noted as altogether exceptional. But his very probity had made him at last an obstacle in the King's path, and he was sacrificed.
The three priests who had refused to acknowledge the Supremacy were retained in confinement. Two years later Dr Wilson received a pardon. The other two remained steadfast during five years' imprisonment, and were executed in 1540.
Pope Paul III, who had conferred the hat upon Fisher (he had succeeded Clement VII in the previous year), would have issued a Bull to deprive Henry of his kingdom; but, owing to the mutual jealousies of the Emperor and Francis I, there was no sovereign who dared to execute the sentence. Henry, moreover, had been scheming for years with the citizens of Lübeck to fill the throne of Denmark with one who would unite with him and the Northern Powers of Europe against both Pope and Emperor; and, though his plan was a failure, the Danes elected a Lutheran King (Christian III), ill-pleasing to Charles V. Further, the English King was seeking to conclude a league with the German Protestants, and his intrigues gave the Emperor some anxiety.
During the latter half of 1535 the Bishops in England were inhibited from visiting their dioceses pending a royal visitation of the whole kingdom, while Cromwell sent out special Visitors for the monasteries, who with remarkable celerity traversed the greater part of the country in a very few months and sent private reports of gross immoralities, alleged to have been discovered in a number of the Houses they visited. It is impossible, for many reasons, to attach much credit to these reports, or to think highly of the character of the Visitors. The object was seen when Parliament met again in February, 1536, and passed, as the principal measure of the session, an Act for the dissolution of such monasteries as had not revenues of £200 a year. It was passed, as tradition in the next generation reported, under very strong pressure, and certainly, as the preamble shows, on the King's own statement of the results of the visitation. These, it was said, proved that the smaller monasteries were given to vicious living, while the larger were better regulated; though in truth the Visitors had reported abominations quite as flagrant in the latter as in the former.
Meanwhile, in January, Catharine of Aragon had died at Kimbolton. On hearing of the event Henry could not help exclaiming, "God be praised! We are now free from fear of war." If Catharine had lived, the Bull of privation might even yet have been launched when the Emperor arrived at Rome in the spring; but the King calculated truly, The Court and Anne Boleyn wore mourning for Catharine. But Anne's own fate was near at hand; for Henry had long since grown tired of her, and could not make men respect her. He now said that he had been induced to marry her by witchcraft. In the course of the month she miscarried. On May Day there was a tournament at Greenwich, during which the King suddenly left her and went to Westminster. Next day
