a more welcome form when a bill was introduced to withdraw annates or first fruits of benefices which had been claimed and paid as a tribute to the Holy See. The imposition was a grievance. There were no annates in Spain. The Papal collectors were detested. The House of Commons made no difficulty. The Nuncio complained to the King. The King told him that it was not he who brought forward these measures. They were moved by the people, who hated the Pope marvellously.[1] In the Upper House the Bishops stood by their spiritual chief this time unanimously. Among the mitred Abbots there was division of opinion. The abbeys had been the chief sufferers from annates, and had complained of the exaction for centuries. All the lay Peers, except Lord Arundel, supported the Government. The bill was passed, but passed conditionally, leaving power to the Crown to arrange a compromise if the Pope would agree to treat. For the next year the annates were paid in full, as usual, to give time for his Holiness to consider himself.[2]
Thus steadily the Parliament moved on. Archbishop Warham, who was dying broken-hearted, dictated a feeble protest from his bed against all which had been done by it in derogation of the Pope or in limitation of the privileges of the Church. More had fought through the session, but, finding resistance useless, resigned the chancellorship. He saw what was
- ↑ Chapuys to Charles V., Feb. 28, 1532.—Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. v. p. 392.
- ↑ An address purporting to have been presented by Convocation on this occasion, not only complaining of the annates, but inviting a conaplete separation from the See of Rome, was perhaps no more than a draft submitted to the already sorely humiliated body, and not accepted by it.—History of England, vol. i. p. 332–3. The French Ambassador says distinctly that the clergy agreed to nothing, but their refusal was treated as of no consequence.
