Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/295

. The imperial ambassador was on the watch for results: the king was proposing, he heard, to abolish synods and synodal legislation, and to take into his own hands all coercive jurisdiction on heresy; the bishops might have the souls of the sinners, he would have their bodies; it was a strange thing; priests would be of less account than shoemakers, who at least might regulate their own trade. The Venetian ambassador foresaw a new præmunire, and fixed the amount of money that the king would take, 400,000 crowns from the clergy, a vote of a fifteenth, and a year's income as succession duty. Evidently a storm was rising. The royal propositions were, however, on the 15th of May, accepted by convocation, after brisk discussion and several significant divisions. In the House of Lords the chancellor and the bishops opposed them, and prevented them from becoming law as yet. The great Lion was nearer a defeat than he had ever been before: and, when More resigned the great seal, which he did on the day that the Submission was presented, the king became very sulky. On the day of prorogation he would not show himself: as for the grant of money, the fifteenth, he did not care about it; he would neither accept nor refuse, and the clergy would not now grant more; as a matter of fact no subsidy was granted. But the clergy were brought to their knees, and the king lost his wisest and most faithful adviser. The session ended on the 14th of May; convocation was prorogued on the 15th, and on the 16th More resigned. His successor was the Speaker Audley; a change indeed.

After losing More, Henry seems to have acted more and more on the counsels of the Boleyns; and circumstances rapidly accelerated the course of events. Gardiner, who was probably his near kinsman and who certainly had helped him in every way until now, left the court, and was in disgrace for refusing to preach in favour of the divorce. Warham's death, in the following August, removed the last of the old party whose advice had any chance of being listened to. A visit to Francis I in the next month seems to have determined the king to cut the knot by peremptory action. Immediately on his return he is said to have married Anne Boleyn. As each old