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The Anglican Church the Creature and Slave of the State, a Series of Lectures
The Anglican Church the Creature and Slave of the State a Series of Lectures Author:Peter Cooper General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1844 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: LECTURE II. HISTORY OF THE ACT OF SUBMISSION. It was in the year 1529, that the gentle lady, Anna Boleyn, whose charms persuaded her royal lover that the pope's power in England was an usurpation, and the royal supremacy was his birth-right, wrought the downfal of that unfortunate minister, Cardinal Wolsey. He had, for fifteen years, been in the undisturbed exercise of the legatine power, and received his royal master's instructions to sue out the papal commission, for trying the celebrated divorce-case, which caused the final rupture of this country with Rome. Yet, in utter disregard of all this, and though he had in his possession the royal licence under the great seal; the unprincipled monarch, at the secret instigation of his mistress, had the perfidy to have his servant arraigned for doing his own bidding, under that terror of churchmen, and weapon of tyrants, the statute of provisors. The unhappy victim knew the royal temper too well, to produce in his justification what would have secured his acquittal before any jury in the country, namely, the license already mentioned ; he preferred letting judgment go against him by default, and had to purchase his pardon by the surrender of all his property, and the resignation of the great seal. This, though immediately turned to account, in working the downfal of the English Church, was not originally de- signed for that purpose: it was solely, as described, a court intrigue; originating with the Mistress Anne, as she was not inappropriately called, and her party who detested the cardinal. But the celebrated Thomas Cromwell, who by this time had passed...« less