ecclesiastical benefices." The
reception of the measure can be traced in the changes of form which it
experienced. The payment of annates to the See of Rome was a
grievance, both among clergy and laity, of very ancient standing. The
clergy, though willing to be relieved from paying first-fruits to the
crown, were not so loyal to the successors of St. Peter as to desire
to restore their contributions into the old channel; while the laity,
who from {p.240} immemorial time had objected on principle to the
payment of tribute to a foreign sovereign, were now, through their
possession of the abbey lands and the impropriation of benefices,
immediately interested parties. On the 19th of November fifty members
of the House of Commons waited, by desire, upon the queen, to hear her
own resolutions, and to listen to an admonition from the
cardinal.[516] On the 20th a second bill was introduced, "whereby the
king's and queen's majesties surrendered and gave the first-fruits and
tenths into the hands of the laity."[517] The crown would not receive
annates longer in any form; and as laymen liable to the payment of
them could not conveniently be required to pay tribute to Rome, it was
left to their consciences to determine whether they would follow the
queen's example in a voluntary surrender.

[Footnote 516: Mr. Speaker declared the queen's
pleasure to be spoken yesterday, for to depart with
the first-fruits and tenths; and my Lord Cardinal
spake for the tithes and impropriations of
benefices to be spiritual.--_Commons Journals_,
November 20: 2nd and 3rd Philip and Mary.]

[Footnote 517: _Lords Journals._]

Even then, however, the original bill could not pass so long as the
pope's name was in it, or so long as the pope was interested in it. As
it left the Lords, it was simply a surrender, on behalf of the crown,
of all claims whatever upon first-fruits of benefices, whether from
clergy or laity. The tenths were to continue to be paid. Lay
impropriators should pay them to the crown. The clergy should pay them
to the legate, by whom they were to be applied to the discharge of the
monastic pensions, from which the crown was to be relieved. The crown
at the same time set a precedent of sacrifice by placing in the
legate's hands unreservedly every one of its own impropriations.[518]

[F