rch.
The position of the English clergy was an especially difficult one. They
naturally resented any curtailment of the privileges of their order,
though they dared not speak too loudly, for they owed the enjoyment of
their temporalities to the King. But they were all sons of the Church,
looking to Rome for spiritual authority, and were in mortal dread of the
advance of the new spirit of religious freedom aroused in Germany. The
method of bridling them adopted by Henry was as clever as it was
unscrupulous. The Bull giving to Wolsey independent power to judge the
matrimonial cause in England as Legate, had been, as will be recollected,
demanded by the King and recognised by him, as it had been, of course, by
the clergy; but in January 1531, when Parliament and Convocation met, the
English clergy found themselves laid under Premunire by the King for
having recognised the Legatine Bull; and were told that as subjects of the
crown, and not of the Pope, they had thus rendered themselves liable to
the punishment for treason. The unfortunate clergy were panic-stricken at
this new move, and looked in vain to Rome for support against their own
King; but Rome, as usual, was trying to run with the hare and hunt with
the hounds, and could only wail at the obstinacy both of Henry and
Katharine.

In the previous sitting of Parliament in 1529, severe laws had been passed
against the laxity and extortion of the English ecclesiastics,
notwithstanding the violent indignation of Fisher of Rochester; but what
was now demanded of them as a condition of their pardon for recognising
the Bull was practically to repudiate the authority of the Pope over them,
and to recognise the King of England as supreme head of the Church, in
addition to paying the tremendous fine of a hundred thousand pounds. They
were in utter consternation, and they struggled hard; but the alternative
to submission was ruin, and the majority gave way. The die was cast: Henry
was Pope and King in one, and could settle his own cause in his own way.
When the English clergy had thus been brought to heel, Henry's opponents
saw that they had driven him too far, and were aghast at his unexpected
exhibition of strength, a strength, be it noted, not his own, as will be
explained later; and somewhat moderated their tone. But the King of
England snapped his fingers now at threats of excommunication, and cared
nothing, he said, for any decision from Rome. The Emperor dared not go to
w