChurch of England was abolished, with an understanding that the Church was henceforth independent of the Roman See, though not in any way separated from communion with it, except by some future act of the Pope himself. ginated Let it be repeated-for the point is of the highest which on importance that this declaration of independence on with the the part of the Church of England originated with clergy the clergy in the Convocation of 1531, and not with the King or the Parliament. All that the clergy could do by themselves towards securing such inde 8 In the Session 1533, when this Act came into operation, a supplementary one was passed [25 Hen. VIII. cap. 21] by which all other obligatory payments to the Pope were abolished. The Act which contained this clause was in reality CHAP pendence they did; what they could not do they V petitioned the King to do in the proper constitutional A.D. 1531 manner, by the aid of his Parliament. Let it also be remembered that the Convocation which thus re-established the independence of the Church of England was composed of the old-fashioned bishops, abbots, and proctors, with Archbishop Warham still notwith- for their president. There was undoubtedly a restanding subsequent action a few years afterwards, when the subserviency re-action of Cranmer, the gross assumption and tyranny of Cromwell, the cruel deaths of Fisher and More, and the reckless confiscation and waste of Church property, had produced their effect upon the minds of the clergy; and the reaction (under Providence) saved the Church of England. But in 1531 the true leaders of the Reformation were the clergy; and they did their best to lead it in the course pointed out by the well-marked lines of the Constitution. They abolished at the outset the tribute and obedience which had been hitherto paid to a foreign prince and bishop; and they thus placed the Church of England in a position of freedom which would Convoca- enable it to carry on further reformations in a conadvanced stitutional manner. That the operation of the Act of than Par Parliament was suspended for two or three years longer was not their fault. The mind of Convocation was made up on the subject, but that of Parliament was still hesitating and undecided. The utmost responsibility the latter would undertake at present was that of passing a conditional statute embodying, for possible use at a future day, the principles so clearly and incisively set forth by the former. tion more liament |