Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/488

468 had made no conditions; the English nation must not disfigure their obedience by alluding, in the terms of it, to the Pope's benevolence to them.

The holders of the property, on the other hand, thinking more of the reality than the form, were determined that the Act of Repeal should contain, as nearly as possible, a true statement of their case. They had made conditions, and those conditions had been reluctantly complied with; and, to prevent future errors, the nature of the compact ought to be explained with the utmost distinctness. They had replaced the bishops in authority, and the bishops might be made use of at some future time, indirectly or directly, to disturb the settlement. A fresh Pontiff might refuse to recognize the concessions of his predecessors. The Papal supremacy, the secularization of the Church property, and the authority of the episcopal courts should, therefore, be interwoven inextricably to stand or fall together; and as the lawyers denied the authority of the Holy See to pronounce upon the matter at all, the legal opinion might be embodied also as a further security.

After a week of violent discussion, the lay interest in the House of Lords found itself the strongest. Pole exclaimed that, if the submission and the dispensation were tied together, it was a simoniacal compact; the Pope's Holiness was bought and sold for a price, he said, and he would sooner go back to Rome, and leave his work unfinished, than consent to an Act so derogatory to the Holy See. But the protest was vain; if the legate was so anxious, his anxiety was an additional reason