At the end of the session, which terminated at the end of March, both assemblies were dissolved.
Towards the end of November 1545[1] opened the first session of what was to be the last Parliament of Henry's reign. The King had in the previous May published his Primer in Latin and English. Several Acts were passed more or less affecting the Church and clergy, of which the two most important were:—
37 Hen. VIII. c. 4, which delivered up all colleges, chantries, and hospitals to the tender mercy of the King; and
37 Hen. VIII. c. 17, an Act enabling the married doctors of civil law to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
The record of the proceedings of Convocation in this year is not preserved.
The above are, in fact, the last Acts of the reign. In the following years neither Parliament nor Convocation met, and the session of 1547 was brought to an abrupt termination, by the sudden death of the King about a fortnight after its opening, and when its only act had been to pass the bill of attainder against the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Surrey, with his assent to which, on the day before his death, Henry characteristically concluded his reign.
- ↑ It is a fact, noted by Mr. Green (Hist. vol. ii. p. 219) as not unimportant, that in this session a bill for the abolition of heresies and of certain books infected with false opinions, which was introduced in the Lords, disappeared when it reached the Commons. In fact, the history of the bill is remarkable, for it seems to have been read no less than five times in the Lords, and at last agreed to 'nemine repugnante' in a House which must have been a full one for that time, no less than thirty-six members voting; but, after all, it never became law. Stubbs, Appendix iv. p. 138.
