The cause of the resignation was Henry’s ecclesiastical policy; its immediate occasion, the submission of the clergy. The fall of Wolsey was simultaneous with the summoning of the famous “Seven Years” or “Reformation” Parliament of Henry VIII. The king had given no sort of sign of any disposition to relax the severity of his attitude towards heresy; but as the months and years passed, it became increasingly evident that his rigid orthodoxy was to be accompanied by a prolonged anti-clerical and anti-Papal campaign, the meaning whereof was to be revealed only by degrees. A twelvemonth had barely passed when the clergy were suddenly notified that they had as a body been guilty of a breach of _Præmunire_ in accepting the Legatine authority of Wolsey, and this was followed up by requiring Convocation to affirm that the king was sole and Supreme Protector and Head of the Church. No new authority was directly claimed for the Crown--without reading between the lines; though it was tolerably clear that a good deal more might be read into the declaration. The clergy yielded. Then the Commons presented their supplication against the ordinaries. The subsequent operations showed that the Royal Supremacy was to be applied after quite a new fashion. The clergy yielded to the logic of force, and made their “submission.” More, holding that no layman, king or not, could by any possibility be rightfully head of the Church in this new sense, concluded that he had no alternative but to retire into private life.
The divorce was Henry’s first objective; it was duly pronounced by the new Archbishop in the following spring. The step, however, was intensely unpopular. The more clearly this was brought home to the king’s mind, the more anxious he became to have the avowed support of every one whose opinion carried weight. Irritation reached its climax over the affair of the “Nun of Kent,” a young woman named Elizabeth Barton, who had for some little time been posing as a sort of prophetess. How far she believed in her own imposture it is not possible to tell, but she was certainly exploited by fanatical adherents of the Papacy, and when she took to denouncing the wrath of God against the king for the divorce, there was a real risk that the superstition of the day would make her ravings dangerous. There were two men whom no persuasions had prevailed upon to pronounce in favour of the Boleyn marriage--Fisher of Rochester and Sir Thomas More. It was found that both had had some sort of dealings with the nun. Henry determined that they should both suffer as her accomplices, unless they would openly range themselves with his supporters. But the case against More was so hopelessly futile that the king’s advisers warned him that the ex-Chancellor’s inclusion in the Bill of Attainder could only result in the Bill itself being thrown out. His name was therefore removed, to the great rejoicing of his friends. More saw farther into the king’s mind than they did. “_Quod defertur non aufertur_,” he said to his daughter.