vacancies were filled by "the King's pleasure."[898] More
extensive and less doubtful was the royal interference in the election
of abbots. Many abbeys fell vacant in 1533, and in every case
commissioners were sent down to secure the election of the King's
nominee; in many others, abbots were induced to resign, and fresh (p. 318)
ones put in their place.[899] It is not clear that the main object was
to pack the clerical representation in the House of Lords, because
only a few of these abbots had seats there, the abbots gave much less
trouble than the bishops in Parliament, and Convocation, where they
largely outnumbered the bishops, was much more amenable than the House
of Peers, where the bishops' votes preponderated. It is more probable
that the end in view was already the dissolution of the monasteries by
means of surrender. Cromwell, who was now said to "rule everything,"[900]
was boasting that he would make his King the richest monarch in
Christendom, and his methods may be guessed from his praise of the
Sultan as a model to other princes for the authority he wielded over
his subjects.[901] Henry, however, was fortunate in 1533, even in the
matter of episcopal representation. He had, since the fall of Wolsey,
had occasion to fill up the Sees of York, Winchester, London, Durham
and Canterbury; and in this year five more became vacant: Bangor, Ely,
Coventry and Lichfield by death, and Salisbury and Worcester through
the deprivation by Act of Parliament of their foreign and absentee
pastors, Campeggio and Ghinucci.[902] Of the other bishops, Clerk of
Bath and Wells, and Longland of Lincoln, had been active in the
divorce, which, indeed, Longland, the King's confessor, was said to
have originally suggested about the year 1523; the Bishops of Norwich
and of Chichester were both over ninety years of age.[903] (p. 319)
Llandaff was Catherine's confessor, a Spaniard who could not speak a
word of English. On the whole bench there was no one but Fisher of
Rochester who had the will or the courage to make any effective stand
on behalf of the Church's liberty.

[Footnote 898: _L. and P._, vi., 1382; vii., 56. A
whole essay might be written on this latter brief
document; it is not, what it purports to be, a list
of knights of the shires who had died since the
beginning of Parliament, for the names are those of