I have been particular in relating the proceedings of this Parliament, because it marks the point where the flood tide of reaction ceased to ascend, and the ebb recommenced. From the beginning of the Reformation in 1529, two distinct movements had gone on side by side—the alteration of doctrines, and the emancipation of the laity from Papal and ecclesiastical domination. With the first, the contemporaries of Henry VIII., the country gentlemen and the peers, who were the heads of families at the period of Mary's accession, had never sympathized; and the tyranny of the Protestants while they were in power had converted a disapproval which time would have overcome, into active and determined indignation. The Papacy was a mixed question; the Pilgrims of Grace in 1536, and the Cornish rebels in 1549, had demanded the restoration of the spiritual primacy to the See of St Peter, and Henry himself, until Pole and Paul III. called on Europe to unite in a crusade against him, had not determined wholly against some degree of concession. In the Pope, as a sovereign who claimed reverence and tribute, who interfered with the laws of the land, and maintained at Rome a supreme Court of Appeal—who pretended a right to depose kings and absolve subjects from their allegiance—who
contente à beaucoup moings qn'il ne s'attendoit.
'Ce qui a tellement despleu à cedict roy et royne, que le 16 de ce mois ilz allerent par eau tous deulx clorre et terminer ledict parlement, sur les quatre heures du soir, assez petitement accompaignez et sans aulcune ceremonie, monstrans et faisans congnoistre à ung chascun avoir quelque grand mescontentement centre l'assemblé d'icelluy.'—Noailles to the Constable: Ambassades, vol. iv. p. 153.
