Note 93 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Dr. Lingard has pointed out, as Burnet had done less distinctly, that the bill abrogating the papal supremacy was brought into the Commons in the beginning of March, and received the royal assent on the 30th; whereas the determination of the conclave at Rome against the divorce was on the 23rd; so that the latter could not have been the cause of this final rupture. Clement VII. might have been outwitted in his turn by the king, if, after pronouncing a decree in favour of the divorce, he had found it too late to regain his jurisdiction in England. On the other hand, so flexible were the parliaments of this reign, that, if Henry had made terms with the pope, the supremacy might have revived again as easily as it had been extinguished.