第195章

For various reasons the Protector and council delayed assembling Parliament as long as possible, but at last it was convoked to meet in November 1547. As happened in the case of all the Parliaments in the Tudor period, careful steps were taken to ensure that only men who could be relied upon were returned by the sheriffs. Neither from the lay members in the House of Lords, many of whom had been enriched by the plunder of the monasteries, nor from the spiritual peers lately appointed, could any effective resistance be expected, while the bishops who were still strongly Catholic in tone were deprived of a capable leader by the imprisonment of Gardiner. It was significant that in the Mass celebrated at the opening of Parliament the /Gloria/, Creed, and /Agnus Dei/ were sung in English. The bishops had been taught a lesson already by being forced to take out new commissions like other officers of the crown, by having their jurisdiction suspended during the progress of the royal visitation, and by being prohibited from preaching outside their own cathedrals. But, lest they might have any lingering doubts about the source or extent of their jurisdiction, Parliament enacted that for the future bishops should be appointed not by election but by royal letters patent, and that all their official documents should be issued in the king's name and under his seal or some other seal authorised by him.[48] All the Acts against heresy that had been passed since the days of Richard II., including the Statute of Six Articles, were repealed; most of the new treason-felonies created during the previous reign were abolished;and, though denial of royal supremacy was accounted still as treason, it was enacted that by merely speaking against it one did not merit the punishment of death unless for the third offence.

The question of the Blessed Eucharist had come to the front rapidly owing to the violent and abusive sermons of some of the new preachers, and the irreverent and sacrilegious conduct of those who accepted their teaching. The bishops of the old school demanded that measures should be taken to prevent such attacks on the very centre point of Christian worship, while Cranmer and his supporters were determined to insist upon Communion under both kinds. Apparently two different measures were introduced, which were merged ultimately into one Act, whereby it was decreed that all who spoke irreverently against the Blessed Eucharist should be punished by fines and imprisonment, and that Communion should be administered under both kinds except necessity otherwise required. The linking together of these two Acts was a clever move to ensure the support of the bishops who desired to put down irreverence against the Eucharist, and it is noteworthy that out of the eleven bishops present five voted against the measure even in its improved form.[49]

Already an Act had been passed in the previous reign against colleges, chantries, guilds, etc., but since most of these remained as yet undisturbed, it was determined to replenish the royal treasury by decreeing their immediate dissolution, and by vesting their property in the king. This was done with the avowed object of diverting the funds from superstitious uses to the erection of grammar schools, the maintenance of students at the universities, and the relief of the poor; but in reality the property of the guilds, and of the free schools and chantry schools, was confiscated, and little if anything was done for the improvement of education or for the relief of the poor. Edward VI. is represented generally as the founder of the English grammar schools and colleges, but it would be much more correct to say that through his greedy ministers he was their destroyer. True, indeed, he established a few colleges and hospitals, but such beneficence was only a poor return for the wholesale overthrow of more than four hundred flourishing educational establishments, and for the confiscation of thousands of pounds bequeathed by generous benefactors for the education of the poor.[50]

Convocation had met on the day after the assembly of Parliament. The lower house presented four petitions to the bishops, the most important of which was that the proctors of the clergy should be admitted to Parliament, or at least that ecclesiastical legislation should not pass until the clergy had been consulted, but the bishops were too conscious of their helplessness to support such an appeal. It is doubtful if the bill regarding Communion under both kinds was ever submitted regularly to Convocation, though later on a proposal to abolish the canons enforcing clerical celibacy was carried by a majority. It is asserted, and apparently on good authority, that the higher and more learned of the clergy consented to this proposal only under pressure.