IV CHAP Hereford (who was then Almoner to the King), as a kind of ultimatum. This contained three "Articles :" A.D. 1532 Firstly, That no canon should be passed in future without the royal authority, assent, advice, and favour sought and obtained. Secondly, That many of the canons interfering with the royal prerogative, and being onerous to the King's subjects, a commission of thirty-two persons, equally taken from Parliament and Convocation, should be selected by the King, and appointed to examine them, and repeal as many as they thought proper. Thirdly, That other canons should stand good only when they had been endorsed with the royal assent. Debate respecting it Confer ence of Convoca. tion and Privy Council These three articles were laid before both Houses on May 10, 1532, and the debate arising upon them ended in the appointment of a deputation, consisting of the Bishops of Lincoln and Bath, the Abbots of Westminster and St. Bennet's (Norwich), with four doctors of divinity and two of civil law from the Lower House, who were to consult the aged Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, on the subject. On hearing of this Henry was highly offended, and sending again for the pliant Audley (still speaker of the House of Commons until this business was completed), the King told him that he saw the clergy were but half his subjects. To make his meaning and his object plain, he ordered Audley to read to the House of Commons the two oaths taken to himself and the Pope respectively by the clergy; no doubt with the intention of forcing the latter to submission through fear of another præmunire. During the two or three days following there was much debate in both houses, several messages from the King, and a conference between the Upper IV House and six lay peers (the Duke of Norfolk, the CHAP Marquis of Exeter, the Earl of Oxford, Lord Sands, Lord Boleyn, and Lord Rochford) sent to them from A.D. 1532 the King. The object of this conference was to compel the Convocation to give up all the existing canons of the Church into the hands of the King, Extravaso that none of them could be valid in future unless ads of gant dethey had received his assent. This pointed simply the King to an entire confiscation of all the existing Church laws, and the bishops resolutely declined, whatever might be the consequences, to consent to such terms. Obstinate and tyrannical as the King was he could not enforce his will against such an united front as this, and he sent back the six lords with a message to the effect that the obnoxious clause effectually would not be insisted on. Some technical confusion by union now arose between the two houses, and two forms of the of submission were subscribed by them, slightly differing in the concluding paragraph. That subscribed by the Upper House was the one presented to the King, and it is to be supposed that the signatures of the Lower House were either taken for granted, or considered unnecessary, for they were not laid before him. resisted bishops of Convocation The document itself, which is of much importance, The Act as defining the relations between the Crown and careConvocation, is as follows, omitting the Latin specting pre- canons amble and the subscriptions. It is entitled "Instrumentum super Submissione Cleri coram Domino Rege quoad celebrationem Conciliorum Provincialium.” "We, your most humble subjects, daily orators, and bearlsmen of your clergy of England, having one special trust and confidence in your most excellent wisdom, your princely goodness, and fervent zeal to the promotion of God's honour IV CHAP and Christian religion, and also in your learning, far exceeding in our judgment the learning of all other kings and A.D. 1532 princes that we have read of, and doubting nothing, but that the same shall continue and daily increase in your Majesty: First, Do offer and promise, in verbo sacerdotii, here unto cessary for your Highness, submitting ourselves most humbly to the Convoca- same, that we will never from henceforth, enact, put in ure, tion to act promulge, or execute any new canons, or constitutions pro Royal li cense ne Existing canon law to be mission vincial, or any new ordinance, provincial or synodal, in our convocation, or synod, in time coming (which convocation is, always hath been, and must be assembled only by your high commandment of writ), only your Highness, by your royal assent shall license us to assemble our convocation, and to make, promulge, and execute such constitutions and ordinaments as shall be made in the same; and thereto give your royal assent and authority. Secondarily, That whereas divers of the constitutions, ordinaments, and canons, provincial or synodal, which hath been reviewed heretofore enacted, be thought to be not only much prejudicial by a com- to your prerogative royal, but also overmuch onerous to your Highness's subjects, your clergy aforesaid is contented, if it may stand so with your Highness's pleasure, that it be committed to the examination and judgment of your Grace and of thirty-two persons, whereof sixteen to be of the upper and nether house of the temporalty, and other sixteen of the clergy; all to be chosen and appointed by your most noble Grace; so that, finally, which soever of the said constitutions, ordinaments, or canons, provincial or synodal, shall be thought and determined by your Grace, and by the most part of the said thirty-two persons, not to stand with God's laws and the laws of your realm, the same to be abrogated, and taken away by your Grace and the clergy. And such of them as shall be seen by your Grace and by the most part of the said thirtytwo persons, to stand with God's laws and the laws of your realm, to stand in full strength and power, your Grace's most royal assent and authority once impetrate, and fully given to the same." This form of "Submission" was subscribed on IV May 15, 1532, and was embodied in the "Act of CHAP Submission," 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 19, passed at the end of the year 1533, of which it forms the pre- A.D. 1533 amble the enacting clause being in agreement with 8 Convoca bodied in it. The Act further enacted that all canons ecclesi- Act of astical which were in force at the time it was passed, tion emshould continue in force (provided they did not clash Act of with the laws of the realm or the King's preroga- Parliament tive) until further legislation abolished them. That further legislation never took place, and consequently, the ancient Canon Law of the Church of England still holds good where it is not contrary to the Statute Law, and does not interfere with the rights of the Crown. Although the power to appoint the thirty-two commissioners was renewed two years afterwards, again by 27 Hen. VIII., cap. 15, and again in 1544, the King seems to have shrunk from actual interference with the Canon Law, contented probably with the power of vetoing any part of it when it became obnoxious to him, and caring nothing for its reformation on any other grounds. The commission was ultimately appointed by Edward VI. in 1551, but the number of commissioners was afterwards reduced to eight. The result of their labours, happily, never received any But canon confirmation from higher authority, and has no legal altered force; but it is well known to the historical student as a volume entitled "Reformatio Legum Ecclesiastiarum." Perhaps the secular power has ever since been willing rather to leave the Ecclesiastical Law in an indefinite form, than to bind itself down to the execution of a body of canons plainly authorized by the Church and the Crown. The Roman Canon Law never ran in England. law never CHAP of Supre macy passed The final step towards the re-establishment, or statutory enactment, of the royal supremacy, was A.D. 1534 taken in the autumn session of Parliament, 1534. The King had hitherto been content with the "recognition" of it which had been passed by the Convocations of Canterbury and York in 1532. But the Pope had now acted on the appeal of Queen Catherine, thus coming into direct collision with the law against appeals to him which had been passed in the previous year, and had exasperated the King by reversing Cranmer's sentence of divorce. On June 9th following, a royal proclamation was issued, ordering the Pope's name to be removed from all Pope for the Service Books, and forbidding the mention of it in any prayers. Parliament met on November 3rd, and hurriedly passed the Act of Supremacy, 26 Hen. VIII. cap. 1, giving force to the recognition of the title "Supreme Head, under Christ, of the Church of England:" and defining, with terrible comprehensiveness, what the King, at least, meant it Prayers for the bidden to mean. This famous Act recites that "Albeit the King's Majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be the Supreme Head of the Church of England, and so is recognised by the clergy of this realm in their convoca Gardiner, Bishop of Winches- which Tunstal acknowledged to Archbishop Parker fourteen days before his death had been written by him (when Bishop of Durham) and by Stokesley, Bishop of London, to Cardinal Pole while at Rome. This letter [See Knight's Life of Erasmus, App. pp. Ixvi. xcvi.] is a vigorous defence of the royal supremacy, and disproves the papal supremacy from Scripture and ecclesiastical history |