of the authority of the pope;[618] and they
passed various other laws of economic and social moment. At length, on
the 1st of July, in a crowded house, composed of fourteen bishops,[619]
eighteen abbots, and thirty-nine lay peers,[620] a bill was read a first
time of such importance that I must quote at length its own most
noticeable words.

[Sidenote: Second great Act of Succession. The parliament endorse all
the proceedings in the late trials.]

The preamble commenced with reciting those provisions of the late acts
which were no longer to remain in force. It then proceeded, in the form
of an address to the king, to adopt and endorse the divorce and the
execution. "Albeit," it ran, "most dread Sovereign Lord, that these acts
were made, as it was then thought, upon a pure, perfect, and clear
foundation; your Majesty's nobles and commons, thinking the said
marriage then had between your Highness and the Lady Anne in their
consciences to have been pure, sincere, perfect, and good, and so was
reputed and taken in the realm; [yet] now of late God, of his infinite
goodness, from whom no secret things can be hid, hath caused to be
brought to light evident and open knowledge of certain just, true, and
lawful impediments, unknown at the making of the said acts; and since
that time confessed by the Lady Anne, before the Most Reverend Father in
God, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, sitting judicially for the same;
by the which it plainly appeareth that the said marriage was never good,
nor consonant to the laws, but utterly void and of none effect; by
reason whereof your Highness was and is lawfully divorced from the bonds
of the said marriage in the life of the said Lady Anne:

"And over this, most dread Lord, albeit that your Majesty, not knowing
of any lawful impediments, entered into the bonds of the said unlawful
marriage, and advanced the same Lady Anne to the honour of the sovereign
estate of the queen of this realm; yet she, nevertheless, inflamed with
pride and carnal desires of her body, putting apart the dread of God and
excellent benefits received of your Highness, confederated herself with
George Boleyn, late Lord Rochfort, her natural brother, Henry Norris,
Esq., Francis Weston, Esq., William Brereton, Esq., gentlemen of your
privy chamber, and Mark Smeton, groom of your said privy chamber; and so
being confederate, she and they most traitorously committed and
perpetrated divers detestable and abominable treasons