ns, the smallest of created things may contrive to look
down on the greatest, and to affect to compassionate his want of
range. For purposes of controversy, the Anglican could talk of himself
as a terrestrial ancient-of-days, and regret the rage for innovation,
which led, not, of course, to his separation from Rome, but to Rome's
separation from him! So the pebble, if determined to put a good face
on it, might wonder what had become of the rock, and recite the
parable of the return of the prodigal to the Atlas Range"; and so
forth. The fact is that every unprejudiced man, who has so much as a
mere bowing acquaintance with the facts of history, knows perfectly
well that before the sixteenth century the Church in England was
united to the Holy See, and rested where Christ Himself had built it,
_viz._, on Peter, the rock. Whereas, after the sixteenth century, it
became a State Church, dependent, not on Peter, but upon Parliament,
and as purely local, national, and English as the British Army or the
British Navy. Bramhall tells us that, "whatsoever power our laws did
divest the Pope of, they invested the King with" (_Schism Guarded_, p.
340).

We dealt in the last chapter with the relation between the
pre-Reformation Archbishops and Metropolitans and the Pope, and we saw
how each in turn swore obedience to the Vicar of Christ as his
spiritual sovereign. We will now conclude the present chapter by
transcribing a typical address presented by another representative
body of men to the Pope, in past times. It is the year 1427. Now
Chicheley, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had been accused at Rome of
some fault or indiscretion, so the other Bishops of the province met
together for the purpose of defending him. With this end in view,
they address a letter to Pope Martin V. It begins as follows:--

"Most Blessed Father, one and only undoubted Sovereign Pontiff, Vicar
of Jesus Christ upon earth, with all promptitude of service and
obedience, kissing most devoutly your blessed feet," and so forth.
They then proceed to defend their Metropolitan, and in doing so
declare that "the Archbishop of Canterbury is, Most Blessed Father, a
most devoted son of your Holiness and of the Holy Roman Church". Nay,
more; they go on to testify that "he is so rooted in his loyalty, and
so unshaken in his allegiance especially to the Roman Church, that it
is known to the whole world, and ought to be known to the city
(_i.e._, Rome) that he is the most f