passing without inquiry such measures as were sent down to them, had started suddenly into new proportions, and had taken upon themselves to discuss questions sacred hitherto to Convocation. The Upper House had been treated in the disputes which had arisen with significant disrespect; ancient and honoured customs had been discontinued among them against their desire;[1] and, constitutionally averse to change, they were hurried powerless along by a force which was bearing them they knew not where. Hating heretics with true English conservatism, they found men who but a few years before would have been in the dungeons of Lollards' Tower, now high in Court favour, high in office, and with seats in their own body. They had learnt to endure the presence of self-raised men when as ecclesiastics such men represented the respectable dignity of the Church; but the proud English nobles had now for the
- ↑ 'The Lord Darcy declared unto me that the custom among the Lords before that time had been that matters touching spiritual authority should always be referred unto the Convocation house, and not for the Parliament house: and that before this last Parliament it was accustomed among the Lords, the first matter they always communed of, after the mass of the Holy Ghost, was to affirm and allow the first chapter of Magna Charta touching the rights and liberties of the Church; and it was not so now. Also the Lord Darcy did say that in any matter which touched the prerogative of the King's crown, or any matter that touched the prejudice of the same, the custom of the Lords' House was that they should have, upon their requests, a copy of the bill of the same, to the intent that they might have their council learned to scan the same; or if it were betwixt party and party, if the bill were not prejudicial to the commonwealth. And now they could have no such copy upon their suit, or at the least so readily as they were wont to have in Parliament before.'—Examination of Robert Aske in the Tower: Rolls House MS. A 2, 29, p. 197.
