{1532.} By this strict execution of the statute of provisors, a great
part of the profit, and still more of the power of the court of Rome
was cut off; and the connections between the pope and the English clergy
were in some measure dissolved. The next session found both king and
parliament in the same dispositions. An act was passed against levying
the annates or first-fruits,[****] being a year's rent of all the
bishoprics that fell vacant; a tax which was imposed by the court of Rome
for granting bulls to the new prelates, and which was found to amount to
considerable sums.

* Antiq. Brit. Eccles. p. 325. Burnet, vol. i. p. 106.

** Holingshed, p. 923.

*** Hall's Chronicle. Holingshed, p. 923. Baker, p. 208.

**** Burnet, vol. i. Collect. No. 41. Strype, vol. i. p.
144.

Since the second of Henry VII., no less than one hundred and sixty
thousand pounds had been transmitted to Rome on account of this claim;
which the parliament, therefore, reduced to five per cent. on all the
episcopal benefices. The better to keep the pope in awe, the king was
intrusted with a power of regulating these payments, and of confirming
or infringing this act at his pleasure; and it was voted, that any
censures which should be passed by the court of Rome on account of that
law, should be entirely disregarded, and that mass should be said, and
the sacraments administered, as if no such censures had been issued.

This session, the commons preferred to the king a long complaint against
the abuses and oppressions of the ecclesiastical courts; and they were
proceeding to enact laws for remedying them, when a difference arose,
which put an end to the session before the parliament had finished all
their business. It was become a custom for men to make such settlements,
or trust deeds, of their lands by will, that they defrauded not only the
king, but all other lords, of their wards, marriages, and reliefs; and
by the same artifice the king was deprived of his premier seizin, and
the profits of the livery, which were no inconsiderable branches of his
revenue. Henry made a bill be drawn to moderate, not remedy altogether,
this abuse; he was contented, that every man should have the liberty
of disposing in this manner of the half of his land; and he told the
parliament in plain terms, "if they would not take a reasonable thing
when it was offered, he would search out the extremity of the law; and
then would not offe