dden, and
it was enacted that, on receiving royal licence to elect, cathedral
chapters must elect bishops nominated by the king. The papal power was
extirpated by statute, parliament at the same time declaring that
neither the king nor kingdom would vary from the "Catholic faith of
Christendom." The submission of the clergy was made law. Appeals from
the archbishops' courts were to be to the king in chancery, and were to
be heard by commissioners, whence arose the Court of Delegates as the
court of final appeal in ecclesiastical cases. The first-fruits and
tenths of benefices were given to the king, and his title as "Supreme
Head in earth of the Church of England" was declared by parliament
without the qualification added by convocation. Fisher, bishop of
Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, lately chancellor, the two most eminent
Englishmen, were beheaded in 1535 on an accusation of attempting to
deprive the king of this title, and some Carthusian monks suffered a
more cruel martyrdom in the same cause. Meanwhile New Testaments were
burnt, and heretics, or reformers, forced to abjure or, remaining
steadfast, were sent to the stake, for though the heresy law of Henry
IV. was repealed, heresy was still punishable by death, and persecution
was not abated. By breaking the bonds of Rome Henry did not give the
church freedom; he substituted a single despotism for the dual authority
which pope and king had previously exercised over it. In 1535 Cromwell,
the king's vicar-general, began a visitation of the monasteries. The
reports (_comperta_) of his commissioners having been delivered to the
king and communicated to parliament in 1536, parliament declared the
smaller monasteries corrupt, and granted the king all of less value than
L200 a year. A rebellion in Lincolnshire and another in the north, the
formidable Pilgrimage of Grace, followed. The suppression of the greater
houses was effected gradually, surrenders were obtained by pressure, and
three abbots who were reluctant to give up the possessions of their
convents for confiscation were hanged. Monastic shrines and treasuries
were sacked and the spoil sent to the king, to whom parliament granted
all the houses, their lands and possessions. Of the enormous wealth thus
gained Henry spent a part on national defence, a little on the
foundation of the bishoprics of Westminster, dissolved in 1550, Bristol,
Chester, Gloucester, Oxford and Peterborough, and gave the lands to men
either