been unduly influenced, and the Commons were so subservient that one of their Acts was expressly to release the King from repayment of the forced loan-for which, as may be imagined, they incurred general ill-will. They also sent up a host of bills to the Lords, attacking abuses connected with probates, mortuaries, and other matters of spiritual jurisdiction, and also against clerical pluralities, and non-residence. Bishop Fisher thought it right to protest in the House of Lords against the spirit and tendency of such legislation; and because he had pointed to the example of Bohemia as a kingdom ruined by lack of faith, the Speaker and thirty of the Commons were deputed to complain to the King that Fisher seemed to regard them as no better than Turks and infidels. It may be suspected that they were prompted; for Henry was certainly glad of the opportunity of calling on the Bishop to explain himself.
On the breaking up of the Legatine Court the King had been just about to give up further pursuit of a divorce as hopeless; and in that belief he had sought to get the cause superseded at Rome that he might not be summoned out of his own realm. But in August, when he visited Waltham Abbey in a progress, he was told of a suggestion made by one Thomas Cranmer, a private tutor who had been there just before (having been driven from Cambridge by an epidemic), that he might still get warrant enough for treating his marriage as invalid by procuring a number of opinions to that effect from English and foreign universities. He at once caught at the idea, and relied on the friendship of Francis to procure what he wanted on the other side of the Channel.
In the beginning of the year 1530, when the Emperor had gone to Bologna to be crowned by the Pope, Anne Boleyn's father, who had recently been created Earl of Wiltshire, and Dr Stokesley, Bishop elect of London, were sent thither with a commission to treat for a universal peace and a general alliance against the Turk. That was the pretext; and no doubt aid against the Turks would then have been particularly valuable to the Emperor, seeing that they had got fast hold of Hungary, and had quite recently besieged Vienna. But the main object was to explain to Charles with great show of cordiality, now that the two sovereigns were friends again, the manifold arguments against the validity of Henry's marriage with his aunt. And with this purpose in view, Stokesley on his way through France strove to quicken the process of getting opinions from French universities. The decisions even of the English universities were only obtained in March and April, under what pressure it is needless to say. The mere purpose of the proceedings raised the indignation of the women of Oxford, who pelted with stones Bishop Longland, the Chancellor, and his companion, when they came to obtain the seal of the University. No wonder, therefore, that when Wiltshire arrived at Bologna in March no French university had been induced to pronounce a judgment. His mission, in truth was anything
