the favourable juncture for proposing a grand blow against the ecclesiastical property.

Both houses had, by way of conference about the posture of affairs, as it would appear, been assembled in the royal presence; where the Commons complained that, while they not only supplied the king's necessities against all his enemies, whether internal or external, but exposed their persons to the privations and dangers of war, the clergy did nothing for the king, spending their revenues in idleness and sensuality at home; and, therefore, they proposed that the property of the church, which was a third of the kingdom, and might afford a revenue amply sufficient for all the exigencies of government, should be appropriated to the Crown. A great altercation immediately ensued with the spiritualty; and the primate, in defence of the church, answered, that the clergy were unjustly accused of not supporting the throne, for that they were more liberal in their grants than the laity, frequently giving tenths when the other only gave fifteenths that, though their calling prevented them from personally attending the king in his wars, they as effectually served him even there, by means of their tenants, who took the field in greater numbers than those of the laity; and that themselves were in the meantime day and night employed in his service by imploring the divine favour upon all his undertakings. The prolocutor of the Commons, Sir John Cheney, (who is said to have been once in deacon's orders, but to have deserted the church for the camp, and to have

been actuated by the feelings of an apostate,) made some contemptuous remarks upon the prayers of the clergy, which provoked a severe reprehension from the archbishop, who told the Commons, that no state could stand without religion; but that since piety could not restrain them from so sacrilegious a project, prudence ought, as they might find that the Church could make a powerful resistance, and he warned them that, while Canterbury lived, its patrimony should not be wrested from it without a struggle. Then approaching the king, who had appeared to assent to the proposal of the Commons, and falling on his knees, he reminded the monarch of his oaths to preserve the church, and of his duty to that heavenly king by whom earthly ones reign. Henry desired the archbishop to return to his seat, assuring him that he had no intention to plunder the church, but would leave it greater than he found it. Thus encouraged by the assurance of the royal favour and protetion, the primate again addressed the Commons, telling them that they in vain thought to deceive him by veiling their unprincipled cupidity under the cloak of supplying the wants of the Crown, for that even past events had sufficiently evinced that it was not the public service which they intended to promote by such a proposal: that they, and such as they, had, under the same pretext, advised the king and his predecessors to seize upon the property of the small religious houses of French and Norman friars within the kingdom; but that the Crown had not been in the slightest degree enriched by such pro

my

perty, as these advisers had never ceased to beg or extort it till they had got it all: and that he would predict, that, were the present sacrilegious proposal acceded to, the monarch would not be one farthing richer by the year's end. But, continued he, "sooner will I part with this head from shoulders than that the slighest encroachment shall be made upon the church's patrimony." The Commons made no reply; but on their return to their own house, they were not diverted, either by what had fallen from the throne, or by the threats of the archbishop, from a keen prosecution of their purpose. To oppose every barrier to such a scheme, the archbishop successfully courted the support of the temporal Peers, with whose alliance the clergy effectually resisted the project; and the Commons having granted two-fifteenths, under condition of its being entrusted to Lord Furnival, &c. to be expended on the particular service for which it was required, and having recalled some annuities which had been given to individuals by the king, affected regret for their sacrilegious attempt, and promised not to renew it *.

In assisting the clergy to repress the schemes of the Commons, the Lords are said to have only made a return to the spiritualty for supporting them in the rejection of bills, both in this and pre

* Walsing. Hist. p. 371. Ypod. Neus. p. 563. Holinshed, Vol. II. Ken. p. 290. Hayward's Hist. p. 254. Cob. Parl. Hist.

p. 526.

Vol. I. p. 295.

We have in the present grant by the Commons, a proof of the condition on which money was so often given. Walsingham states the fact without thinking it worth a remark.

ceding parliaments, to resume for the Crown all its grants to the peerage, whether during the present reign or the two preceding; but it is easy to perceive, that they were probably influenced by a nearer interest. They had originally patronized the Wickliffites, from the hope of sharing liberally in the temporalities of the church; but the ambition and boldness of the Commons, which not only disdained to act in concert with the peerage, but by attempting the resumption of royal grants *, betrayed an indifference about offending them, were calculated to alarm that body, and, at all events, to alienate them from any attempt upon church property. For, if the Commons were really actuated by the selfish motives imputed to them by the primate, it is quite evident that the same confidence in their own strength which, in attempting the measure, made them negligent of co-operation with the temporal peers, would lead them to anticipate all its fruits for themselves; and it cannot be denied that, had their confidence in the first been wellfounded, they could scarcely have failed in the last. But the peerage had cause also to suspect that the monarch favoured the views of the Lower House, and consequently that he intended to distribute the property amongst the Commons, which

It was quite a common practice for parliament to resume the royal grants; (See Prynne's preface to Cotton's Abridgment of the Records, where he gives many instances of it, and refers correctly to many authorities) but when the Commons were grasping so greedily at the church property, it afforded no favourable augury of their intentions towards the Lords that they pretended to be so deeply affected by the public interest as to recal the paltry grants from that body

would give that body a preponderance in the state equally injurious and dangerous to the pre-eminence of the nobility *.

Henry had the prospect of a grand game. The popularity which raised him to the throne, deserted him the instant it had seated him there; and his government was daily threatened with plots and insurrections, which, if successful, would not merely have dethroned him, but, in all probability proved fatal, alike to himself and his family. To prop this tottering dynasty, nothing could be more effectual than the distribution of vast property amongst such a numerous body as could muster a strength ready at all times to crush every attempt at rebellion; for, owing their property to a particular family, they could not expect to retain it upon a change of dynasty, when the authors of this greatness were branded, and punished, as usurpers. The church, however, possessed about a third of the national territory, and that,

It may be asked by some unreflecting reader, why Henry did not desire the transference of church property to the crown, that he might retain it? But the answer is obvious: he knew that it was utterly impracticable. The church was not only powerful in itself, but, according to the highest computation which appears to have been made of the Lollards, had about half the kingdom to support it. Its pro perty, therefore, could not have been taken without a violent shock; and though the Commons were anxious to give it to the Crown in trust for themselves, that it might be distributed amongst them, they would have probably joined the ecclesiastical body in recalling it, had their hopes been disappointed; at all events, the king never would have been supported in what, by giving such an overwhelming preponderance to the crown, threatened the whole community, and then inevitable ruin must have awaited so foolish a step.