Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/221



HILE the disturbance in Ireland was at its height, affairs in England had been scarcely less critical. The surface indeed remained unbroken. The summer of 1534 passed away, and the threatened invasion had not taken place. The disaffection which had appeared in the preceding year had been smothered for a time; Francis I. held the Emperor in check by menacing Flanders, and through French influence the rupture with Scotland had been seemingly healed. In appearance the excommunication had passed off as a brutum fulmen, a flash of harmless sheet lightning, serving only to dazzle feeble eyes. The oath of succession, too, had been taken generally through the country; Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher having alone ventured to refuse. The Pope had been abjured by the Universities and by the Convocation in both the provinces, and to these collective Acts the bishops and the higher clergy had added each their separate consent.

But the Government knew too well the temper of the clergy to trust to outward compliance, or to feel