Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/325

1547.] England with, lands over forty pounds a year who had not compounded for their knighthoods, with a view to a levy of fines; and a commission was designed to examine how far the Crown had been rightly dealt with in the disposition of confiscated estates.

These matters, however, were behind the scenes. Parliament assembled at Westminster on the 4th November, and Musselburgh was a sufficient guarantee that Somerset's influence would be omnipotent. The spirit of the hour was of universal benevolence. The Six Articles Bill was repealed. The Bills of Henry IV. and Henry V. against the Lollards were repealed. England had entered a golden age, when there was to be no more treason, no more conspiracy, no more hankering after the Pope or foreign invaders. And as, in the words of the Parliament, 'in tempest or winter one cover and garment was convenient, in calm or warm weather a more liberal case and lighter garment both might and ought to be used, the severe laws made by the King's Highness's father, good and useful as they had been in the past bad times, were held to be needed no longer. The Act of Words, and the sharper clauses of the Act of Supremacy, were blotted out of the statute book; and offences under those, or any other Acts which in the late reign had been raised into treason or felony, not having been treason or felony before, fell back into misdemeanours.