hrowing it out: the Lollards' bill came on the day after, and here
his difficulty was far greater; for toleration was imperfectly
understood by {p.135} Catholic or Protestant, and many among the
peers, who hated the bishops, equally hated heresy. Paget, however,
spoke out his convictions, and protested against the iniquity of
putting men to death for their opinions.[319] The bill was read a
first time on the day on which it was introduced; on the 4th of May it
was read again,[320] but it went no further. The next day parliament
was dissolved. The peers assured the queen that they had no desire to
throw a shield over heresy; the common law existed independent of
statute, and the common law prescribed punishments which could still
be inflicted.[321] But, so long as heresy was undefined, Anabaptists,
Socinians, or professors of the more advanced forms of opinion, could
alone fall within the scope of punishments merely traditional.

[Footnote 319: Quant l'on a parle de la peyne des
heretiques, il a sollicite les sieurs pour non y
consentir, y donner lieu a peyne de mort.--Renard
to Charles V., May 1.]

[Footnote 320: _Lords Journals._]

[Footnote 321: There can, I think, be no doubt that
it was this which the peers said. The statute of
Henry IV. was not passed; yet the queen told
Renard, "que le peyne antienne contre les
heretiques fut agree par toute la noblesse, et
qu'ilz fairent dire expressement et publiquement
qu'ilz entendoient l'heresie estre extirpee et
punie." The chancellor informed Renard that,
"Although the Heresy Bill was lost, there were
penalties of old standing against heretics which
had still the form of law, and could be put in
execution." And, on the 3rd of May, the privy
council directed the judges and the queen's learned
counsel to be called together, and their opinions
demanded, "what they think in law her highness may
do touching the cases of Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer,
being already, by both the Universities of Oxford
and Cambridge, judged to be obstinate heretics,