Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/293

 for the bill and it went down to the Commons. There also the king's presence was required; in the house the noes had it. Then Henry insisted on a division; a taking of single votes which, from some other illustrations which it would be tedious now to refer to, we infer to have been as yet an exceptional method of ascertaining the sense of the house. Partly by promising that there should be no more acts against the pope, partly by the terror of his majestic eyes, he obtained a majority; men could not comfortably vote in the presence of the definer of all præmunires. This much was accomplished before the Easter adjournment; the Statutes of Wills and Uses passed the Lords but were rejected by the Commons, and the king did not press them at the time.

The question of the Annates had opened his eyes to his power of obtaining further concessions. In the beginning of March, by the contrivance of Rochford, the parliament was discussing the possibility of transferring to the king all the power and authority of the archbishops and bishops: the divorce question was simmering in both houses; and Warham had plucked up spirit to speak up for the queen. This was not to be endured. Accordingly the old antagonism of the Commons to the spiritual courts was utilised, and an address drawn up by the king's secretaries was put in their hands to be delivered to the king as the prayer of the Commons. Audley, as Speaker, and a number of his own servile party presented it; it contained a bitter attack on the canon law and ecclesiastical jurisdictions generally, and, in twelve clauses, some of greater and some of less importance, singled out points for reform. The king received it on the 18th of March, and, as soon as Easter was over, it was laid before convocation for an answer. Both Houses of convocation discussed it in detail; the Upper House prepared an answer on the points that touched the bishops; the Lower on those touching the parochial clergy: both agreed in demanding a specific statement instead of general charges. The answer was sent to the king about the 27th of April; and the king was of course prepared to find it unsatisfactory.

On the 30th his Majesty sent for the speaker and showed him the answer, referring it, as a very slender production, to