him. They had boasted that the whole country was with them, and the Pope had taken them at their word. Yet his own mind misgave him. The Nuncio at Paris was directed to beg Francis to intercede. Francis said he would do his best, but feared the "hat" would prove the Bishop's death. Henry, Francis said, was not always easy to deal with. He almost treated him as a subject. He was the strangest man in the world. He feared he could do no good with him.[1] There was not the least likelihood that the King would allow the interposition either of Francis or of any one. The crime created by the Act of Supremacy was the denial by word or act of the King's sovereignty, ecclesiastical or civil, and the object was to check and punish seditious speaking or preaching. As the Act was first drafted, to speak at all against the supremacy brought an offender under the penalties. The House of Commons was unwilling to make mere language into high treason, and a strong attempt was made to introduce the word "maliciously." Men might deny that the King was Head of the Church in ignorance or inadvertence; and an innocent opinion was not a proper subject for severity. But persons who had exposed themselves to suspicion might be questioned, and their answers interpreted by collateral evidence, to prove disloyal intention. Chapuys's letters leave no doubt of Fisher's real disloyalty. But his desire to bring in an Imperial army was shared by half the Peers, and, if proof of it could be produced, their guilty consciences might drive them into open rebellion. It was ascertained that Fisher and More had communicated with each other in the Tower on the answers which they were to give. But other points had risen for
- ↑ The Bishop of Faenza to M. Ambrogio, June 6, 1535.—Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. viii. p. 320.
