Care had been taken, during some years, to teach the nation that a general council was much superior to a pope.

But now a bishop preached every Sunday at Paul's Cross, in order to inculcate the doctrine that the pope was entitled to no authority at all beyond the bounds of his own diocese.[*] The proceedings of the parliament showed that they had entirely adopted this opinion; and there is reason to believe that the king, after having procured a favorable sentence from Rome, which would have removed all doubts with regard to his second marriage and the succession, might indeed have lived on terms of civility with the Roman pontiff, but never would have surrendered to him any considerable share of his assumed prerogative.

The importance of the laws passed this session, even before intelligence arrived of the violent resolutions taken at Rome, is sufficient to justify this opinion.
* Burnet, vol.i.p.

144.
All payments made to the apostolic chamber, all provisions, bulls, dispensations, were abolished: monasteries were subjected to the visitation and government of the king alone: the law for punishing heretics was moderated: the ordinary was prohibited from imprisoning or trying any person upon suspicion alone, without presentment by two lawful witnesses; and it was declared, that to speak against the pope's authority was no heresy: bishops were to be appointed, by a conge d'elire from the crown, or, in case of the dean and chapter's refusal, by letters patent; and no recourse was to be had to Rome for pails, bulls, or provisions; Campeggio and Ghinucci, two Italians, were deprived of the bishoprics of Salisbury and Worcester, which they had hitherto enjoyed:[*] the law which had been formerly made against paying annates or first-fruits, but which had been left in the king's power to suspend or enforce, was finally established: and a submission which was exacted two years before from the clergy, and which had been obtained with great difficulty, received this session the sanction of parliament.[**] In this submission, the clergy acknowledged that convocations ought to be assembled by the king's authority only; they promised to enact no new canons without his consent; and they agreed that he should appoint thirty-two commissioners, in order to examine the old canons, and abrogate such as should be found prejudicial to his royal prerogative.[***] An appeal was also allowed from the bishop's court to the king in chancery.
* Le Neve's Fasti Eccles.

Angl.
** 25 Henry VIII.