of his laws, to the which laws, we as a Christian king have always heretofore, and shall ever most obediently submit ourself, we will not therefore refuse (our pre-eminence, power, and authority to us and to our successors in this behalf nevertheless saved) your humble request, offer, and towardness—­that is, to mean to make an end according to the will and pleasure of Almighty God in our said great cause of matrimony, which hath so long depended undetermined, to our great and grievous unquietness and burden of our conscience.  Wherefore we, inclining to your humble petition, by these our letters sealed with our seal, and signed with our sign manual, do license you to proceed in the said cause, and the examination and final determination of the same; not doubting but that ye will have God and the justice of the said cause only before your eyes, and not to regard any earthly or worldly affection therein; for assuredly the thing which we most covet in the world, is so to proceed in all our acts and doings as may be the most acceptable to the pleasure of Almighty God our Creator, to the wealth and honour of us, our successors and posterity, and the surety of our Realm, and subjects within the same."[430]

The vision of ecclesiastical independence, if Cranmer had indulged in it, must have faded utterly before his eyes on receiving this letter.  As clergy who committed felony were no longer exempted from the penalties of their crimes; so henceforward the courts of the clergy were to fell into conformity with the secular tribunals.  The temporal prerogatives of ecclesiastics as a body whose authority over the laity was countervailed with no reciprocal obligation, existed no longer.  This is what the language of the king implied.  The difficulty which the persons whom he was addressing experienced in realising the change in their position, obliged him to be somewhat emphatic in his assertion of it; and it might be imagined at first sight, that in insisting on his superiority to the officers of the spiritual courts, he claimed a right to dictate their sentences.  But to venture such a supposition would be to mistake the nature of English sovereignty and the spirit of the change.  The supreme authority in England was the law; and the king no more possessed, or claimed a power of controlling the judgment of the bishops or their ministers, than he could interfere with the jurisdiction of the judges of the bench.  All persons in authority, whether in church or state, held their offices thenceforth by similar tenure; but the rule of the proceedings in each remained alike the law of the land, which Henry had no more thought of superseding by his own will than the most constitutional of modern princes.

The closing sentences of his reply to Cranmer are striking, and it is difficult to believe that he did not mean what he was saying.  From the first step in the process to the last, he maintained consistently that his only object was to do what was right.  He was thoroughly persuaded that the course which he was pursuing was sanctioned by justice—­and persons who are satisfied that he was entitled to feel such persuasion, need not refuse him the merit of sincerity, because (to use the language which Cromwell used at the fatal crisis of his life[431]) “It may be well that they who medelle in many matters are not able to answer for them all.”