Note (back) — Chapter XI

Pending the result of Henry's appeal to the universities, little was done in the matter in England. The lords spiritual and temporal signed in June, 1530, a letter to the Pope urging him to comply with their King's request for a divorce.[788] Parliament did not meet until 16th January, 1531, and even then Chapuys reports that it was employed on nothing more important than cross-bows and hand-guns, the act against which was not, however, passed till 1534. The previous session had shown that, although the Commons might demur to fiscal exactions, they were willing enough to join Henry in any attack on the Church, and the question was how to bring the clergy to a similar state of acquiescence. It was naturally a more difficult task, but Henry's ingenuity provided a sufficient inducement. His use of the statutes of præmunire was very characteristic. It was conservative, it was legal, and it was unjust. Those statutes were no innovation designed to meet his particular case; they had been for centuries the law of the land; and there was no denying the fact that the clergy had broken the law by recognising Wolsey as legate. Henry, of course, had licensed Wolsey to act as legate, and to punish the clergy for an offence, at which he had connived, was scarcely consistent with justice; but no King ever showed so clearly how the soundest constitutional maxims could be used to defeat the pleas of equity; it was frequently laid down during his reign that no licence from the King could be pleaded against penalties imposed by statute, and not a few parliamentary privileges were first asserted by Henry VIII.[789] So the clergy were cunningly caught in the meshes of the law. Chapuys declares that no one could understand the mysteries of præmunire; "its interpretation lies solely in the King's head, who amplifies it and declares it at his pleasure, making it apply to any case he pleases". He at least saw how præmunire could be made to serve his purposes.[790]