he
implied nevertheless that his request was rather of courtesy than of
obligation, and had arisen rather from a sense of moral propriety than
because he might not legally enter on the exercise of his duty without the
permission of the crown.[428]

The moderate gleam of freedom vanishes in the other copy under a few pithy
changes, as if Cranmer instinctively felt the revolution which had taken
place in the relations of church and state. Where in the first letter he
asked for his Grace's favour, in the second he asked for his Grace's favour
_and licence_--where in the first he requested to know his Grace's pleasure
as to his proceeding, in the second he desired his Most Excellent Majesty
to _license_ him to proceed. The burden of both letters was the same, but
the introduction of the little word license changed all. It implied a
hesitating belief that the spiritual judges might perhaps thenceforward be
on a footing with the temporal judges and the magistrates; that under the
new constitution they were to understand that they held their offices not
directly under God as they had hitherto pretended, but under God through
the crown.

The answer of Henry indicated that he had perceived the archbishop's
uncertainty; and that he was desirous by the emphatic distinctness of his
own language to spare him a future recurrence of it. He accepted the
deferential version of the petition; but even Cranmer's anticipation of
what might be required of him had not reached the reality. In running
through the preamble, the king flung into the tone of it a character of
still deeper humility;[429] and he conceded the desired licence in the
following imperial style. "In consideration of these things,"--_i.e._ of
the grounds urged by the archbishop for the petition--"albeit we being your
King and Sovereign, do recognise no superior on earth but only God, and not
being subject to the laws of any earthly creature; yet because ye be under
us, by God's calling and ours, the most principal minister of our spiritual
jurisdiction within this our Realm, who we think assuredly is so in the
fear of God, and love towards the observance of his laws, to the which
laws, we as a Christian king have always heretofore, and shall ever most
obediently submit ourself, we will not therefore refuse (our pre-eminence,
power, and authority to us and to our successors in this behalf
nevertheless saved) your humble request, offer, and towardness--that is, to
mean to m