opinion of the lay fee towards spiritual persons”—­that no such persons thenceforward should take any land to farm beyond what was necessary, bona fide, for the support of their own households; that they should not buy merchandise to sell again; that they should keep no tanneries or brewhouses, or otherwise directly or indirectly trade for gain.  Pluralities were not to be permitted with benefices above the yearly value of eight pounds, and residence was made obligatory under penalty in cases of absence without special reason, of ten pounds for each month of such absence.  The law against pluralities was limited as against existing holders, each of whom, for their natural lives, might continue to hold as many as four benefices.  But dispensations, either for non-residence or for the violation of any other provision of the act, were made penal in a high degree, whether obtained from the bishops or from the court of Rome.

These bills struck hard and struck home.  Yet even persons who most disapprove of the Reformation will not at the present time either wonder at their enactment or complain of their severity.  They will be desirous rather to disentangle their doctrine from suspicious connection, and will not be anxious to compromise their theology by the defence of unworthy professors of it.

The bishops, however, could ill tolerate an interference with the privileges of the ecclesiastical order.  The Commons, it was exclaimed, were heretics and schismatics;[243] the cry was heard everywhere, of Lack of faith, Lack of faith; and the lay peers being constitutionally conservative, and perhaps instinctively apprehensive of the infectious tendencies of innovation, it seemed likely for a time that an effective opposition might be raised in the Upper House.  The clergy commanded an actual majority in that House from their own body, which they might employ if they dared; and although they were not likely to venture alone on so bold a measure, yet a partial support from the other members was a sufficient encouragement.  The aged Bishop of Rochester was made the spokesman of the ecclesiastics on this occasion.  “My Lords,” he said, “you see daily what bills come hither from the Commons House, and all is to the destruction of the church.  For God’s sake see what a realm the kingdom of Bohemia was; and when the church went down, then fell the glory of that kingdom.  Now with the Commons is nothing but Down with the church, and all this meseemeth is for lack of faith only."[244] “In result,” says Hall, “the acts were sore debated; the Lords Spiritual would in no wise consent, and committees of the two Houses sate continually for discussion.”  The spiritualty defended themselves by prescription and usage, to which a Gray’s Inn lawyer something insolently answered, on one occasion, “the usage hath ever been of thieves to rob on Shooter’s Hill, ergo, it is lawful.”  “With this answer,” continues Hall, “the spiritual men were sore offended because their doings were called robberies, but the temporal men stood by their sayings, insomuch that the said gentlemen declared to the Archbishop of Canterbury, that both the exaction of probates of testaments and the taking of mortuaries were open robbery and thefts.”