o the statement--"he first propounded and passed in
Parliament these Lawes, which made the great alteration in the State
Ecclesiastical, namely, the Act which declared King Henry VIII. to be
Supreme Head of the Church of Ireland; the Act prohibiting Apeales to
the Church of Rome; the Act for first fruites and twentieth part to be
paid to the King; and lastly, the Act that did utterly abolish the
usurped Authoritie of the Pope. Next, for the increase of the King's
Revenew. By one Act he suppressed sundry Abbayes and Religious Houses,
and by another Act resumed the Lands of the Absentees."

The royal process of conversion to the royal opinions, had at least the
merits of simplicity. There is an old rhyme--one of those old rhymes
which are often more effectual in moving the hearts of the multitude
than the most eloquent sermons, and truer exponents of popular feeling
than Acts of Parliament--which describes the fate of Forrest, the
Franciscan friar, confessor of the King's only lawful wife and the
consequences of his temerity in denying the King's supremacy:--

"Forrest, the fryar,
That obstinate lyar,
That wilfully will be dead;
Incontinently
The Gospel doth deny,
The King to be supreme head."

There is a grand and simple irony in this not easily surpassed. Some
very evident proofs had been given in England, that to deny the King's
spiritual supremacy was "wilfully to be dead," although neither the King
nor the Parliament had vouchsafed to inform the victims in what part of
the Gospel the keys of the kingdom of heaven had been given to a
temporal prince. Still, as I have observed, the royal process was
extremely simple--if you believed, you were saved; if you doubted, you
died.

With the example of Sir Thomas More[393] before their eyes, the
Anglo-Norman nobles and gentlemen, assembled in Parliament by the royal
command, were easily persuaded to do the royal bidding. But the
ecclesiastics were by no means so pliable. Every diocese had the
privilege of sending two proctors to Parliament; and these proctors
proved so serious an obstacle, that Lords Grey and Brabazon wrote to
Cromwell, that they had prorogued the Parliament in consequence of the
"forwardness and obstinacy of the proctors, of the clergy, and of the
bishops and abbots;" and they suggest that "some means should be
devised, whereby they should be brought to remember their duty better,"
or that "means may be found which shall