In suing for the divorce, the king unexpectedly found a zealous assistant. Wolsey saw in it a means of detaching England from the alliance with Spain, odious to him as the power that thwarted his ambition, and ruled the papacy while pretending to obey it. Already his acute mind saw that the influence of the priesthood was decaying. Enthusiast as he was, he believed he could restore it. While sounds of reformation were echoing front Germany from beyond the walls of the church, Wolsey, almost alone in England, saw the danger; but he believed there was strength enough within the church to accomplish her own amendment, and he trusted now that the lost affections of the people might be brought back by a gracious exercise of the dispensing power, freeing them from a felt danger. Already the active schemer had arranged that when the work was done, the king should marry a daughter of France, converting an old enemy into a strong ally. With such ends in view, Wolsey (1527) prosecuted the divorce before Clement.
The pope found himself in difficulty. On the one hand, Francis I. supported Eng land; on the oth:f, Charles V. threatened. Clement pursued the traditional policy of Rome, and temporized. To gain time, he issued a commission to cardinal Campeggio and to Wolsey to try the question. Meanwhile, Wolsey's fair projects were rendered impossible. Anne Boleyn had been for many years about court, and when Henry VIII.'s conscience grew too scrupulous to permit his cohabiting longer with Catharine, Anne lived constantly with him. When the king announced his intention of marrying her, Wolsey's desire for the divorce was at an end. The connection promised little to the nation, and he himself had every reason to dislike her, as her relatives belonged to those reformers who sought reform from without, and as such religious sympathies as could find a place in her frivolous mind leaned also to the new learning. He was now as anxious to procrastinate as Clement. The legates' court had been opened, argument bad been heard; but on one excuse or another, judgment was delayed, till the change able Clement revoked the commission,. And (1529 a.e.) advocated Alit, cause to Rome.
The revocation of the papal commission to try the divorce question, virtually ended the papal power in England, and the steps that follow are merely the working out of inevitable results. Wolsey, suspected ou the best of grounds of having thwarted the divorce, was deprived of power, and a new ministry was formed (Oct., 1529), in which, for the first time, laymen held the highest places. Sir Thomas More was chancellor. The chief adviser of the king was Wolsey's old servant, Cromwell. Parliament was called, and the members, finding that royal approbation was now given to their com plaints, made out a formal list of grievances against the clergy. Their humble petition
to his majesty set forth how the bishops cared for nothing but the episcopal revenues, and how they converted everything, from the powers of the diocesan courts down wards, into a means of extorting money. The king solemnly sent the document to convochtion, and while the reply was under consideration, the commons proceeded. Bills were passed, with little opposition, dealing with what were wont to be thought purely ecclesiastical matters, such as fixing the tees to be exacted in the probate courts, and abating some peculiarly obnoxious hnposts made in performing the last ceremonies for the dead. Parliament touched the clergy more closely still when they forbade them to follow secular employments, or to hold pluralities, and enjoined them to live in their parishes and perform their duties. These bills passed the lower house with little opposition; in the upper house, where the spiritual lords were numerous, they passed with difficulty. The king gave his assent willingly. When the bills became law, they were received by the people with great satisfaction.
Though these measures were significant enough of what might follow from his refusal, the pope still delayed. Time was suffered to wear on, and nothing made progress except the unpopularity of the clergy. Rome still showing no symptoms of yielding, the king's political necessities again made him a reformer, and that of a very unscrupulous kind. He imposed a heavy fine on the clergy, under an old statute, for having recognized the legatine authority of Wolsey without express royal sanction. Going still further, the defender of the faith declared himself the head of the church, and induced the clergy to recognize the title in consideration of his graciously remitting a portion of their fine (22 Hen. VIII. c. 15).
Parliament having again met (1530), advantage was taken of the king's disposition still more to limit the clerical power. The clergy had long ago forced the state to give up to them the right to try their brethren when accused of crimes. Their theory was, that he on whom consecration had wrought its mystic office, was too high for the secu lar arm. The practice was, that every one who claimed the character of clerk, fronv the highest dignitaries of the church to the crowds of mendicant friars, escaped with small fines after committing tile gravest crimes. Parliament was thought to have gone far when it enacted that all below the rank of priest should be dealt with by the ordi nary courts of the realm. The same parliament passed other acts, regulating the juris diction of the ecclesiastical ,courts, and making stricter provisions against bequests to the church.