f the King by Anne Boleyn; clauses were
added declaring that persons who impugned that marriage by writing,
printing, or other deed were guilty of treason, and those who impugned
it by words, of misprision. The Government proposal that both classes
of offenders should be held guilty of treason was modified by the
House of Commons.[910]

[Footnote 909: The succession to the crown was one
of the last matters affected by the process of
substituting written law for unwritten right which
began with the laws of Ethelbert of Kent. There had
of course been _ex post facto_ acts recognising
that the crown was vested in the successful
competitor.]

[Footnote 910: _L. and P._, vii., 51.]

On 23rd March, a week before the prorogation of Parliament, and seven
years after the divorce case had first begun, Clement gave sentence at
Rome pronouncing valid the marriage between Catherine and Henry.[911]
The decision produced not a ripple on the surface of English affairs;
Henry, writes Chapuys, took no account of it and was making as (p. 322)
good cheer as ever.[912] There was no reason why he should not.
While the imperialist mob at Rome after its kind paraded the streets
in crowds, shouting "Imperio et Espagne," and firing _feux-de-joie_
over the news, the imperialist agent was writing to Charles that the
judgment would not be of much profit, except for the Emperor's honour
and the Queen's justification, and was congratulating his master that
he was not bound to execute the sentence.[913] Flemings were tearing
down the papal censures from the doors of their churches,[914] and
Charles was as convinced as ever of the necessity of Henry's
friendship. He proposed to the Pope that some one should be sent from
Rome to join Chapuys in "trying to move the King from his error"; and
Clement could only reply that "he thought the embassy would have no
effect on the King, but that nothing would be lost by it, and it would
be a good compliment!"[915] Henry, however was less likely to be
influenced by compliments, good or bad, than by the circumstance that
neither Pope nor Emperor was in a position to employ any ruder
persuasive. There was none so poor as to reverence a Pope, and, when
Clement died six months later, the Roman populace broke into the
chamber where he lay and stabbed his corpse; th