me.

Wolsey's enemies, finding that either his innocence or his caution
prevented them from having any just ground of accusing him, had recourse
to a very extraordinary expedient. An indictment was laid against him,
that, contrary to a statute of Richard II., commonly called the
statute of provisors, he had procured bulls from Rome, particularly one
investing him with the legatine power, which he had exercised with very
extensive authority. He confessed the indictment, pleaded ignorance
of the statute, and threw himself on the king's mercy. He was perhaps
within reach of the law but besides that this statute had fallen into
disuse, nothing could be more rigorous and severe than to impute to
him as a crime what he had openly, during the course of so many years,
practised with the consent and approbation of the and the acquiescence
of the parliament and kingdom. Not to mention what he always
asserted,[*] and what we can scarcely doubt of, that he had obtained
the royal license in the most formal manner, which, had he not been
apprehensive of the dangers attending any opposition to Henry's lawless
will, he might have pleaded in his own defence before the judges.
Sentence, however, was pronounced against him, "That he was out of the
king's protection; his lands and goods forfeited; and that his person
might be committed to custody." But this prosecution of Wolsey was
carried no further. Henry even granted him a pardon for all offences;
restored him part of his plate and furniture; and still continued, from
time to time, to drop expressions of favor and compassion towards him.

The complaints against the usurpations of the ecclesiastics had been
very ancient in England, as well as in most other European kingdoms; and
as this topic was now become popular every where, it had paved the way
for the Lutheran tenets, and reconciled the people, in some measure, to
the frightful idea of heresy and innovation. The commons, finding the
occasion favorable, passed several bills restraining the impositions of
the clergy; one for the regulating of mortuaries; another against the
exactions for the probates of wills; [**] a third against non-residence
and pluralities, and against church-men's being farmers of land. But
what appeared chiefly dangerous to the ecclesiastical order, were the
severe invectives thrown out, almost without opposition, in the house,
against the dissolute lives of the priests, their ambition, their
avarice, and thei