o a fallen minister. He did
not seek greatness,--greatness rather sought him as the man in England
most fit to bear it. His business was to prepare the measures which were
to be submitted to Parliament by the government. His influence,
therefore, grew necessarily with the rapidity with which events were
ripening; and when the conclusive step was taken, and the king was
married, the virtual conduct of the Reformation passed into his hands.
His Protestant tendencies were unknown as yet, perhaps, even to his own
conscience; nor to the last could he arrive at any certain speculative
convictions. He was drawn towards the Protestants as he rose into power
by the integrity of his nature, which compelled him to trust only those
who were honest like himself.

NOTES:

[1] The origin of the word Lollards has been always a disputed question.
I conceive it to be from Lolium. They were the "tares" in the corn of
Catholicism.

[2] 35 Ed. I.; Statutes of Carlisle, cap. 1-4.

[3] 35 Ed. I. cap. 1-4.

[4] 25 Ed. III. stat. 4. A clause in the preamble of this act bears a
significantly Erastian complexion: _come seinte Eglise estoit founde en
estat de prelacie deins le royaulme Dengleterre par le dit Roi et ses
progenitours, et countes, barons, et nobles de ce Royaulme et lours
ancestres, pour eux et le poeple enfourmer de la lei Dieu._ If the
Church of England was held to have been founded not by the successors of
the Apostles, but by the king and the nobles, the claim of Henry VIII to
the supremacy was precisely in the spirit of the constitution.

[5] 38 Ed. III. stat. 2; 3 Ric. II. cap. 3; 12 Ric. II. cap. 15; 13 Ric.
II. stat. 2. The first of these acts contains a paragraph which shifts
the blame from the popes themselves to the officials of the Roman
courts. The statute is said to have been enacted en eide et confort du
pape qui moult sovent a estee trublez par tieles et semblables clamours
et impetracions, et qui y meist voluntiers covenable remedie, si sa
seyntetee estoit sur ces choses enfournee. I had regarded this passage
as a fiction of courtesy like that of the Long Parliament who levied
troops in the name of Charles I. The suspicious omission of the clause,
however, in the translation of the statutes which was made in the later
years of Henry VIII. justifies an interpretation more favourable to the
intentions of the popes.

[6] The abbots and bishops decently protested. Their protest was read in
parliament, and ente