n law and
statute law limitations to the Crown's
ecclesiastical prerogative.]

CHAPTER XIII. (p. 331)

THE CRISIS.

Henry's title as Supreme Head of the Church was incorporated in the
royal style by letters patent of 15th January, 1535,[933] and that
year was mainly employed in compelling its recognition by all sorts
and conditions of men. In April, Houghton, the Prior of the Charterhouse,
a monk of Sion, and the Vicar of Isleworth, were the first victims
offered to the Supreme Head. But the machinery supplied by Parliament
was barely sufficient to bring the penalties of the statute to bear on
the two most illustrious of Henry's opponents, Fisher and More. Both
had been attainted of misprision of treason by Acts of Parliament in
the previous autumn; but those penalties extended no further than to
lifelong imprisonment and forfeiture of goods. Their lives could only
be exacted by proving that they had maliciously attempted to deprive
Henry of his title of Supreme Head;[934] their opportunities in the
Tower for compassing that end were limited; and it is possible (p. 332)
that they would not have been further molested, but for the
thoughtlessness of Clement's successor, Paul III. Impotent to effect
anything against the King, the Pope did his best to sting Henry to
fury by creating Fisher a cardinal on 20th May. He afterwards
explained that he meant no harm, but the harm was done, and it
involved Fisher's friend and ally, Sir Thomas More. Henry declared
that he would send the new cardinal's head to Rome for the hat; and he
immediately despatched commissioners to the Tower to inform Fisher and
More that, unless they acknowledged the royal supremacy, they would be
put to death as traitors.[935] Fisher apparently denied the King's
supremacy, More refused to answer; he was, however, entrapped during a
conversation with the Solicitor-General, Rich, into an admission that
Englishmen could not be bound to acknowledge a supremacy over the
Church in which other countries did not concur. In neither case was it
clear that they came within the clutches of the law. Fisher, indeed,
had really been guilty of treason. More than once he had urged Chapuys
to press upon Charles the invasion of England, a fact unknown,
perhaps, to the English Government.[936] The evidence it had (p. 333)
collected was, however, considered sufficient