Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/493

1555.] 'The Act permitting the Marriage of Doctors of Civil Law.'

In the repeal of these statutes the entire ecclesiastical legislation of Henry VIII. was swept away; and, so far as a majority in a single Parliament could affect them, the work was done absolutely and with clean completeness.

But there remained two other Acts collaterally and accidentally affecting the See of Home; for the repeal of which the Court was no less anxious than for the repeal of the Act of Supremacy, where the Parliament were not so complaisant.

Throughout the whole reaction under Mary there was one point on which the laity never wavered. Attempts such as that which has been just mentioned were made incessantly, directly or indirectly, to alter the succession and cut off Elizabeth. They were like the fretful and profitless chafings of waves upon a rock. The two Acts on which Elizabeth's claims were rested touched, in one or other of their clauses, the Papal prerogative, and were included in the list to be condemned. But, of these Acts, 'so much only' as affected the See of Rome was repealed. The rest was studiously declared to continue in force.

Yet, with this reservation, the Parliament had gone far in their concessions, and it remained for them to secure their equivalent.

They reinstated the bishops, but, in giving back a