ize the King's
inclination, and who dare gainsay its enactments? Let the law declare
Henry the head of the Church, and he could, as such, give himself the
dispensations for which he sought. The law which could frame articles of
faith and sanction canons, could regulate morals as easily as it could
enact a creed.

Such counsel was but too acceptable to a monarch resolved to gratify his
passions at all hazards, temporal or spiritual. Cromwell was at once
appointed a member of the Privy Council. He received a patent for life
of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, and he was authorized to frame
the necessary bills, and conduct them through the two houses.[388]
Parliament complied without hesitation; the clergy in convocation made a
show of opposition, which just sufficed to enhance their moral
turpitude, since their brief resistance intimated that they acted
contrary to their consciences in giving their final assent. The royal
supremacy in matters ecclesiastical, was declared to be the will of God
and the law of the land.

The King's mistress was now made his wife, by the same authority which
had made the King head of the Church; and it was evident that the
immediate cause of the separation of the English nation from the
Catholic Church was the desire of the monarch, that his profligacy
should obtain some kind of sanction. But this commencement of the
Anglican Establishment, however true, is so utterly disreputable, that
English historians have been fain to conceal, as far as might be, the
real cause, and to justify the schism by bringing grave charges[389]
against the Church. This, after all, is a mere _petitio principii_. It
has been already remarked that England was demoralized socially to an
extraordinary degree, as a nation always has been by a continuance of
civil war. The clergy suffered from the same causes which affected the
laity, and the moral condition of the ecclesiastical body was not all
that could be desired. These were remote causes, which acted powerfully
as they rolled along the stream of time, and which broke the barriers of
faith like an overwhelming torrent, when an additional impetus was
given. But it should be distinctly remembered (1) that the direct act of
schism was committed when Henry required Parliament and Convocation to
exalt him to the spiritual supremacy; and (2) that the sins of churchmen
and the faith of the Church are two distinct questions. There may have
been more corruption of life