Emperor could interfere. The King meanwhile had committed himself, and now went straight forward. He allowed his marriage to be known. Lord Wiltshire had withdrawn his opposition to it.[1] Lord Rochfort, Anne's brother, was sent at the beginning of March to Paris, to say that the King had acted on the advice given him by his good brother at their last interview. He had taken a wife for the establishment of his realm in the hope of having male issue. He trusted, therefore, that Francis would remember his promise. In citing him to Rome the Pope had violated the rights of sovereign Princes. It touched them all, and, if allowed, would give the Pope universal authority. The time was passed when such pretensions could be tolerated.[2]
At home he prepared for the worst. The fleet was further increased, new ships were put on the stocks; the yeomanry were armed, drilled, and equipped, and England rang with sounds of preparation for war; while in Parliament the famous Act was introduced which was to form the constitutional basis of national independence, and to end for ever the Papal jurisdiction in England. From the time that Convocation had acknowledged the King to be the Head of the Church the question of appeals to Rome had been virtually before the country. It was now to be settled, and English lawsuits were henceforth to be heard and decided within the limits of the empire. The Sibyl's
- ↑ Chapuys here mentions this very curious fact: "The Earl of Wiltshire," he wrote on Feb. 15, "has never declared himself up to this moment. On the contrary, he has hitherto, as the Duke of Norfolk has frequently told me, tried to dissuade the King rather than otherwise from the marriage."—Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. part 2, p. 602.
- ↑ Henry VIII. to Francis I., March 11, 1533.—Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. vi. p. 103.
