Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/484

464 with a series of remarkable requests. The Pope, in the terms on which he was reinstated, was but an ornamental unreality; and the practical English clergy desired substantial restorations which their eyes could see and their hands could handle.

They demanded, therefore, first, that if a statute was brought into Parliament for the assurance of the Church estates to the present possessors, nothing should be allowed to pass prejudicial to their claims 'on lands, tenements, pensions, or tythe rents, which had appertained to bishops, or other ecclesiastical persons.'

They demanded, secondly, the repeal of the Statute of Mortmain, and afterwards the abolition of lay impropriations, the punishment of heretics, the destruction of all the English Prayer-books and Bibles, the revival of the Act De Hæretico Comburendo, the re-establishment of the episcopal courts, the restoration of the legislative functions of Convocation, and the exemption of the clergy from the authority of secular magistrates.

Finally, they required that the Church should be restored absolutely to its ancient rights, immunities, and privileges; that no Premunire should issue against a bishop until he had first received notice and warning; that the judges should define 'a special doctrine of Preinunire,' and that the Statutes of Provisors should not be wrested from their meaning.

The petition expressed the views of Gardiner, and was probably drawn under his direction. Had the