Not to mention what he always asserted,[*] and what we can scarcely doubt of, that he had obtained the royal license in the most formal manner, which, had he not been apprehensive of the dangers attending any opposition to Henry's lawless will, he might have pleaded in his own defence before the judges.
Sentence, however, was pronounced against him, "That he was out of the king's protection; his lands and goods forfeited; and that his person might be committed to custody." But this prosecution of Wolsey was carried no further.

Henry even granted him a pardon for all offences; restored him part of his plate and furniture; and still continued, from time to time, to drop expressions of favor and compassion towards him.
The complaints against the usurpations of the ecclesiastics had been very ancient in England, as well as in most other European kingdoms; and as this topic was now become popular every where, it had paved the way for the Lutheran tenets, and reconciled the people, in some measure, to the frightful idea of heresy and innovation.

The commons, finding the occasion favorable, passed several bills restraining the impositions of the clergy; one for the regulating of mortuaries; another against the exactions for the probates of wills; [**] a third against non-residence and pluralities, and against church-men's being farmers of land.

But what appeared chiefly dangerous to the ecclesiastical order, were the severe invectives thrown out, almost without opposition, in the house, against the dissolute lives of the priests, their ambition, their avarice, and their endless encroachments on the laity.

Lord Herbert [***] has even preserved the speech of a gentleman of Gray's Inn, which is of a singular nature, and contains such topics as we should little expect to meet with during that period.