ver yet
accomplished in this country was committed; and the characters of a king of
England, and of the three estates of the realm, are compromised in the
treatment which she received from them.

CHAPTER III

THE PARLIAMENT OF 1529

No Englishman can look back uninterested on the meeting of the parliament
of 1529. The era at which it assembled is the most memorable in the history
of this country, and the work which it accomplished before its dissolution
was of larger moment politically and spiritually than the achievements of
the Long Parliament itself. For nearly seven years it continued surrounded
by intrigue, confusion, and at length conspiracy, presiding over a people
from whom the forms and habits by which they had moved for centuries were
falling like the shell of a chrysalis. While beset with enemies within the
realm and without, it effected a revolution which severed England from the
papacy, yet it preserved peace unbroken and prevented anarchy from breaking
bounds; and although its hands are not pure from spot, and red stains rest
on them which posterity have bitterly and long remembered; yet if we
consider the changes which it carried through, and if we think of the price
which was paid by other nations for victory in the same struggle, we shall
acknowledge that the records of the world contain no instance of such a
triumph, bought at a cost so slight and tarnished by blemishes so trifling.

The letters of the French Ambassador[191] describe to us the gathering of
the members into London, and the hum of expectation sounding louder and
louder as the day of the opening approached. In order that we may see
distinctly what London felt on this occasion, that we may understand in
detail the nature of those questions with which parliament was immediately
to deal, we will glance at some of the proceedings which had taken place in
the Bishops' Consistory Courts during the few preceding years. The duties
of the officials of these courts resembled in theory the duties of the
censors under the Roman Republic. In the middle ages, a lofty effort had
been made to overpass the common limitations of government, to introduce
punishment for sins as well as crimes, and to visit with temporal penalties
the breach of the moral law. The punishment best adapted for such offences
was some outward expression of the disapproval with which good men regard
acts of sin; some open disgrace; some spiritual censure; some suspension of