marriage, are and have always been bastards: We also declare that the said Catherine the queen is to be restored to, and reinstated in, her former rank, and quasi-possession of her wifely rights and royal dignity, and that the king aforesaid must put away and remove the aforesaid Anne from his house and quasi-possession of wifely and royal rights, and by this sentence in writing We restore and reinstate, put away and remove, the aforesaid persons respectively.

"Moreover, by this same sentence, after due deliberation had, in virtue of Our office, We pronounce the aforesaid Henry to have fallen, to his own damnation, under the censure of the greater excommunication, and to have brought upon himself the other censures and penalties in the aforesaid Brief expressed, because of his disobedience thereto, and contempt thereof, and We command all the faithful to avoid him.

'Nevertheless, as a father tender of heart, We wish to deal gently and mercifully with the said Henry, and so We suspend the effects of this sentence from this day to the end of September next, that he may the more easily obey Our sentence and decrees aforementioned.

"And if within that time he shall not have submitted himself, and shall not have reinstated the said Catherine in her former rank, in which she was when the lawsuit began, and if he shall not have put the aforesaid Anne from his house and her quasi-possession of the rights. of wife and queen, and if he shall not have effectually purged his contempt, then We will and decree that this present sentence shall take effect now as then.-So We say."

THOMAS MORE-THE OBSERVANT FRIARS—THE ROYAL
SUPREMACY.

HENRY regarded the sentence as a wrong done to himself, and then, to be avenged of the Pope for his vexation, took measures for the abolition by Parliament of the oath which the English clergy took to the Pope;' and, as was done of old by Julian the Apostate, creating himself Pope, ordered a new oath to be taken, in the terms of which the clergy and people acknowledged him as the supreme head on earth, next to Christ, of the English and the Irish Church. Thus Henry cut off and

1 Hall, p. 787, says that the king sent for the Speaker of the Commons on the 11th May, in the twenty-fourth year of his reign, which was A.D. 1532, and gave him a copy of the oath taken by the prelates, saying of them that they were but "half our subjects, yea, and scarce our subjects." Now the king knew well that the bishops, for more than two hundred years, had been renouncing all clauses in their Bulls which they were pleased to call "prejudicial or hurtful" to the king "their sovereign lord," and professing to accept the temporalities of their churches from the king. Lord Herbert (p. 363) says, "Whereupon these two oaths by the king's command being read and considered, the Parliament so handled the business, as it occasioned the final renouncing of the Pope's authority about two years after.”

2

In the twenty-sixth year of the king, A.D. 1535, an oath was to be taken by all persons to this effect (26 Henry VIII. c. 2): "In case any oath be made, or hath been made by you to any person or persons, that then ye to repute the same as vain and annihilate."

2 The oaths of the bishops at this time may be seen in Foxe, v. 70-73. Each bishop acknowledges the king to be the supreme head of the Church of England "immediately under Christ," and from "this day forward I shall swear, promise, give, or cause to be given to no foreign potentate,

nor yet to the bishop of Rome whom they call Pope, any oath or fealty, directly or indirectly; . . . but at all times, and in every case and condition, I shall . . . . maintain. the quarrel and cause of your royal majesty and your successors. . . . I

severed both himself and his people from the fellowship and communion of the Roman Church, in which ever since the days of Joseph of Arimathia all those kings and people had lived, who in these islands, each in his own generation, followed the Catholic faith of Christ; and they were the Irish, the Angles, the Normans, the Danes, and, the most ancient of them all, the Welsh.

We all know, O king, that thriving and glorious Church which you have abandoned and left: the Church founded by the great apostles Peter and Paul, which has prospered and endured under two hundred and thirty successors of St. Peter,' which the bishops, the kings, and people of all Catholic nations have confessed and honoured, which shuns and condemns the impious teachings of all heresies and all heretics, which abounds. in fathers and doctors that cannot be numbered, and which is made glorious by the works of God truly marvellous and unceasing. But tell us, we adjure you by that supreme authority which you have assumed, whither did you go when you went out of the Roman Church? For if you would remain a Christian, you cannot do so without being in some Church. It is indeed true that the apostle Paul went out from among the Jews, Dionysius from the Areopagus, Justin the Martyr from the philosophers, and Augustin from the Manichees, all from the errors of the nations; but then every one of these, before he abandoned those with whom he had hitherto dwelt, saw first another society older than himself to which he could go. Paul went to Ananias, and to the others, the faithful of Damascus; Dionysius to

profess the Papacy of Rome not to be ordained of God by Holy Scripture, that the said bishop of Rome. . . is not to be called Pope or supreme bishop, but only bishop of Rome. And I shall firmly observe .. laws and acts of this

realm. . . enacted and established for the extirpation and suppression of the Papacy, and of the authority and jurisdiction of the said bishop of Rome."

1 This was written in the Pontifical of Gregory XIII.

Paul and his companions; Justin to the Church of Christ in Palestine; Augustin to Ambrose of Milan and the Catholic Church.

But you, O king, when you deserted the Roman Church, to what other Church did you go? Did you go to the Greek Church? Certainly not, for you have not denied the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. Did you go to the Ethiopic Church? No, for you have not submitted to the rite of circumcision. Did you go to the Armenians? No, for you have not denied original sin, nor, as they do, the salvation of all who died before the Passion of Christ. But at least, then, you went to Wicliffe, Luther, Zuinglius, or Calvin? Well, if you found any in your kingdom holding the errors of these men, you persecuted them with fire and sword. Whither, then, did you go when you went out of the Roman Church? Whither, indeed? It was to yourself. Well, then, you are Christ; for He alone has the authority necessary for the founding and gathering of the Christian Church together. He it was who said to Peter, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.”1 What, I ask you, does He mean by "mine," if He does not mean the Christian Church? Christ, therefore, sends us to Peter, that is to say, to His Vicar; and you? you take us away from Peter, and call us to yourself. Then you are Antichrist, as it is written, "Beware that no man seduce you, for many will come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and will seduce many." "2 To come in the name of Christ, or to say, "I am Christ," is nothing else but a man's making himself, without signs of an apostolate, without lawful and orderly mission, the head of the Church, as if the care of the sheep of Christ had been originally and principally committed to him. Had the Church, then, died out of the world had the 2 St. Matt. xxiv. 4, 5.

1 St. Matt. xvi. 18.

prophecies and promises of Christ failed before Henry and his child, had in incest, begotten a new Church of Christ? But if the Church of Christ has not failed, she must have been older than you. And if older than you, and yet not the Roman Church, you, when you left the Roman Church, should have gone to that which in your senseless decision is the truer; you should have made yourself a member of it by some sacrament, or at least by the mere laying on of hands, that we by that may know the society to which you belong, and the faith you profess. But now you have made yourself to your subjects the supreme head of the Church, you who were not even the lowest member of her.

Matters being thus arranged, the time had come when archbishop Cranmer, released, by the authority of a lay assembly,' from the obligations of the oath he had taken to the Roman Pontiff, felt himself at liberty, even against the orders of the Roman Pontiff, to separate Henry and Catherine by a sentence of divorce. Accordingly, with Henry's leave," he took with him certain bishops, proctors, advocates, and notaries to the town of Dunstable, not far from the royal residence of Ampthill, where the queen was living at the time. He summoned the queen more than once to appear in his court, and when he had waited, but in vain, for a fortnight, he

1 24 Henry VIII. c. 12, the statute by which appeals to the Pope were forbidden.

2 Cranmer asked leave of the king to put an end to the suit between the king and his wife, though the cause was then in due course of law, beyond all mere episcopal jurisdiction, pending in the court of the Pope. The king gave him leave in these terms (Collier, Eccles. Hist., ii. Records, No. 24): "Albeit we being your king and sovereign, do recognise no superior in earth, but only God, and not being subject to the laws of

3

any other earthly creature, yet because ye be under us, by God's calling the most principal minister of our spiritual jurisdiction, within this our realm, . . . will not therefore refuse-our pre-eminence and authority to us and our successors in this behalf nevertheless saved — your humble request. Wherefore

we inclining to your humble petition, . . . . do license you to proceed in the said cause."

3 Herbert, p. 375. "With him came the bishop of London [Stokesley], Winchester, being Stephen Gar