Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/268

 Church of England was closely connected with the appropriation of the £118,840 by the supreme head. But the facility with which the Church parted with its money opened the supreme eyes a little wider. If they will pay money they will surrender power: a form of three articles is sent to Convocation in 153a by which the clergy are to renounce their right of spiritual legislation without royal licence, and consent to a reform of the canon law under the king's authority. After some discussion, with the fear of another Præmunire, the clergy consent to that also. By crafty dealing with the House of Commons, the Court, in which Cromwell is now becoming a leading man, obtains an address complaining of the ecclesiastical courts, their use of canon law on the one side and their practical abuses on the other; if the commons will help the king against the pope, the king will help the commons against the spiritual courts; he will not press the Statutes of Uses and Wills if they will agree that he shall forbid the payment of annates. The commons resist, but their strong men have gone over to the king. The Annates Bill is passed; the Submission of the clergy is exacted; and More, the good and wise chancellor, resigns the seals. He and the foreign ambassadors saw which way the Lion was looking better than the Lion himself. If the clergy accept the Submission, says the Imperial resident, they will for the future have less power than the shoemakers, who at least can make regulations for their own craft. That was done however.

In the autumn Archbishop Warham died; it became clear to the king that, if he appointed Cranmer, who was already committed to him in the question of the marriage, that long-standing difficulty could be got over. As yet there was no formal breach with Rome, his hand had lain heavy only on his own Church; the Annates Bill even had not been confirmed yet. Cranmer should be regularly consecrated, commissioned, and made legate, and then called on to act up to his expressed convictions. So certain was the king of his power, that, in anticipation of the sentence, he married Anne Boleyn; appointed Cranmer archbishop, obtained from him a