with Sacramentaries,[1077]
exercises which exhibited to advantage at once the royal authority and
the royal learning in spiritual matters. His beliefs were not due to
caprice or to ignorance; probably no bishop in his realm was more
deeply read in heterodox theology.[1078] He was constantly on the (p. 388)
look-out for books by Luther and other heresiarchs, and he kept quite
a respectable theological library at hand for private use. The
tenacity with which he clung to orthodox creeds and Catholic forms was
not only strengthened by study but rooted in the depths of his
character. To devout but fundamentally irreligious men, like Henry
VIII. and Louis XIV., rites and ceremonies are a great consolation;
and Henry seldom neglected to creep to the Cross on Good Friday, to
serve the priest at mass, to receive holy bread and holy water every
Sunday, and daily to use "all other laudable ceremonies".[1079]

[Footnote 1077: _E.g._, _L. and P._, v., 285;
XIII., ii., 849, Introd., p. xxviii. Sir John
Wallop admired the "charitable dexterity" with
which Henry treated them (_ibid._, xv., 429).]

[Footnote 1078: When a book was presented to him
which he had not the patience to read he handed it
over to one of his lords-in-waiting to read; he
then took it back and gave it to be examined to
some one of an entirely different way of thinking,
and made the two discuss its merits, and upon that
discussion formed his own opinion (Cranmer to
Wolfgang Capito, _Works_, ii., 341; the King, says
Cranmer, "is a most acute and vigilant observer").
Henry was also, according to modern standards,
extraordinarily patient of theological discourses;
when Cranmer obtained for Latimer an appointment to
preach at Court, he advised him not to preach more
than an hour or an hour and a half lest the King
and Queen should grow weary! (_L. and P._, vii.,
29).]

[Footnote 1079: _L. and P._, XIV., i., 967, an
interesting letter which also records how the King
rowed up and down the Thames in his barge for an
hour