e to the king for his third adventure into
marriage.]

"Then, turning to the present, you will consider in what state the realm
now standeth with respect to the oath by which we be bound to the Lady
Anne and to her offspring; the which Lady Anne, with her accomplices,
has been found guilty of high treason, and has met the due reward of her
conspiracies. And then you will ask yourselves, what man of common
condition would not have been deterred by such calamities from venturing
a third time into the state of matrimony. Nevertheless, our most
excellent prince, not in any carnal concupiscence, but at the humble
entreaty of his nobility, hath consented once more to accept that
condition, and has taken to himself a wife who in age and form is deemed
to be meet and apt for the procreation of children.

"Lastly, according to the third injunction, let us now do our part in
providing for things to come. According to the desire of his most
gracious Highness, let us name some person to be his heir; who, in case
(_quod absit_) that he depart this life leaving no offspring lawfully
begotten, may be our lawful sovereign. But let us pray Almighty God that
He will graciously not leave our prince thus childless; and let us give
Him thanks for that He hath preserved his Highness to us out of so many
dangers; seeing that his Grace's care and efforts be directed only to
the ruling his subjects in peace and charity so long as his life
endures, and to the leaving us, when he shall come to die, in sure
possession of these blessings."

[Sidenote: The speech digested into a statute.]

[Sidenote: July 1. Reassertion of the independence of the realm.]

Three weeks after Anne Boleyn's death and the king's third marriage, the
chancellor dared to address the English legislature in these terms: and
either he spoke like a reasonable man, which he may have done, or else
he was making an exhibition of effrontery to be paralleled only by
Seneca's letter to the Roman Senate after the murder of Agrippina. The
legislature adopted the first interpretation, and the heads of the
speech were embodied in an act of parliament. While the statute was in
preparation, they made use of the interval in continuing the business of
the Reformation. They abolished finally the protection of sanctuary in
cases of felony, extending the new provisions even to persons in holy
orders:[617] they calmed the alarms of Cranmer and the Protestants by re
asserting the extinction