lates of their financial
burdens. Cromwell wrote to Gardiner that he did not know how the
annates bill would succeed;[806] and the King had apparently to use
all his persuasion to get the bill through the Lords and the Commons.
Only temporal lords voted for it in the Upper House, and, in the
Lower, recourse was had to the rare expedient of a division.[807] In
both Houses the votes were taken in the King's presence. But it is
almost certain that his influence was brought to bear, not so much in
favour of the principle of the bill, as of the extremely ingenious
clause which left the execution of the Act in Henry's discretion, and
provided him with a powerful means of putting pressure on the Pope.
That was Henry's statement of the matter. He told Chapuys, before the
bill was passed, that the attack on annates was being made without his
consent;[808] and after it had been passed he instructed his
representatives at Rome to say that he had taken care to stop the
mouth of Parliament and to have the question of annates referred to
his decision.[809] "The King," writes the French envoy in England at
the end of March, "has been very cunning, for he has caused the nobles
and people to remit all to his will, so that the Pope may know that,
if he does nothing for him, the King has the means of punishing
him."[810] The execution of the clauses providing for the (p. 291)
confirmation and consecration of bishops without recourse to Rome was
also left at Henry's option.

[Footnote 799: _L. and P._, v., 737.]

[Footnote 800: Henry had ordered Cromwell to have a
bill with this object ready for the 1531 session
(_L. and P._, v., 394), and another for the
"augmentation of treasons"; apparently neither then
proved acceptable to Parliament.]

[Footnote 801: _L. and P._, v., 805.]

[Footnote 802: _Ibid._, v., 989.]

[Footnote 803: _Ibid._, v., 1046.]

[Footnote 804: _Ibid._, v., 989. This was in May
during the second part of the session, after the
other business had been finished; redress of
grievances constitutionally preceded supply.]

[Footnote 805: Annates were attacked first, partly
because they were the weakest as well as the most