st the legislation of
1529-32 (_ibid._, v., 818). The likeness between
Henry VIII. and Henry II. extended beyond their
policy to their personal characteristics, and the
great Angevin was much in the Tudor's mind at this
period. Chapuys also called Henry VIII.'s attention
to the fate of Henry II. (_ibid._, vii., 94).]

[Footnote 748: _L. and P._, v., App. 10.]

[Footnote 749: _Ibid._, v., 831; _cf._ v., 898,
989, App. 28.]

These infinite clamours and grudging were not the result of the (p. 272)
conscientious rejection of any Catholic or papal doctrine. Englishmen
are singularly free from the bondage of abstract ideas, and they began
their Reformation not with the enunciation of some new truth, but with
an attack on clerical fees. Reform was stimulated by a practical
grievance, closely connected with money, and not by a sense of wrong
done to the conscience. No dogma plays such a part in the English
Reformation as Justification by Faith did in Germany, or Predestination
in Switzerland. Parliament in 1530 had not been appreciably affected
by Tyndale's translation of the Bible or by any of Luther's works.
Tyndale was still an exile in the Netherlands, pleading in vain for
the same toleration in England as Charles V. permitted across the sea.
Frith was in the Tower--a man, wrote the lieutenant, Walsingham, whom
it would be a great pity to lose, if only he could be reconciled[750]--and
Bilney was martyred in 1531. A parliamentary inquiry was threatened in
the latter case, not because Parliament sympathised with Bilney's
doctrine, but because it was said that the clergy had procured his
burning before obtaining the State's consent.[751] Parliament was as
zealous as Convocation against heresy, but wanted the punishment of
heretics left in secular hands.

[Footnote 750: _L. and P._, v., 1458.]

[Footnote 751: _Ibid._, v., 522; vii., 171.]

In this, as in other respects, the King and his Parliament were in the
fullest agreement. Henry had already given proof of his anti-clerical
bias by substituting laymen for churchmen in those great offices of
State which churchmen had usually held. From time immemorial the Lord
Chancellor had been a Bishop,[752] but in 1529 Wolsey was succeeded
by More, and, later on, More by Au