HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

( CHAPTER  2 )  -  { PT.  40 } - [ 29 ] An Act of Attainder was passed against Fisher, More, and all others who had refused submission. The First Fruits, formerly paid to the Pope, were to be paid to the king, and bishop were allowed to appoint men approved by the crown to be their assistants. By these measures the constitution of the Church, as it had been accepted for centuries by the English clergy and Iaity, was overturned. The authority of the Pope was rejected in favour of the authority of the king, who was to be regarded in the future as the source of all ecclesiastical jurisdiction. This great religious revolution was carried out without the consent of the bishops and clergy. With the single exception of Cranmer the bishops to a man opposed the change, and if they and the great body of the clergy made their submission in the end, they did so not because they were convinced by the royal arguments, but because they feared the royal displeasure. Neither was the ...

  ( CHAPTER  2 )  -  { PT.  39 } - A royal commission consisting of George Brown, Prior of the Augustinian Hermits, and Dr. Hilsey, Provincial of the Dominicans, was appointed to visit the religious houses and to obtain the submission of the members ( April 1534 ). By threats of dissolution and confiscation they secured the submission of most of the monastic establishment with the exception of the Observants of Richmond and Greenwich and the Carthusians of the Charterhouse, London. Many of the members of these communities were arrested and lodged in the Tower, and the decree went forth that the seven houses belonging yo the Observants, who had offered a strenuous opposition to the divorce, should be suppressed. [ 28 ] The Convocations of Canterbury and York submitted, as did also the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. When Parliament met again in November 1534 a bill was introduced proclaiming the king supreme head of the Church in England. The measure was ba...