ade during Henry's
reign "in the Parliament house, _where was free speech without
danger_".[729] Wolsey had raised a storm in 1523 by trying to browbeat
the House of Commons. Henry never erred in that respect. In 1532 a
member moved that Henry should take back Catherine to wife.[730]
Nothing could have touched the King on a tenderer spot. Charles I.,
for a less offence, would have gone to the House to arrest the (p. 260)
offender. All Henry did was to argue the point of his marriage with
the Speaker and a deputation from the Commons; no proceedings whatever
were taken against the member himself. In 1529 John Petit, one of the
members for London, opposed the bill releasing Henry from his
obligation to repay the loan; the only result apparently was to
increase Petit's repute in the eyes of the King, who "would ask in
Parliament time if Petit were on his side".[731] There is, in fact,
nothing to show that Henry VIII. intimidated his Commons at any time,
or that he packed the Parliament of 1529. Systematic interference in
elections was a later expedient devised by Thomas Cromwell. It was
apparently tried during the bye-elections of 1534, and at the general
elections of 1536[732] and 1539. Cromwell then endeavoured to secure
a majority in favour of himself and his own particular policy (p. 261)
against the reactionary party in the council. His schemes had created
a division among the laity, and rendered necessary recourse to
political methods of which there was no need, so long as the laity
remained united against the Church. Nor is it without significance
that its adoption was shortly followed by Cromwell's fall. Henry did
not approve of ministers who sought to make a party for themselves.
The packing of Parliaments has in fact been generally the death-bed
expedient of a moribund Government. The Stuarts had their "Undertakers,"
and the only Parliament of Tudor times which consisted mainly of
Government nominees was that gathered by Northumberland on the eve of
his fall in March, 1553; and that that body was exceptionally
constituted is obvious from Renard's inquiry in August, 1553, as to
whether Charles V. would advise his cousin, Queen Mary, to summon a
general Parliament or merely an assembly of "notables" after the
manner introduced by Northumberland.

[Footnote 724: _L. and P._, i., 2082.]

[Footnote 725: Holinshed, _Chronicles_, iii., 956.]

[Footnote