unwilling to pronounce an unconditional approbation of Henry's divorce, this, as well as the old animosity of his enemies, induced the Duke of Northumberland, though without any new proofs, to renew the charges of high treason against him. This unexpected blow broke the spirit of the Cardinal, who was besides labouring under illness. He died on the 30th of November, 1530, and declared on his death-bed, that he had served the King more faithfully than God, and that he had often in vain knelt for hours together to the former, to move him from his purpose. Wolsey was certainly not a man of the greatest elevation of mind and strength of character, nor superior to external influence and court favour; yet it cannot be denied, that after his fall every thing went on much worse than before; and this fall was caused more by Henry's ingratitude and despotism than by any sufficient reasons. Nor does the conduct of the parliament appear less free from blame; for while it accused the Cardinal of having ruined the kingdom, it extolled, in another Bill, the happiness and prosperity of England; made a present to the King of all the money which he had borrowed from his subjects; and declared the pledges and securities given for it to be null and void.

In the meantime the proceedings for the divorce, at Rome, made the less progress, as Clement had now become fully reconciled to the Emperor; for which reason, Henry, probably by the advice of

Thomas Cranmer, consulted a great number of Universities, Bishops, and Divines, on the legality of his marriage. Every thing depended on the question whether the Mosaic Law was still in force without exception, or whether the Pope could dispense with the observance of it. Among the people, the men mostly declared for the King, and the women for the Queen. Among persons in higher situations, many judged with regard to what might happen if Anne and Cranmer obtained the greatest influence. It seems uncertain whether some Universities were not induced, by the influence of Henry and Francis, to decide according to the wishes of the former; (10) certainly by far the greater number of the opinions were against the marriage; for instance, those of seventeen Universities, () among which were those of Bologna, Padua, Ferrara, Orleans, Paris, Anjou, Bourges, Toulouse, &c. Bologna said "such a marriage is dreadful, abominable, damnable, and to be rejected by every Christian, nay, by every heathen;" and several others made use of similar expressions.

Henry, being thus very strongly confirmed in his views, thought that it was not necessary to defer a second marriage till the dissolution of the first, which was invalid: on the 14th of November, 1532, he married Anne Boleyn, and hereupon, by his own authority, caused Cranmer, whom he made archbishop of Canterbury in March 1533, to recommence

the proceedings for a divorce.

The court declared

Catharine guilty, on her non-appearance, and on the 23d of May, 1533, pronounced the dissolution of the marriage; four months after this, on the 7th of September, Anne gave birth to a daughter, afterwards Queen Elizabeth. These events made very different impressions,-some blamed Catharine's obstinacy, the Pope's delay, the King's precipitation; others approved of his proceedings, and praised Anne for the purity of her conduct before marriage, above all, those inclined to Protestanism conceived new hopes.

At Rome, on the contrary, the course of the proceedings, and the appeal made by the King, on the 29th of June, to a general council of the Church, were considered as highly objectionable, and the Pope would have declared against him more speedily and more severely had he not at that time quarrelled with the Emperor, on account of a disadvantageous sentence respecting Reggio and Modena, and had not Francis I. zealously urged the renewal of negociations with England. Clement required, in the first place, that Henry should submit, within a certain time, to the papal Consistory, with the exclusion of the Cardinals devoted to the Emperor, but, instead of this expected declaration, news arrived that new libels against Rome had appeared in England, that the King himself (so much were the times altered,) was engaged upon a book

against the papal rights, and that a farce in ridicule of the Pope and the Cardinals had been performed at court.(12) This and other things of the same kind so incensed most of the Cardinals, that, on the 23d of March, 1534, Clement pronounced sentence of Excommunication upon Henry if he did not acknowledge his marriage with Catharine to be valid. Two days afterwards, on the 25th of March, the courier arrived with the required declaration, and the more prudent Cardinals wished on that account to recal the sentence of excommunication, but those of the Emperor's party prevailed to have it retained. Many persons afterwards complained that Clement, after having so long delayed, had in the end acted with precipitation, and had not caused the question of excommunication to be examined, as was usually done, in three sittings of the consistory. Palavicini, on the other hand, excuses the sentence and says, "The pope had already delayed too long, and nobody could foresee the subsequent events: besides such accidental circumstances are not to be considered, for he who separates from the Pope separates from the Romish Church, and England by its defection had lost more in a temporal and spiritual view than the pope." This assertion, which the whole of Protestant England contradicts, may be very well passed over without examination: on the other hand it may be insisted upon, more than it generally is, that the affairs of the Church in that

kingdom had taken such a direction, that no single measure of the pope could destroy it, nay, that the whole proceedings in the divorce appear of scarcely any importance, in comparison with what had been in other respects brought forward and decided.

All those reasons which gave an impulse to the reformation in other countries, existed for the most part in England also; during the proceedings for the divorce, the King, however, that his orthodoxy might not be called in question, caused all deviations from the established doctrine of the Church to be so severely investigated by ecclesiastical and temporal Courts, that many persons were, with base cruelty, branded on the cheeks, or burnt on that account. (13) Tyndal's translation of the New Testament had the same fate in May, 1530. It was alleged that it was not faithful, and that the Introduction, with the additions, was heretical, and offensive to Bishops and Clergy. Notwithstanding these commands and measures, loud complaints were made in the Lower House, as early as October, 1529, of the morals of the Clergy, exorbitant law expenses, penances, and taxes, the gradual exclusion of the people from the cultivation of Church lands, the commercial dealings and absence of the Clergy, plurality of benefices, &c. Some bills referring to these subjects having been hereupon presented to the Upper House, some prelates would hear only of the reform of a few abuses, but