and "many think that
there is a secret agreement between Henry and the Pope".[833] That
idea was sedulously fostered by Henry. Twice he took the Pope's nuncio
down in state to Parliament to advertise the excellent terms upon
which he stood with the Holy See.[834] In the face of such evidence,
what motive was there for prelates and others to reject the demands
which Henry was pressing upon them? The Convocations of Canterbury and
York repeated the submission of 1532, and approved, by overwhelming
majorities, of two propositions: firstly, that, as a matter of law,
the Pope was not competent to dispense with the obstacle to a marriage
between a man and his deceased brother's wife, when the previous
marriage had been consummated; and secondly, that, as a matter of
fact, the marriage between Catherine and Prince Arthur had been so
consummated.[835] In Parliament, the Act forbidding Appeals to
Rome,[836] and providing for the confirmation and consecration of (p. 299)
bishops without recourse to the Papal Court, was discussed. It was,
like the rest of Henry's measures, based on a specious conservative
plea. General councils had, the King said, decreed that suits should
be determined in the place in which they originated;[837] so there was
no need for appeals to go out of England. Such opposition as it
encountered was based on no religious principle. Commercial interests
were the most powerful impulse of the age, and the Commons were afraid
that the Act of Appeals might be followed by a papal interdict. They
did not mind the interdict as depriving them of religious consolations,
but they dreaded lest it might ruin their trade with the Netherlands.[838]
Henry, however, persuaded them that the wool trade was as necessary to
Flemings as it was to Englishmen, and that an interdict would prove no
more than an empty threat. He was careful to make no other demands
upon the Commons. No subsidies were required; no extension of royal
prerogative was sought; and eventually the Act of Appeals was passed
with a facility that seems to have created general surprise.[839]

[Footnote 831: _L. and P._, vi., 142.]

[Footnote 832: _Ibid._, vi., 296.]

[Footnote 833: _Ibid._, vi., 89.]

[Footnote 834: _Ibid._, vi., 142, 160. The nuncio
sat on Henry's right and the French ambassador on
his left, this trinity illustrating the league