For the Parliament now elected, it is plain that the Privy Seal put out his utmost strength; and that he believed beforehand that his measures had been so well laid as to ensure the results which he desired. 'I and your dedicate councillors,' he wrote to the King, 'be about to bring all things so to pass that your Grace had never more tractable Parliament.'[1] The event was to prove that he had deceived himself; a reaction set in too strong for his control, and the spirit which had dictated the Doncaster petition, though subdued and modified, could still outweigh the despotism of the minister or the intrigues of his agents.
The returns were completed; the members assembled in London, and with them as usual the Convocation of the clergy. As an evidence of the greatness of the occasion, the two provinces were united into one; the Convocation of York held its session with the Convocation of Canterbury; a synod of the whole English Church met together, in virtue of its recovered or freshly constituted powers, to determine the articles of its belief.[2]
- ↑ Cromwell to Henry VIII.: State Papers, vol. i. p. 693.
- ↑ 'The King's Highness desiring that such a unity might be established in all things touching the doctrine of Christ's religion, as the same so being established might be to the honour of Almighty God, and consequently redound to the commonwealth of this his Highness's most noble realm, hath therefore caused his most High Court of Parliament to be at this time summoned, and also a synod and Convocation of all
conducted by him after he was raised to that dignity. I have since ascertained that the first letter, the cover of which I did not see, is addressed to Sir Thomas Cromwell, chief secretary, &c. It bears the date of the 2Oth of May, and though the year is not given, the difference of the two styles fixes it to 1536. The election was conducted while Cromwell was a commoner. He was made a peer and privy seal immediately on the meeting of Parliament on the 2nd of July.
