power which had been so much abused, they took care to protect—not, alas! the innocent lives which were about to be sacrificed—but their own interests. The bishops and clergy of the Province of Canterbury having been made to state their case and their claims, in a petition to the Crown, they were then compelled formally to relinquish those claims; and the petition and the relinquishment were embodied in the Act as the condition of the restoration of the authority of the Church courts.[1] In continuation, the Lords and Commons desired that, for the removal 'of all occasion of contention, suspicion, and trouble, both outwardly and inwardly, in men's consciences,' the Pope's Holiness, as represented by the legate, 'by dispensation, toleration, or permission, as the case required,' would recognize all such foundations of colleges, hospitals, cathedrals, churches, schools, or bishoprics as had been established during the schism, would confirm the validity of all ecclesiastical acts
- ↑ 'Albeit, by the laws of the Church, the bishops and clergy were the defenders and protectors of all ecclesiastical rights, and would therefore in nature be bound to use their best endeavours for the recovery of the lands and goods lost to the Church during the late schism, they, nevertheless, perceiving the tenures of those lands and goods were now complicated beyond power of extrication, and that the attempt to recover them might promote disaffection in the realm, and cause the overthrow of the present happy settlement of religion, preferring public peace to private commodity, and the salvation of souls to worldly possessions, did consent that the present disposition of those lands and goods should remain undisturbed. They besought their Majesties to intercede with the legate for his consent, and, for themselves, they requested, in return, that the lawful jurisdiction of the Church might be restored.'—1 and 2 Philip and Mary, cap. 8, sec. 31.
