n, and let a copy of the brief be in England
before Parliament opened.

Chapuys, well as he thought that he understood England, had something to
learn about it which was to be a disagreeable surprise. He had imagined
that the Pope's authority, when boldly asserted there, had never been
successfully resisted. Tradition remembered Anselm and Becket. It had
forgotten the legislation of the Edwards and of Richard II. According to
Chapuys, the Pope was to issue a brief forbidding Parliament to meddle in
the divorce case. There were laws on the statute book which forbade the
interference of the Pope under any circumstances in the internal affairs
of the English realm. Should the Pope, by bull or brief, by presentation
to offices of the Church or by delegation of his authority, attempt to
exercise direct jurisdiction in England to the prejudice of the rights of
the Crown, all persons who introduced such bulls or briefs, who recognized
the Pope's pretensions or acted on his orders, fell under Praemunire--a
vague but terrible consequence, almost as fatal as a proved charge of
treason. The statutes had been long obsolete. The sword was in its
scabbard. Wolsey had forgotten their existence when he sought and accepted
the position of Legate of the Holy See. Henry had forgotten them when he
applied for a Legatine commission to try his cause in London. The clergy
who had claimed to be independent of the State, to be an _imperium in
imperio_ with the Pope at their head, the officials who had made the name
of a Church court execrated in every county in England--all had forgotten
them. But the Acts themselves were unrepealed, and survived as a monument
of the spirit of a past generation. Doubtless it was known that the Pope
was being urged to violence. Doubtless it was known that large numbers of
the clergy were prepared to stand by him, in terror at the threatened
Reformation. The blow was to be parried by an appeal to the historical
precedents of the realm. These impatient persons were to learn that,
instead of joining in attack upon the King, they would have enough to do
to purchase their pardons for their own offences. The well-tempered steel
sprang to light again bright as ever, and while the Nuncio was dreaming of
excommunication and interdict, he learnt to his astonishment that the
subject coming before Parliament was not the divorce of the Queen, but the
position of the whole spiritualty of the realm.

By recognising Wolsey as L