The feeling of the people showed itself in this case finer and more
chivalrous than that prevalent at court. The treatment of Catharine
was so unpopular that Chapuis wrote that the king was much hated by his
subjects. [Sidenote: January, 1536] Resolved to make an example of
the murmurers, the government selected Elizabeth Barton, the "Holy Maid
of Kent." After her hysterical visions and a lucky prophecy had won
her an audience, she fell under the influence of monks and prophesied
that the king would not survive his marriage with Anne one month, and
proclaimed that he was no longer king in the eyes of God. [Sidenote:
April 1, 1534] She and her accomplices were arrested, attainted
without trial, and executed. She may pass as an English Catholic
martyr.

[Sidenote: Act in Restraint of Appeals, February 1533]

Continuing its course of making the king absolute master the Parliament
passed an Act in Restraint of Appeals, the first constitutional break
with Rome. {292} The theory of the government was set forth in the
preamble:

Whereas by divers sundry old authentic histories and
chronicles, it is manifestly declared and expressed, that
this realm of England is an Empire, and so hath been
accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and
king . . . unto whom a body politic compact of all sorts
and degrees of people, divided in terms, and by names of
spirituality and temporally, be bounden and ought to
bear, next to God, a natural and humble obedience. . . .

therefore all jurisdiction of foreign powers was denied.

[Sidenote: January 15, 1534]

When, after a recess, Parliament met again there were forty vacancies
to be filled in the Lower House, and this time care was taken that the
new members should be well affected. Scarcely a third of the spiritual
lords assembled, though whether their absence was commanded, or their
presence not required, by the king, is uncertain. As, in earlier
Parliaments, the spiritual peers had outnumbered the temporal, this was
a matter of importance. Another sign of the secularization of the
government was the change in the character of the chancellors. Wolsey
was the last great ecclesiastical minister of the reign; More and
Cromwell who followed him were laymen.

The severance with Rome was now completed by three laws. In the first
place the definite abolition of the annates meant that henceforth the
election of archbishops and bishops must be under l