ake an end according to the will and pleasure of Almighty God in
our said great cause of matrimony, which hath so long depended
undetermined, to our great and grievous unquietness and burden of our
conscience. Wherefore we, inclining to your humble petition, by these our
letters sealed with our seal, and signed with our sign manual, do license
you to proceed in the said cause, and the examination and final
determination of the same; not doubting but that ye will have God and the
justice of the said cause only before your eyes, and not to regard any
earthly or worldly affection therein; for assuredly the thing which we most
covet in the world, is so to proceed in all our acts and doings as may be
the most acceptable to the pleasure of Almighty God our Creator, to the
wealth and honour of us, our successors and posterity, and the surety of
our Realm, and subjects within the same."[430]

The vision of ecclesiastical independence, if Cranmer had indulged in it,
must have faded utterly before his eyes on receiving this letter. As clergy
who committed felony were no longer exempted from the penalties of their
crimes; so henceforward the courts of the clergy were to fell into
conformity with the secular tribunals. The temporal prerogatives of
ecclesiastics as a body whose authority over the laity was countervailed
with no reciprocal obligation, existed no longer. This is what the language
of the king implied. The difficulty which the persons whom he was
addressing experienced in realising the change in their position, obliged
him to be somewhat emphatic in his assertion of it; and it might be
imagined at first sight, that in insisting on his superiority to the
officers of the spiritual courts, he claimed a right to dictate their
sentences. But to venture such a supposition would be to mistake the nature
of English sovereignty and the spirit of the change. The supreme authority
in England was the law; and the king no more possessed, or claimed a power
of controlling the judgment of the bishops or their ministers, than he
could interfere with the jurisdiction of the judges of the bench. All
persons in authority, whether in church or state, held their offices
thenceforth by similar tenure; but the rule of the proceedings in each
remained alike the law of the land, which Henry had no more thought of
superseding by his own will than the most constitutional of modern princes.

The closing sentences of his reply to Cranmer are strikin