s were granted. As usual, Henry was able to get
what he wanted from the clergy; but from the Commons he could get no
more than they were willing to give. They again rejected the bills of
Uses and Wills, and would only concede the most paltry supplies. But
they passed with alacrity the bills embodying the submission of the
clergy. These were the Church's concessions to Henry, but it must bend
the knee to the Commons as well, and other measures were passed
reforming some of the points in their petition. Ordinaries were
prohibited from citing men out of their proper dioceses, and benefit
of clergy was denied to clerks under the order of sub-deacon who
committed murder, felony, or petty treason; the latter was a slight
extension of a statute passed in 1512. The bishops, however, led by
Gardiner and aided by More,[815] secured in the House of Lords (p. 294)
the rejection of the concessions made by the Church to the King,
though they passed those made to the Commons. Parliament, which had
sat for the unusual space of four months, was prorogued on the 14th of
May; two days later, More resigned the chancellorship and Gardiner
retired in disfavour to Winchester.

[Footnote 814: Stubbs, _Lectures_, 1887, pp.
320-24; Hall, pp. 784, 785; see also _Lords'
Journals_, 1532.]

[Footnote 815: _L. and P._, v., 1013. More had, as
Henry knew, been all along opposed to the divorce,
but as More gratefully acknowledged, the King only
employed those whose consciences approved of the
divorce on business connected with it (vii., 289).]

* * * * *

Meanwhile the divorce case at Rome made little progress. In the
highest court in Christendom the facilities afforded for the law's
delays were naturally more extended than before inferior tribunals;
and two years had been spent in discussing whether Henry's
"excusator," sent merely to maintain that the King of England could
not be cited to plead before the Papal Court, should be heard or not.
Clement was in suspense between two political forces. In December,
1532, Charles was again to interview the Pope, and imperialists in
Italy predicted that his presence would be as decisive in Catherine's
favour as it had been three years before. But Henry and Francis had,
in October, exhibited to the world the closeness of the