The last check on royal absolutism which had survived the Wars of the Roses lay in the wealth, the independent synods and jurisdiction, and the religious claims of the church; and for the success of the new policy it was necessary to reduce the great ecclesiastical body to a mere department of the State in which all authority should flow from the sovereign alone, his will be the only law, his decision the only test of truth.

Such a change however was hardly to be wrought without a struggle; and the question of national independence in all ecclesiastical matters furnished ground on which the crown could conduct this struggle to the best advantage.

The secretary's first blow showed how unscrupulously the struggle was to be waged.

A year had passed since Wolsey had been convicted of a breach of the Statute of Praemunire.

The pedantry of the judges declared the whole nation to have been formally involved in the same charge by its acceptance of his authority.