after evensong on Holy Thursday "with his
drums and fifes playing".]

With such feelings at heart, a union with Protestants could never for
Henry be more than a _mariage de convenance_; and in this, as in other
things, he carried with him the bulk of popular sympathy. In 1539 it
was said that no man in London durst speak against Catholic usages,
and, in Lent of that year, a man was hanged, apparently at the
instance of the Recorder of London, for eating flesh on a Friday.[1080]
The attack on the Church had been limited to its privileges and to its
property; its doctrine had scarcely been touched. The upper classes
among the laity had been gorged with monastic spoils; they were
disposed to rest and be thankful. The middle classes had been (p. 389)
satisfied to some extent by the restriction of clerical fees, and by
the prohibition of the clergy from competing with laymen in profitable
trades, such as brewing, tanning, and speculating in land and houses.
There was also the general reaction which always follows a period of
change. How far that reaction had gone, Henry first learnt from the
Parliament which met on the 28th of April, 1539.

[Footnote 1080: _Ibid._, i., 967. This had been
made a capital offence as early as the days of
Charlemagne (Gibbon, ed. 1890, iii., 450 n.).]

The elections were characterised by more court interference than is
traceable at any other period during the reign, though even on this
occasion the evidence is fragmentary and affects comparatively few
constituencies.[1081] It was, moreover, Cromwell and not the King who
sought to pack the House of Commons in favour of his own particular
policy; and the attempt produced discontent in various constituencies
and a riot in one at least.[1082] The Earl of Southampton was (p. 390)
required to use his influence on behalf of Cromwell's nominees at
Farnham, although that borough was within the Bishop of Winchester's
preserves.[1083] So, too, Cromwell's henchman, Wriothesley, was
returned for the county of Southampton in spite of Gardiner's
opposition. Never, till the days of the Stuarts, was there a more
striking instance of the futility of these tactics; for the House of
Commons, which Cromwell took so much pains to secure, passed, without
a dissentient, the Bill of Attainder against him; and before it was
dissolved, the bishop, against whose influence Cromwell had es