the land still; and by it, as we shall see more and more clearly as we advance, the Church surrendered or was driven from every rag of independence of the State.
The final achievement of this important session was the formal resignation by Convocation itself of whatever independent power of legislation it ever had, by agreeing to the articles which enact that it should neither pass nor execute any ordinance whatever without the King's approval and assent.[1] These articles were brought down to the House on May 10 by Edward Fox, the King's almoner, with a message 'that the King willed that all should subscribe.' Subscribed they were, accordingly, on May 13; the Convocation was prorogued forty-eight hours later, and the members were at liberty to depart to their several homes, having fairly, to use a modern phrase, 'contracted themselves out' of any quasi-independence which they ever fancied they possessed.[2] The despatches of Chapuys and other documents to be found among the State papers supply an ample refutation of the theory of Dr. Hook that the royal supremacy existed in England almost as completely before the time of Henry VIII. as it has done since. Thus, in his despatch of February 14, 1531, he says, speaking of the submission, 'The thing that has been treated to the Pope's disadvantage is that the clergy have been compelled under pain of the said law of Præmunire to accept the King as head of the Church, which implies in effect as much as if they had declared him Pope of England.'
Again, a week afterwards he writes, while blaming the Pope's proceedings, ' If the Pope had ordered the
