s. Men who had been roused from implicit
obedience to the Papacy as a revelation of the Divine will by hearing
the Pope denounced in royal proclamations as a usurper and an impostor
were hardly inclined to take up submissively the new official doctrine
which substituted implicit belief in the King for implicit belief in the
"Bishop of Rome." But bound as Church and King now were together, it was
impossible to deny a tenet of the one without entering on a course of
opposition to the other. Cromwell had raised against the Monarchy the
most fatal of all enemies, the force of the individual conscience, the
enthusiasm of religious belief, the fire of religious fanaticism. Slowly
as the area of the new Protestantism extended, every man that it gained
was a possible opponent of the Crown. And should the time come, as the
time was soon to come, when the Crown moved to the side of
Protestantism, then in turn every soul that the older faith retained
was pledged to a lifelong combat with the Monarchy.

[Sidenote: The Imperial Alliance.]

How irresistible was the national drift was seen on Cromwell's fall. Its
first result indeed promised to be a reversal of all that Cromwell had
done. Norfolk returned to power, and his influence over Henry seemed
secured by the king's repudiation of Anne of Cleves and his marriage in
the summer of 1540 to a niece of the Duke, Catharine Howard. But
Norfolk's temper had now become wholly hostile to the movement about
him. "I never read the Scripture nor never will!" the Duke replied hotly
to a Protestant arguer. "It was merry in England afore the new learning
came up; yea, I would all things were as hath been in times past." In
his preference of an Imperial alliance to an alliance with Francis and
the Lutherans Henry went warmly with his minister. Parted as he had been
from Charles by the question of the divorce, the King's sympathies had
remained true to the Emperor; and at this moment he was embittered
against France by the difficulties it threw in the way of his projects
for gaining a hold upon Scotland. Above all the king still clung to the
hope of a purification of the Church by a Council, as well as of a
reconciliation of England with the general body of this purified
Christendom, and it was only by the Emperor that such a Council could be
convened or such a reconciliation brought about. An alliance with him
was far from indicating any retreat from Henry's position of
independence or any subm