The Commission is addressed to 'Master David Blodmell, our commissary-general for Canterbury,' and full power is granted him to correct and reform the glaring abuses referred to in the document. But the Commission does not seem to have effected much, and when rest came after the long struggle of the Wars of the Roses, the conviction grew day by day that what the clergy of the Church could not or would not do must be undertaken by the laity.

During the interval between this Commission and the end of the reign of Henry vii. the action of Convocation was confined to details of discipline and administration, and nothing important was accomplished. In 1463 the Convocation of Canterbury forbade civil officers to arrest offenders in churches and churchyards, and made regulations about the dress of the clergy. In 1486 the Convocation of Canterbury ordered bishops to say six masses on the death of one of their number, made further regulations as to clerical dress, and fixed the date of the Feast of the Transfiguration. The York Convocation in 1488 accepted this date, and also fixed the Feast of the Sacred Name and the Feast of Dedication of all Churches, to be observed on one day, the Sunday after the Feast of S. Paul. Both Convocations in 1501 imposed a tax of onetenth on the clergy to help the Pope in wars

against the Turks, and in the same year the Convocation of Canterbury ordered prayers for the King to be said in the Mass, which the Convocation of York agreed to in the following year. From this time till 1519 the Convocation did little but make grants of money, but in this year Wolsey held a legatine court, consisting of the archbishops and bishops of both provinces, a proceeding strongly resented by Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury.

From 1519 until the first Act of Reformation, when the Pope's authority was rejected, there was constant strife between Wolsey and the Archbishop of Canterbury as to the respective jurisdiction of the legatine court and the national Convocation. For instance, in 1523 Warham summoned his Convocation to vote a subsidy. Wolsey summoned them all to meet him at Westminster, but the clergy replied that they would not vote subsidies in synod but only in convocation, and Wolsey had to concede the point, for fear of resistance from the clergy of all England, who might dispute the validity of the grant.

In 1527 Wolsey, the Pope being a captive, was made the Pope's vicar-general for all England, so that in conjunction with the prelates, assembled by royal authority, he could manage the whole

ecclesiastical state of England, the royal consent being first had. It was said that now the King first tasted the sweets of power over the clergy, and afterwards, when he appointed Cromwell as his vicar-general, he was able to quote this as a precedent.

The result of this appointment was that the legatine court drew with it a great deal of business that should have gone to the bishops' or archbishops' courts, and the bishops became mere commissaries for the legate. Complaint was made by Warham both to the cardinal and the King, but with little result.

The state of things then, just on the eve of the Reformation, was this: The Plantagenet legislation for securing the independence and true national character of the Church had almost fallen into desuetude; great abuses had grown up with which the ecclesiastical authorities were unable to cope, or which at least they were afraid to attack; the ruling power had passed into the hands of a Papal legate; and there was a mass of discontent ever seething in the breasts of the people. All things were ripe for some change, and Henry VIII. did but take advantage of the circumstances, seeing a favourable opportunity of gaining power and wealth for the attainment of his ends.

CHAPTER VII

THE BEGINNING OF REFORM

THE opportunity came to the King when, wearied with the delays of Papal procedure in the matter of the divorce he sought from his consort, he determined to try another authority, if one could be found. It was plain that nothing was to be expected from the Roman Court, and Henry was determined to have the marriage declared null and void. He was well aware of the discontent fostered by the action of the legatine court; and the muttered desires of the people for reform of the Church, not doctrinal reform but disciplinary, were becoming louder. Therefore Henry determined to use this for his own ends. The old Plantagenet Statutes were still unrepealed, and amongst them was Pramunire, which Henry determined to put in force.

The King began by accusing Wolsey and the whole of the clergy of a violation of this statute, by allowing the exercise of legatine power. It was

a bold step, and an inconsistent one, for Henry himself had acquiesced in the exercise of legatine power, and had besought an unwilling Pope to make Wolsey a cardinal.

Beaufort had not dared to show his red hat in England until he had first obtained the royal pardon for accepting it, and to save appearances he was invested privately at Calais. But Wolsey had become cardinal and legate with the connivance and full consent of Henry. Yet Henry felt no shame, being dominated by one strong purpose, and Convocation was obliged to sue humbly for pardon, the Convocation of Canterbury agreeing to pay £100,000 as indemnity. Before accepting it Henry demanded the insertion in the preamble of a clause acknowledging him as 'Protector and Supreme Head of the English Church and Clergy." The Convocation of York followed the example, agreeing to pay £18,840.

1

Archbishop Warham, in the next year, protested against all parliamentary enactments made since 1529 in derogation of the Pope's authority or of the ecclesiastical prerogatives of the province of Canterbury. The answer to this was the 'Petition of the Commons' against Church abuses.

1 For the restricted sense in which this title was acknowledged, see p. 114, infra.