Note (back) — Chapter XII

Parliament was to meet to effect this purpose in January, 1534, and during the previous autumn there are the first indications, traceable to Cromwell's hand, of an attempt to pack it. He drew up a memorandum of such seats as were vacant from death or from other causes; most of the new members appear to have been freely elected, but four vacancies were filled by "the King's pleasure."[898] More extensive and less doubtful was the royal interference in the election of abbots. Many abbeys fell vacant in 1533, and in every case commissioners were sent down to secure the election of the King's nominee; in many others, abbots were induced to resign, and fresh ones put in their place.[899] It is not clear that the main object was to pack the clerical representation in the House of Lords, because only a few of these abbots had seats there, the abbots gave much less trouble than the bishops in Parliament, and Convocation, where they largely outnumbered the bishops, was much more amenable than the House of Peers, where the bishops' votes preponderated. It is more probable that the end in view was already the dissolution of the monasteries by means of surrender. Cromwell, who was now said to "rule everything,"[900] was boasting that he would make his King the richest monarch in Christendom, and his methods may be guessed from his praise of the Sultan as a model to other princes for the authority he wielded over his subjects.[901] Henry, however, was fortunate in 1533, even in the matter of episcopal representation. He had, since the fall of Wolsey, had occasion to fill up the Sees of York, Winchester, London, Durham and Canterbury; and in this year five more became vacant: Bangor, Ely, Coventry and Lichfield by death, and Salisbury and Worcester through the deprivation by Act of Parliament of their foreign and absentee pastors, Campeggio and Ghinucci.[902] Of the other bishops, Clerk of Bath and Wells, and Longland of Lincoln, had been active in the divorce, which, indeed, Longland, the King's confessor, was said to have originally suggested about the year 1523; the Bishops of Norwich and of Chichester were both over ninety years of age.[903] Llandaff was Catherine's confessor, a Spaniard who could not speak a word of English. On the whole bench there was no one but Fisher of Rochester who had the will or the courage to make any effective stand on behalf of the Church's liberty.