again into the bosom of the church. The pope, then Julius III., being
informed of these transactions, said that it was an unexampled instance
of his felicity to receive thanks from the English for allowing them to
do what he ought to give them thanks for performing.[**]

Notwithstanding the extreme zeal of those times for and against popery,
the object always uppermost with the nobility and gentry was their money
and estates: they were not brought to make these concessions in favor of
Rome till they had received repeated assurances, from the pope as well
as the queen, that the plunder which they had made on the ecclesiastics
should never be inquired into; and that the abbey and church lands
should remain with the present possessors.[***] But not trusting
altogether to these promises, the parliament took care, in the law
itself[****] by which they repealed the former statutes enacted against
the pope's authority, to insert a clause, in which, besides bestowing
validity on all marriages celebrated during the schism, and fixing
the right of incumbents to their benefices, they gave security to
the possessors of church lands, and freed them from all danger of
ecclesiastical censures. The convocation also, in order to remove
apprehensions on that head, were induced to present a petition to the
same purpose;[v] and the legate, in his master's name, ratified all
these transactions. It now appeared that, notwithstanding the efforts of
the queen and king, the power of the papacy was effectually suppressed
in England, and invincible barriers fixed against its reestablishment.
For though the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastics was for the present
restored, their property, on which their power much depended, was
irretrievably lost, and no hopes remained of recovering it.

* Fox, vol. iii. p. 3. Heylin, p. 42. Burnet, vol. ii. p.
293. Godwin, p. 247.

** Father Paul, lib. iv.

*** Heylin, p. 41.

**** I and 2 Phil. and Mar. c. 8.

v Heylin, p. 43. I and 2 Phil, and Mar. c. 8. Strype,
vol. iii. p. 159.

Even these arbitrary, powerful, and bigoted princes, while the
transactions were yet recent, could not regain to the church her
possessions so lately ravished from her; and no expedients were left to
the clergy for enriching themselves but those which they had at first
practised, and which had required many ages of ignorance, barbarism, and
superstition to produce their effect on mankind.[*