This Act, which I conceive to have been more arbitrary in form than in intention, was followed by a closing attack upon the remaining 'exactions' of the Bishop of Rome. The Annates were gone. There were yet to go, 'Pensions, Censes, Peter's Pence, Procurations, Fruits, Suits for Provision, Delegacies and Rescripts in causes of Contention and Appeals, Jurisdictions legatine—also Dispensations, Licenses, Faculties, Grants, Relaxations, Writs called Perinde valere, Rehabilitations, Abolitions,' with other unnamed (the Parliament being wearied of naming them) 'infinite sorts of Rules, Briefs, and instruments of sundry natures, names, and kinds.' All these were perennially open sluices, which had drained England of its wealth for centuries, returning only in showers of paper, and the Commons were determined that streams so unremunerative should flow no longer. They conceived that they had been all along imposed upon, and that the 'Bishop of Rome was to be blamed for having allured and beguiled the English nation, persuading them that he had power to dispense with human laws, uses, and customs, contrary to right and conscience.' If the King so pleased, therefore, they would not be so beguiled any more. These and all similar exactions should cease; and all powers claimed by the Bishop of Rome within
and the deans and chapters were therefore protected by a strong hand from their own possible mistakes. But the form of liberty was conceded to them, not, perhaps, to place deliberately a body of clergymen in a degrading position, but in the belief that at no distant time the Church might be allowed without danger to resume some degree of self-government.
