362
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH
[ch. 4.
fusal—for in his ineffectual struggles against the stream, he had attempted to counterpoise the attack upon the Church by destroying the unhappy Protestants. At the close of the session, however, the acts of which we have just described, he felt that he must no longer countenance, by remaining in an office so near to the Crown, measures which he so intensely disapproved and deplored; it was time for him to retire from a world not moving to his mind; and in the fair tranquillity of his family prepare himself for the evil days which he foresaw. May.In May, 1532, he petitioned for permission to resign, resting his request unobtrusively on failing health; and Henry sadly consented to lose his services.
Parallel to More's retirement, and though less important, yet still noticeable, is a proceeding of old Archbishop Warham under the same trying circumstances. In the days of his prosperity, Warham had never reached to greatness as a man. He had been a great ecclesiastic, successful, dignified, important, but without those highest qualities which command respect or interest. The iniquities of Warham's spiritual courts were greater than those of any other in England. He had not made them what they were. They grew by their own proper corruption; and he was no more responsible for them than every man is responsible for the continuance of an evil by which he profits, and which he has power to remedy. We must look upon him as the leader of the bishops in their opposition to the reform; and he was the probable author of the famous answer to the Commons' petition, which led to such