bishops also, and it is rumoured that Cranmer himself, received similar commissions from King Henry VIII., as it is certain that he did at the beginning of the next reign.
The following year also is full of ecclesiastical legislation and ecclesiastical government; but the clergy, individually and collectively, are bound hand and foot, and by this time they have become aware of the fact, and their part in what goes on is either none at all, or that of mere catspaws. In this, perhaps, they have little to regret, for it was a year with the doings of which they, or the honester part of them, would have been glad, no doubt, to avoid even an enforced complicity. At the end of seven Acts more or less concerning the discipline and the pecuniary position of the clergy, and of which one only—viz., the subsidy— seems to have been submitted to Convocation, are three of more permanent importance—viz., 32 Hen. VIII. c. 24, giving the possessions of the great order of the Hospitallers of St. John to the Crown; 32 Hen. VIII. c. 25, the Act for the dissolution of the pretended marriage of the Lady Anne of Cleves; and 32 Hen. VIII. c. 26, an Act concerning Christ's religion.[1] Of these last two Acts, while the latter was the consequence of the appointment by the King of two Commissions which were respectively to settle the moot points in the doctrine and ceremonies of the Church—and was meant to give their decisions, when made, the force of law, and, so far as appears, neither sought nor received authority from the clergy in any form—to the former, the most scandalously unrighteous of all Henry's divorces, was duly appended the instrument by which Convocation had declared, in accordance with his wishes, that the marriage was invalid. July 28 of this year saw the dissolution of Parliament and Convocation, and,
- ↑ Stubbs, Appendix iv. p. 124.
