the
time of Becket. Another act also was passed, by which no one could be
summoned, as aforetime, to the archbishop's court out of his own
diocese,--a very beneficent act, since the people had been needlessly
subject to great expense and injustice in being obliged to travel
considerable distances. It was moreover enacted that men could not
burden their estates beyond twenty years by providing priests to sing
masses for their souls. The Parliament likewise abolished annats,--a
custom which had long prevailed in Europe, which required one year's
income to be sent to the Pope on any new preferment; a great burden to
the clergy; a sort of tribute to a foreign power. Within fifty years,
one hundred and sixty thousand pounds had thus been sent from England to
Rome, from this one source of papal revenue alone,--equal to three
million pounds at the present time, or fifteen millions of dollars, from
a country of only three millions of people. It was the passage of that
act which induced Sir Thomas More (a devoted Catholic, but a just and
able and incorruptible judge) to resign the seals which he had so long
and so honorably held,--the most prominent man in England after Cromwell
and Cranmer; and it was the execution of this lofty character, because
he held out against the imperious demands of Henry, which is the
greatest stain upon this monarch's reign. Parliament also called the
clergy to account for excessive acts of despotism, and subjected them to
the penalty of a premunire (the offence of bringing a foreign authority
into England), from which they were freed only by enormous fines.

Thus it would seem that many abuses were removed by Cromwell and the
Parliament during the reign of Henry VIII. which may almost be
considered as reforms of the Church itself. The authority of the Church
was not attacked, still less its doctrines, but only abuses and
privileges the restraint of which was of public benefit, and which
tended to reduce the power of the clergy. It was this reduction of
clerical usurpations and privileges which is the main feature in the
legislation of Henry VIII., so far as it pertained to the Church. It was
wresting away the power which the clergy had enjoyed from the days of
Alfred and Ina,--a reform which Henry II. and Edward I., and other
sovereigns, had failed to effect. This was the great work of Cromwell,
and in it he had the support of his royal master, since it was a
transfer of power from the clergy to the