Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/427

1536.] According to the desire of his most gracious Highness, let us name some person to be his heir; who, in case (quod absit) that he depart this life leaving no offspring lawfully begotten, may be our lawful sovereign. But let us pray Almighty God that He will graciously not leave our prince thus childless; and let us give Him thanks for that He hath preserved his Highness to us out of so many dangers; seeing that his Grace's care and efforts be directed only to the ruling his subjects in peace and charity so long as his life endures, and to the leaving us, when he shall come to die, in sure possession of these blessings.'

Three weeks after Anne Boleyn's death and the King's third marriage, the chancellor dared to address the English legislature in these terms: and either he spoke like a reasonable man, which he may have done, .or else he was making an exhibition of effrontery to be paralleled only by Seneca's letter to the Roman Senate after the murder of Agrippina. The legislature adopted the first interpretation, and the heads of the speech were embodied in an Act of Parliament. While the statute was in preparation, they made use of the interval in continuing the business of the Reformation. They abolished finally the protection of sanctuary in cases of felony, extending the new provisions even to persons in holy orders: they calmed the alarms of Cranmer and the Protestants by re-asserting the extinction of the authority of the Pope; and they passed various other