when it was proved unable to punish such aggression. Foreign nations were scandalised, but no foreign prince could afford lightly to quarrel with England. Henry was considered an enemy of Christianity much as was the Turk, but the prospect of a crusade against him, though at times it looked fairly probable, always vanished in the end. Foreign princes were too suspicious of each other to act together in this, and Henry himself, by his own wary policy, contrived to ward off the danger. He was anxious to show that the faith of Christendom was maintained as firmly within his kingdom as ever. He made Cranmer a sort of insular Pope, and insisted on respect being paid to his decrees-especially in reference to his own numerous marriages and divorces. But, beyond the suspension of the canon law and the complete subjugation of the clergy to the civil power, he was not anxious to make vital changes in religion; and both doctrine and ritual remained in his day nearly unaltered. The innovations actually made consisted in little more than the authorisation of an English Bible, the publication of some formularies to which little objection could be taken, and-what has not been mentioned above-the first use of an English Litany. For though as yet there was no English prayer-book, a Litany in the common tongue was ordered in 1544 when the King was about to embark for France.
The Authorised English Bible was undoubtedly a new force in the religious history of England. Wiclif's Bible had preceded it by more than a century, and there had been earlier translations still. But Wiclifs attempt to popularise the Scriptures in an English form had been disapproved of by the Church, which considered the clergy as the special custodians and interpreters of Holy Writ, without whose guidance it could too easily be perverted and misconstrued. This was the feeling which inspired the constitution of Archbishop Arundel in 1408, forbidding the use of any translation which had not been approved by the diocesan of the place or by some provincial council. In days when the sacred writings were only multiplied by copyists, translations of particular books of Scripture, or even of the whole, might be episcopally authorised, if good in themselves, as luxuries for private use, without apparent prejudice to the faith. But Wiclif's version was regarded as a deliberate attempt to vulgarise a literature of peculiar sanctity which required careful exposition by men of learning. The vernacular Bible, however, was prized by many laymen, even in the fifteenth century, and certainly influenced not a little the religious thought of the period; for, in opposition to the special claims of the Church, the Lollards set up a theory that Scripture was the only true authority for any religious observances and that no special learning was required to interpret it, the true meaning of Holy Writ being always revealed to men of real humility of mind. This was also the idea of Tyndale, who, encouraged by a London merchant, went abroad and printed for importation into
