many others, in no way as a body possessing concurrent legislative powers with Parliament, but simply as a body of professional experts whose opinion it was advisable to have for the avoidance of technical blunders. Cromwell went to Convocation on June 2, and demanded the opinion of the Houses on certain definite points of doctrine which had previously been formulated in the House of Peers by the Duke of Norfolk. On the 5th he received definite answers to these questions, and they were afterwards drafted into a bill, which was read a first time on June 7, and passed through both Houses of Parliament by the 16th.
In the following year, also, it is at least doubtful how far they were consulted—deferred to they clearly were not—about any of the important ecclesiastical Acts of the session. On the other hand, it is not doubtful at all that they were very busy about the dirty work of finding excuses for the repudiation of the King's marriage with Anne of Cleves, just as they had previously been in finding pretexts for the divorces of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn.
The whole history of the years in question, as it is read in the State papers and drawn out in Appendix IV. to the Report of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission, shows plainly that the great changes brought about in the position of the English Church were entirely the work of Henry and of Cromwell, with the willing co-operation of Parliament, but that the clergy were helpless tools in their hands throughout—they were either not consulted or else dragooned.
During one year only, viz. 1534—a very important year, no doubt—have they even the appearance of having been free agents, for, as we have seen, they themselves repudiated the legislation before that year, and after it
