in
the bill of uniformity I Eliz. cap 2.

In determining heresy, the sovereign was only limited (if that could be
called a limitation) to such doctrines as had been adjudged heresy by
the authority of the Scripture, by the first four general councils, or
by any general council which followed the Scripture as their rule, or
to such other doctrines as should hereafter be denominated heresy by
the parliament and convocation. In order to exercise this authority,
the queen, by a clause of the act, was empowered to name commissioners,
either laymen or clergymen, as she should think proper; and on this
clause was afterwards founded the court of ecclesiastical commission;
which assumed large discretionary, not to say arbitrary powers, totally
incompatible with any exact boundaries in the constitution. Their
proceedings, indeed, were only consistent with absolute monarchy; but
were entirely suitable to the genius of the act on which they were
established; an act that at once gave the crown alone all the power
which had formerly been claimed by the popes, but which even these
usurping prelates had never been able fully to exercise without some
concurrence of the national clergy.

Whoever refused to take an oath acknowledging the queen's supremacy, was
incapacitated from holding any office; whoever denied the supremacy, or
attempted to deprive the queen of that prerogative, forfeited, for the
first offence, all his goods and chattels; for the second, was subjected
to the penalty of a praemunire; but the third offence was declared
treason. These punishments, however severe, were less rigorous than
those which were formerly, during the reigns of her father and brother,
inflicted in like cases.

A law was passed confirming all the statutes enacted in King Edward's
time with regard to religion:[*] the nomination of bishops was given
to the crown, without any election of the chapters: the queen was
empowered, on the vacancy of any see, to seize all the temporalities,
and to bestow on the bishop elect an equivalent in the impropriations
belonging to the crown. This pretended equivalent was commonly much
inferior in value; and thus the queen, amidst all her concern for
religion, followed the example of the preceding reformers in committing
depredations on the ecclesiastical revenues.

The bishops and all incumbents were prohibited from alienating their
revenues, and from letting leases longer than twenty-one years or three
live