Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/591

] Parliament for the purpose of still further limiting this mischievous right, and denying benefit of clergy to all murderers and robbers whatever. This the clergy opposed in Parliament, and preached against in the pulpit. The Lords and Commons were unanimously in favour of the bill as well as the public at large, but the clergy determined not to give way. "Whilst the public mind was in a ferment on this subject, a tailor of London, of the name of Huune, was brought into conflict with the incumbent of his parish, on account of mortuary dues; and being sued in the spiritual court, with a boldness which marked the rising spirit of the times, and which the clergy ought to have noted seriously, he took out a writ of præmunire against his prosecutor, for appealing to a foreign jurisdiction, the Spiritual Court, but still under the authority of the Pope. Enraged at this audacity, they threw the tailor into prison on a charge of heresy, where he was found hanging and dead. A coroner's inquest found the officers of the prison guilty of murder, and it appeared that the Bishop of London's Chancellor, the sumner, and bell-ringer had perpetrated the crime. This threw the deepest odium on the clergy, and greatly alienated the people from them; yet they did not cease to prosecute their claim of privilege, and after much contest, Wolsey prayed the King to refer the matter to the Pope. But even at this early period Henry showed that he was tenacious of his own power, and gave a striking foretaste of what he would one day do. He replied, "By permission and ordinance of God, we are King of England; and the kings of England in times past hath never had any superior, but God only. Therefore know you well that we will maintain the right of our crown, and of our temporal jurisdiction, as well in this as in all other points, in as ample a manner as any of our progenitors have done before our time."



Whilst Edward VI. thoroughly established Protestantism, Mary as completely reinstated Popery, and with a series of horrors which stamped terror and aversion of Roman Catholic ascendancy for ever deep in the spirit of this nation. The number of persons who died in the flames in that awful reign, for their faith and the freedom of conscience, is stated to have been 288; but Lord Burleigh estimated those who perished by fire, torture, famine, and imprisonment at not less than 400. Besides these, vast numbers suffered cruelly in a variety of ways. "Some of the professors," says Coverdale, "were thrown into