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History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution — Volume 2 by James MacCaffrey
page 43 of 483 (08%)
Henry sent her away from court, and separated from her her daughter.
After November 1531, the king and queen never met again. Popular
feeling in London and throughout England was running high against the
divorce, and against any breach with the Emperor, who might close the
Flemish markets to the English merchants. The clergy, who were
indignant that their representatives should have paid such an immense
sum to secure pardon for an offence of which they had not been more
guilty than the king himself, remonstrated warmly against the taxation
that had been levied on their revenues. Unmindful of the popular
commotion, Henry proceeded to usurp the power of the Pope and of the
bishops, and though he was outwardly stern in the repression of
heresy, the friends of the Lutheran movement in England boasted
publicly that the king was on their side.

When Parliament met again (Jan. 1532), the attacks on the clergy were
renewed. A petition against the bishops, drawn up by Thomas Cromwell
at the suggestion of Henry,[20] was presented in the name of the House
of Commons to the king. In this petition the members were made to
complain that the clergy enacted laws and statutes in Convocation
without consulting the king or the Commons, that suitors were treated
harshly before the ecclesiastical courts, that in regard to probates
the people were worried by excessive fees and unnecessary delays, and
that the number of holidays was injurious to trade and agriculture.
This complaint was forwarded to Convocation for a reply. The bishops,
while vindicating for the clergy the right to make their own laws and
statutes, showed themselves not unwilling to accept a compromise, but
Parliament at the instigation of Henry refused to accept their
proposals. The king, who was determined to crush the power of the
clergy, insisted that Convocation should abandon its right to make
constitutions or ordinances without royal permission, and that the
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