Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/493

 talk of parliamentary control is out of the question. The King called Parliament only when he wanted money, or when he wished despotic measures passed with a semblance of popular sanction. But the forms of Parliamentary legislation and control were kept up; and thus, with weaker Kings and a more effective popular sentiment, the ancient assembly afterwards proved able to recover all and more than all its former authority.

The old nobility were the King's natural advisers; the Commons could scarcely as yet be called a real power in the State. But the old nobility were reduced in numbers, and were no match for him in intelligence. They were superseded, moreover, in the end, by a new nobility created by himself out of the middle classes. Meanwhile, he took counsel both of noblemen and of commoners just as suited himself, and he soon found out who served him best. Early in the reign he made large use of churchmen, such as Warham, Fox, Wolsey, Pace, and Gardiner; for churchmen were generally men of greater penetration than ordinary lay agents of the Crown. A perceptible change took place in this matter, when with Cromwell's aid he compelled the Church to acknowledge Royal Supremacy and disown the Pope's authority. The churchmen then promoted were only those who fell in with the new policy and who, occupied in enforcing it on the clergy, were not capable of much service in framing Acts of State or assisting in secular government. For in truth this great ecclesiastical revolution was that which completed and consolidated the fabric of Henry's despotism. If among the laity he had neither lord nor commoner who durst withstand him, there were churchmen like some of the Observant Friars who actually spoke out against the public scandal which he was creating by repudiating his lawful wife; and the King felt, truly enough, that if he was to have his way, the voice of the Church must be either silenced or perverted. So the central authority of Christendom was no longer to determine what was right or wrong. In England the Church must be under Royal Supremacy.

To this decisive breach with Rome Henry himself was driven with some reluctance; for no King was at first more devoted to the Church or more desirous to stand well in the opinion of his own subjects. Nor could it be said that the Church's yoke was a painful one to mighty potentates like him. But wilfulness and obstinacy were very strong i'eatures of Henry's character. Whatever he did he must never appear to retract; and he had so frequently threatened the Pope with the withdrawal of his allegiance in case he would not grant him his divorce that at last he felt bound to make good what he had threatened. For the first time in history Europe beheld a great prince deliberately withdraw himself and his subjects irom the spiritual domain of Rome, and enforce by the severest penalties the repudiation of papal authority. For the first time also Europe realised how weak the Papacy had become