Henry referred the Petition to the bishops, but they could devise no means of redress, and the ministry persisted in pushing through the Houses their bills for ecclesiastical reform.

The importance of the new measures lay really in the action of Parliament.

They were an explicit announcement that church-reform was now to be undertaken, not by the clergy, but by the people at large.

On the other hand it was clear that it would be carried out in a spirit of loyalty to the church.

The Commons forced from Bishop Fisher an apology for words which were taken as a doubt thrown on their orthodoxy.