would be sent any longer to Rome, and no Bulls would be returned from Rome. The appointments lay between the chapters and the Crown; and it might have seemed, at first sight, as if it would have been sufficient to omit the reference to the Papacy, and as if the remaining forms might continue as they were. The chapters, however, had virtually long ceased to elect freely; the Crown had absorbed the entire functions of presentation, sometimes appointing foreigners,[1] sometimes allowing, the great ecclesiastical ministers to nominate themselves;[2] while the rights of the chapters, though existing in theory, were not officially recognized either by the Pope or by the Crown. The King affected to accept the names of the prelates- elect, when returned to him from Rome, as nominations by the Pope; and the Pope, in communicating with the chapters, presented them with their bishops as from himself.[3] The Papal share in the matter was a shadow, but it was acknowledged
- ↑ At this very time Campeggio was Bishop of Salisbury, and Ghinucci, who had heen acting for Henry at Rome, was Bishop of Worcester. The Act by which they were deprived speaks of these two appointments as nominations by the King.—25 Henry VIII. cap. 27.
- ↑ Wolsey held two bishoprics and one archbishopric, besides the abbey of St Albans.
- ↑ Thus when Wolsey was presented, in 1514, to the See of Lincoln, Leo X. writes to his beloved son Thomas Wolsey how that in his great care for the interests of the Church, 'Nos hodie Ecclesiæ Lincolniensi, te in episcopum et pastorem præficere intendimus.' He then informs the chapter of Lincoln of the appointment; and the King, in granting the temporalities, continues the fiction without seeming ta recognize it:—'Cum dominus summus Pontifex nuper vacante Ecclesiâ cathedrali personam fidelis clerici nostri Thomæ Wolsey, in ipsius Ecclesiæ episcopum præfecerit, nos,' &c.—See the Acts in Rymer, vol. vi. part 1, pp. 55–7.
