remarkable for independence of the Pope. He applied to him for leave to levy a rate on ecclesiastical property to pay the expense of his visitation, and also obtained a bull permitting him to nominate to all such benefices as had by remaining vacant lapsed to the Pope.[1] His own translation from London to Canterbury had also been effected by permission of the Pope.
On this subject Dean Hook[2] remarks that 'notwithstanding the Statute of Provisors the opinion very generally prevailed, and was hardly denied by the Government, that the Pope had the supreme power in what related to translations. The Chapter might elect, but he only could sanction the divorce of a bishop from the see to which in consecration he had been wedded.'
According to the same authority Archbishop Courtenay seems to have inclined much to the papal faction during his later life, though he found it necessary to acquiesce in the passing of the act of Præmunire.
The reign of Henry IV. occupies an almost unique position in relation to ecclesiastical affairs. At home, the Archbishop of Canterbury during the whole reign was Thomas Arundel, brother of the Earl of Arundel, who was one of the foremost of Richard II.'s ministers during his tutelage, but was executed by him in 1347, at which time also the Archbishop was, at the King's request, translated to St. Andrews by Pope Boniface IX. and sent into exile.[3] Arundel had begun his public life by being made Bishop of Ely by papal provision at the age of twenty-two, and he was, while a stern churchman and a bitter persecutor of the Lollards, at least as
