Bulls for Canterbury should be delayed till the sentence was ready for
delivery. If the Pope knew Cranmer's reputation as a heretic, he would be
in no haste to confirm him.[209]

Clement knew well enough what Cranmer was, and the Bulls had been
despatched promptly before the Emperor could interfere. The King
meanwhile had committed himself, and now went straight forward. He allowed
his marriage to be known. Lord Wiltshire had withdrawn his opposition to
it.[210] Lord Rochfort, Anne's brother, was sent at the beginning of March
to Paris, to say that the King had acted on the advice given him by his
good brother at their last interview. He had taken a wife for the
establishment of his realm in the hope of having male issue. He trusted,
therefore, that Francis would remember his promise. In citing him to Rome
the Pope had violated the rights of sovereign Princes. It touched them
all, and, if allowed, would give the Pope universal authority. The time
was passed when such pretensions could be tolerated.[211]

At home he prepared for the worst. The fleet was further increased, new
ships were put on the stocks; the yeomanry were armed, drilled, and
equipped, and England rang with sounds of preparation for war; while in
Parliament the famous Act was introduced which was to form the
constitutional basis of national independence, and to end for ever the
Papal jurisdiction in England. From the time that Convocation had
acknowledged the King to be the Head of the Church the question of appeals
to Rome had been virtually before the country. It was now to be settled,
and English lawsuits were henceforth to be heard and decided within the
limits of the empire. The Sibyl's pages were being rent out one by one.
The Praemunire had been revived, and the Pope's claim of independent right
to interfere by bull or brief in English affairs had been struck rudely
down. Tribute in the shape of annates went next; the appellate
jurisdiction was now to follow. Little would then be left save spiritual
precedence, and this might not be of long continuance. There had been
words enough. The time had come to act. On the introduction of the Act of
Appeals the King spoke out to Chapuys as if the spirit of the Plantagenets
was awake in him. "He said a thousand things in disparagement of the Pope,
complaining of the authority and power he unduly assumed over the kingdoms
of Christendom. He professed to have seen a book from the Papal library,
in which it w