de of statement in which he was
unconditionally recognised as the protector and sovereign of the
Church and clergy of England, but as its supreme head only so far as
religion allows. This was comprehended in the formula _in so far as is
permitted by the law of Christ_, an expression which men might assent
to on opposite grounds. Some might accept it from seeing in it only
the limitation which is set to all power by the laws of God; others
from thinking that it excluded generally the influence of the secular
power on what were properly spiritual matters. When the clause was
laid before them, at the morning sitting of Feb. 11, it was received
with an ambiguous silence; but on closer consideration, it was so
evidently their only possible resource, that in the afternoon, first
the Upper House of Convocation, and then the Lower, gave their
consent. Then the King accepted the money-bill, and granted them in
return the Act of Pardon.[112]

The clergy had yet other causes for seeking the King's protection. The
writings of the Reformers, which attacked good works and vows, the
Mass and the Priesthood, and all the principles on which the
ecclesiastical system rested, found their way across the Channel, and
filled men's minds in England also with similar convictions. The only
safeguard against them lay in the King's power; his protection was no
empty word, the clergy was lost if it drew on itself Henry's aversion,
which was now directed against the Papal See.

The heavy weight of the King's hand and the impulse of
self-preservation were however not the only reasons why they yielded.
It is undeniable that the conception of the Universal Church,
according to which the National Church did but form part of a larger
whole, was nearly as much lost among the clergy as among the laity. In
the Parliament of 1532 Convocation had presented a petition in which
they desired to be released from the payments which had been hitherto
made to the supreme spiritual authority, especially the annates and
first-fruits. The National Church was the existing, immediate
authority--why should they allow taxes to be laid on them for a
distant Power, a Power moreover of which they had no need? As the
bishops complained that this injured their families and their
benefices, Parliament calculated the sums which Rome had drawn out of
the country on this ground since Henry VII's time, and which it would
soon draw at the impending vacancies; what losses the count