interested parties. On the 19th of November fifty members of the House of Commons waited, by desire, upon the Queen, to hear her own resolutions, and to listen to an admonition from the Cardinal.[1] On the 20th a second bill was introduced, 'whereby the King's and Queen's Majesties surrendered and gave the first-fruits and tenths into the hands of the laity.'[2] The Crown would not receive annates longer in any form; and as laymen liable to the payment of them could not conTen iently be required to pay tribute to Rome, it was left to their consciences to determine whether they would follow the Queen's example in a voluntary surrender.
Even then, however, the original bill could not pass so long as the Pope's name was in it, or so long as the Pope was interested in it. As it left the Lords, it was simply a surrender, on behalf of the Crown, of all claims whatever upon first-fruits of benefices, whether from clergy or laity. The tenths were to continue to be paid. Lay impropriators should pay them to the Crown. The clergy should pay them to the legate, by whom they were to be applied to the discharge of the monastic pensions, from which the Crown was to be relieved. The Crown at the same time set a precedent of sacrifice by placing in the legate's hands unreservedly every one of its own impropriations.[3]
- ↑ Mr Speaker declared the Queen's pleasure to be spoken yesterday, for to depart with the first-fruits and tenths; and my Lord Cardinal spake for the tithes and impropriations of benefices to be spiritual.—Commons Journals, November 20: 2nd and 3rd Philip and Mary.
- ↑ Lords Journals.
- ↑ 2nd and 3rd Philip and Mary, cap. iv.
