andalous immorality of the monks. The petitioners complained
bitterly that though the church of England would not admit persons
into sacred orders who were unfit and unworthy, yet the court of Rome
would repeatedly recognise such as lawful ministers.

Among the latter evils were the non-residence of incumbents, the
inadequacy of the stipends of curates, and the commendams of bishops.
The petitioners prayed, that whereas a great number both of regulars
and seculars who were presumptuous and ignorant were ordained, a
decree might be passed that all before ordination should be strictly
examined; and that a remedy should be provided against simony.[61]
They petitioned, also, that foreigners who could not speak English
should have no cures in England; and they complained of the practice
of patrons exacting from the priests whom they nominated to a benefice
a pledge that they would not sue for an augmentation of their (p. 066)
stipend, were it never so small. They closed their petition by
praying that all bishops who were remiss in punishing heresy, and
extirpating Lollardy, might be deposed; and that all magistrates and
officers should be bound by their oath to aid in its extirpation.[62]

[Footnote 61: There was also a prayer to prohibit
the practice of confiscating the goods of Jews and
heathens at their baptism, a practice tending to
debar them from offering themselves at the font.]

[Footnote 62: Cotton. Tiber. B. vi. F. 64.]

Henry, deeply lamenting the gross abuses referred to in this petition,
implored the Pope to suffer them to be redressed. His Holiness agreed
to certain constitutions, by which, if fully acted upon, most of the
evils complained of would have been rectified. The Pope, however,
begged Henry in return to abrogate all the laws which had been enacted
in England to the prejudice of Rome; but the King declared his
inability to meet the wishes of his Holiness.

The extent to which the abuse of the Pope's[63] authority had been
connived at in this country,--a state of things which naturally
indisposed him towards any change for the better,--may be inferred
from two facts: that he (in defiance of the statutes of Edward III.
and Richard II.) had by his own authority created thirteen (p. 067)
bishops in the province of Canterbury in two years; and had appointed
his nephew, Prospero Colonna, a boy of o