hands, and by him being disposed of to the most eminent gentlemen in every county, could not but make them do their best to confirm themselves in the possession of them. Fourthly, King Henry was of a nature quick and severe in the punishing of such as should be the first to oppose his designs. Lastly, as to invasion from abroad, in case the Pope had given the kingdom to another prince, it had been in vain; for England is another manner of kingdom than Navarre. Besides, the French and Spanish forces were employed at that time one against another: and though they had been at leisure, they would have found perhaps no better success than the Spaniards found afterwards in 1588. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the insolence, avarice, and hypocrisy of the then clergy, and notwithstanding the doctrine of Luther, if the Pope had not provoked the King by endeavouring to cross his marriage with his second wife, his authority might have remained in England till there had risen some other quarrel.
B. Did not the bishops, that then were, and had taken an oath, wherein was, amongst other things, that they should defend and maintain the Regal Rights of St. Peter (the words are, Regalia Sancti Petri, which nevertheless some have said are regulas Sancti Petri, that is to say, St. Peter’s Rules or Doctrine; and that the clergy afterward did read it, being perhaps written in short-hand, by a mistake to the Pope’s advantage regalia): did not, I say, the bishops oppose that Act of Parliament against the Pope, and against the taking of the oath of supremacy?
A. No, I do not find the bishops did many of them oppose the King; for having no power without him, it had been great imprudence to provoke his anger. There was besides a controversy in those times between the Pope and the bishops, most of which did maintain that they exercised their jurisdiction episcopal in the right of God, as immediately as the Pope himself did exercise the same over the whole Church. And because they saw that by this Act of the King’s in Parliament they were to hold their power no
