d been
spent in clipping the roots of the old tree which had overshadowed them
for centuries. On their present meeting they were to finish their work,
and lay it prostrate for ever. Negotiations were still pending with the
See of Rome, and this momentous session had closed before the final
catastrophe. The measures which were passed in the course of it are not,
therefore, to be looked upon as adopted hastily, in a spirit of
retaliation, but as the consistent accomplishment of a course which had
been deliberately adopted, to reverse the positions of the civil and
spiritual authority within the realm, and to withdraw the realm itself
from all dependence on a foreign power.

The Annates and Firstfruits' Bill had not yet received the royal assent;
but the pope had refused to grant the bulls for bishops recently
appointed, and he was no longer to receive payment for services which he
refused to render. Peter's pence were still paid, and might continue to
be paid, if the pope would recollect himself; but, like the Sibyl of
Cuma, Henry destroyed some fresh privilege with each delay of justice,
demanding the same price for the preservation of what remained. The
secondary streams of tribute now only remained to the Roman See; and
communion with the English church, which it was for Clement to accept or
refuse.

[Sidenote: Opening business of the session.]

[Sidenote: Perils of the Reformation.]

The circumstances under which the session opened were, however, grave
and saddening. Simultaneously with the concluding legislation on the
church, the succession to the throne was to be determined in terms which
might, perhaps, be accepted as a declaration of war by the emperor; and
the affair of the Nun of Kent had rendered necessary an inquiry into the
conduct of honoured members of the two Houses, who were lying under the
shadow of high treason. The conditions were for the first time to be
plainly seen under which the Reformation was to fight its way. The road
which lay before it was beset not merely with external obstacles, which
a strong will and a strong hand could crush, but with the phantoms of
dying faiths, which haunted the hearts of all living men; the
superstitions, the prejudices, the hopes, the fears, the passions, which
swayed stormily and fitfully through the minds of every actor in the
great drama.

[Sidenote: Cromwell only sees his way clearly.]

The uniformity of action in the parliament of 1529, during the seven