The Parliament declared itself ready to return to the obedience of the
Roman See, and repeal all the statutes against it, provided that the
cardinal pronounced a general dispensation, that every man might keep
without scruple the ecclesiastical property which had fallen to his
share.[168] On this understanding Cardinal Pole was allowed to
exercise his legatine power, and the King and Queen were entreated to
intercede that the absolution might be bestowed.

With heartfelt joy Cardinal Pole pronounced it without delay, first at
a meeting of the Parliament in the palace, then with greater solemnity
at S. Paul's at a high mass attended by the Court with a brilliant
suite; among those present were the knights who wore the Burgundian
order of the Golden Fleece, and those who wore the English Order of
the Garter. The King stood by the Chancellor when from the outer
corridor of the church he announced the event and its motives to the
great crowds there assembled. It made an impression on the imperial
ambassadors that no outward sign of discontent was heard.

The agreement that now followed bears more of a juridical than of a
religious character. The jurisdiction was given back to the Pope which
he possessed before the twentieth year of Henry VIII (1529): the
statutes by which it was abolished were severally enumerated and
repealed: on the other hand the Pope's legate in his name consented
that the owners of church property should not be disturbed in their
possession, either now or at any future time, either by church
councils or by Papal decrees. Such property was henceforth to be quite
as exclusively subject to the jurisdiction of the crown as any other;
whoever dared to call in question the validity of the title in any
spiritual court whatever, within or without the realm, was to be
punished as an enemy of the Queen. The cardinal legate strove long to
prevent the two enactments, as to the restoration of obedience and the
title to the ecclesiastical property, from being combined together in
one Act, since it might look as if the Pope's concession was the price
of this obedience to him; he once said, he would rather let all remain
as it was and go back to Rome than yield on this point. But the
English nobility adhered immoveably to its demand; it wished to
prevent all danger of the restoration of obedience becoming in any way
detrimental to its acquisitions, an object which was clearly best
secured by combining both enactm