sieme con altre opinion delle
universita di Angliterra et d'altrove per Mr. Winschier [father of
Anne Boleyn] al papa si possino monstrar o presentar.

[118] 'The moste part of the nobles of the realm.' Cranmer's letter to
Hawkyns. Archaeologia xviii. 79.

[119] In the treaty of Bologna (1 Feb. 1533) is an article, 'pro
administranda justitia super divortio Anglicano et--amputando omnem
superfluam dilationem'

[120] Instruccion para el Conde de Cifuentes y Rodrigo Avalos. Papiers
d'etat de Granvelle ii. 45

[121] In a later report to the Emperor it is said, that the rights of
the Queen and Princess were recognised, 'a l'instante poursuite de S.
Me. Imperiale.' Ibid. ii. 210.

[122] In Halliwell, Letters of the Kings of England i. 337.

CHAPTER V.

THE OPPOSING TENDENCIES WITHIN THE SCHISMATIC STATE.

Among the results of these transactions in England that which most
directly concerned the higher interests of the nation was the
abolition, by a formal decision of Parliament, on religious grounds,
of the hereditary title of the King's daughter by his Spanish Queen,
and the recognition of the succession of Queen Anne's issue to the
throne, even in the case of her having only the one daughter who had
been meanwhile born. This does not depend so much on the actual
measures taken as on the fact, that now, according to Wolsey's plan,
the government had broken with the political system which had
prevailed hitherto, and indeed in a sense that went far beyond his
views. Not merely was a French alliance avoided; the separation from
the Church of Rome was to become the basis of the whole dynastic
settlement of England.

At home men felt most the harshness and violence of basing a political
rule on Church ideas. The statute contains threats of the sharpest
punishments against all who should do or write or even say anything
against it: a commission was appointed, in which we find the Dukes of
Norfolk and Suffolk, which could require every one to take an oath of
conformity to it. It was to be carried out with the full weight of
English adherence to the law.

It was to this very statute that Bishop Fisher of Rochester and Sir
Thomas More fell victims. They did not refuse to acknowledge the order
of succession itself thus enacted, for this was within the competence
of Parliament, but they would not confirm with their oath the reason
laid down in the statute, that Henry's marriage with Catharine was
against Scripture