Note 136 — XXXII.—To Farel.
Reading edition
The details of these negotiations will be found in Burnet, and in Seckendorf, Commentarii, lib. iii. sect. 19, par. 73. The Protestant princes of Germany, desirous to bind so powerful a monarch as the King of England as closely as possible to the cause of the Reformation, had sent deputies to request his assent to the Augsburg Confession, and the revocation of the cruel statutes still in force against those of his subjects who professed the pure Gospel. Two of the King's counsellors, Cromwell and Archbishop Cranmer, seconded timidly the entreaties of the Protestant princes; but this imperious and violent monarch, satisfied with having transferred to himself the papal authority in matters of religion, shewed indisposedness to promote the interests of an actual reformation. He protracted the negotiations, and added daily by new laws to the rigour of the most hateful despotism—that which is exercised by a prince over the consciences of his subjects.