Though the commission was his own device, his pride must have been sorely galled by the summons to the Legates' court.

The warmest adherents of the older faith revolted against the degradation of the crown.

"It was the strangest and newest sight and device," says Cavendish, "that ever we read or heard of in any history or chronicle in any region that a King and Queen should be convented and constrained by process compellatory to appear in any court as common persons, within their own realm and dominion, to abide the judgement and decree of their own subjects, having the royal diadem and prerogative thereof." Even this degradation had been borne in vain.

Foreign and Papal tribunal as that of the Legates really was, it lay within Henry's kingdom and had the air of an English court.

But the citation to Rome was a summons to the king to plead in a court without his realm.