would
end the whole business.

Their confidence was shaken and their activity rudely arrested by the news
of the Praemunire and the demand for the submission of the English clergy.
Too well the meaning of it was understood. On Chapuys and the Nuncio it
fell like a thunderbolt. They held an anxious consultation, and they
agreed on the least wise measure which they could possibly have adopted.
The Nuncio, as representing the majesty of the Holy See, determined to go
himself to Convocation, and exhort the Bishops to uphold the Church and
resist the King and the House of Commons. He actually went, and was much
astonished at the reception which he met with. The right reverend body was
so "scandalised" at his intrusion that they entreated him to withdraw,
without giving him time to declare his errand. They told him that, if he
had anything to say, "he must address himself to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, who was not then present." The Nuncio had to withdraw
precipitately. In his vexation he had not even the prudence to depart
quietly, but insisted on thrusting on the Bishop of London the words which
he had meant to speak.[143]

The Bishops and clergy themselves were compelled to submit to the
inevitable. The law under which they suffered had marked an epoch of
successful resistance to Papal usurpation. The revival of it was to mark
another and a greater. They struggled long enough and violently enough to
deprive their resistance of dignity, and then, "swearing they would never
consent," consented. They agreed to pay the hundred thousand pounds as the
price of their pardon. They agreed, in accepting it, to acknowledge the
King as Supreme Head of the English Church, and, to ease their conscience,
they were allowed to introduce as a qualifying phrase, _quantum per legem
Christi licet_. But the law of Christ would avail them little for their
special privileges. It would have to be interpreted by the rejection of
another form which they had desired to substitute and were not allowed.
For "_legem Christi_" they had desired to read "_legem Ecclesiae_." The
supposed claims of the Church were precisely what they were to be
compelled to disavow.

It was done. The enchantment was gone from them. They had become as other
men, shorn Samsons and no longer dangerous. The Pope might say what he
pleased. The clergy were now the King's servants, and not the Pope's, and
must either support the Crown or become confessed traitors. Thus when the