Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/289

 In 1530 there was no parliamentary session; the king- and his agents were busily collecting opinions about the divorce; and the constitutional struggle begins again in 1531. Not even now did the king think matters ripe for discussion of the divorce in parliament; and, in the council which was held preparatory to the session, it was determined that the queen's business should not be brought forward; the chief thing proposed was the exaction of money from the clergy under the threat of præmunire. The Duke of Norfolk, who was to all intents and purposes the prime minister, was negotiating with the emperor, and is said to have sworn that nothing in that parliament should be done against Katharine; Anne Boleyn and her father were drawing to the Protestants, but their time was not yet come. All the important business was done in convocation. Parliament, as the imperial envoy remarked, were employed on nothing more serious than crossbows and hand-guns. But in the convocation matters were important indeed; the king was the only person who had the skill to understand, or the will to define, the doctrine of præmunire, and it was not by præmunire alone that he could manipulate the clergy; he tried to tamper with Warham, threatened intrigue with the German Protestants, or the restraint of mortmain, or the appointment of a council of heresy which would take that question out of the hands of convocation, and other things which, vague threats at first, became realities of oppression as soon as they were familiarised to his mind. By threats and blandishments he obtained the Recognition of his headship of the Church, and the payment of £100,000. It was not done all at once; the clergy kicked against the pricks very hard: they offered 160,000 ducats, the king insisted on 400,000; the papal nuncio was pressed into the service, and even forced his way into the lower house of convocation: but the clergy, following the example of the commons of 1533, stopped their ears, and bade him negotiate in the right way through the Archbishop: as yet there was no breach with Clement VII, and in the delay of the divorce both parties were for the moment at peace. At last the clergy granted the king's terms; but they did not like