Note 1210 — XXVI. THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.

Burnet I. 258-9.—31 Henry VIII. c. xiv. Mr. Froude endeavors to relieve Henry of the responsibility of this measure, and quotes Melanchthon to show that its cruelty is attributable to Gardiner (Hist. Engl. III. 395). He admits, however, that the bill as passed differs but slightly from that presented by the king himself, with whom the committee which framed it must have acted in concert. According to Strype, “The Parliament men said little against this bill, but seemed all unanimous for it; neither did the Lord Chancellor Audley, no, nor the Lord Privy Seal, Cromwel, speak against it: the reason being, no question, because they saw the king so resolved upon it.... Nay, at the very same time it passed, he (Cranmer) stayed and protested against it, though the king desired him to go out, since he could not consent to it. Worcester (Latimer) also, as well as Sarum (Shaxton), was committed to prison; and he, as well as the other, resigned up his bishopric upon the act”—(Memorials of Cranmer, Book I. Chap. 19). This shows us how the royal influence was used. Cranmer, indeed, in his reply to the Devonshire rebels, when in 1549 they demanded the restoration of the Six Articles, expressly asserts “that if the king’s majesty himself had not come personally into the Parliament house, those lawes had never passed” (Ibid. App. No. XL.).