Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/250

230 empire, and of repeating the old glories of the Plantagenet kings. But in the peace which was concluded after the defeat of Pavia, he showed that he had resigned himself to a wiser policy, and the surrender of a barren designation would cost him little. In his quarrel with the Pope, also, he had professed an extreme reluctance to impair the unity of the Church; and the sacrifices which he had made, and the years of persevering struggle which he had endured, had proved that in those professions he had not been insincere. But Henry's character was not what it had been when he won his title of Defender of the Faith. In the experience of the last few years he had learnt to conceive some broader sense of the meaning of the Reformation; and he had gathered from Cromwell and Latimer a more noble conception of the Protestant doctrines. He had entered upon an active course of legislation for the putting away the injustices, the falsehoods, the oppressions of a degenerate establishment; and in the strong sense that he had done right, and nothing else but right, in these measures, he was not now disposed to submit to a compromise, or to consent to undo anything which he was satisfied had been justly done, in consideration of any supposed benefit which he could receive from the Pope. He was anxious to remain in communion with the See of Rome. He was willing to acknowledge in some innocuous form the Roman supremacy. But it could be only on his own terms. The Pope must come to him; he could not go