Note (Back to Main Text) — Chapter I · QUEEN JANE AND QUEEN MARY.

These general features of the temper of parliament were elicited in conversation in the first few days of the session. The Marchioness of Exeter, during the same days, was released from her attainder, Courtenay was restored in blood, and a law, similar to that with which Somerset commenced his Protectorate, repealed all late treason acts, restricted the definition of treason within the limits of the statute of Edward III., and relieved the clergy of the recent extensions of the Premunire. The queen gave her assent to these three measures on the 21st of October; and there was then an interval of three days, during which the bishops were consulted on the view taken by parliament of the queen's legitimacy. Renard told the Bishop of Norwich, Thirlby, that they must bend to the times, and leave the pope to his fortunes. They acted on the ambassador's advice. An act was passed, in which the marriage from which the queen was sprung, was declared valid, and the pope's name was not mentioned; but the essential point being secured, the framers of the statute were willing to gratify their mistress by the intensity of the bitterness with which the history of the divorce was related.[160] The bishops must have been glad to escape from so mortifying a subject, and to apply themselves to the more congenial subject of religion.