[685] 25 Henry VIII. cap. 20.  The pre-existing, unrealities with respect to the election of bishops explain the unreality of the new arrangement, and divest it of the character of wanton tyranny with which it appeared prima facie to press upon the Chapters.  The history of this statute is curious, and perhaps explains the intentions with which it was originally passed.  It was repealed by the 2nd of the 1st of Edward VI. on the ground that the liberty of election was merely nominal, and that the Chapters ought to be relieved of responsibility when they had no power of choice.  Direct nomination by the crown was substituted for the conge d’elire, and remained the practice till the reaction under Mary, when the indefinite system was resumed which had existed before the Reformation.  On the accession of Elizabeth, the statute of 25 Henry VIII. was again enacted.  The more complicated process of Henry was preferred to the more simple one of Edward, and we are naturally led to ask the reason of so singular a preference.  I cannot but think that it was this.  The Council of Regency under Edward VI. treated the Church as an institution of the State, while Henry and Elizabeth endeavoured (under difficulties) to regard it under its more Catholic aspect of an organic body.  So long as the Reformation was in progress, it was necessary to prevent the intrusion upon the bench of bishops of Romanising tendencies, and the deans and chapters were therefore protected by a strong hand from their own possible mistakes.  But the form of liberty was conceded to them, not, I hope, to place deliberately a body of clergymen in a degrading position, but in the belief that at no distant time the Church might be allowed without danger to resume some degree of self-government.

[686] 25 Henry VIII. cap. 21.

[687] I sent you no heavy words, but words of great comfort; willing your brother to shew you how benign and merciful the prince was; and that I thought it expedient for you to write unto his Highness, and to recognise your offence and to desire his pardon, which his Grace would not deny you how in your age and sickness.—­Cromwell to Fisher:  Suppression of the Monasteries, p. 27.

[688] Sir Thomas More to Cromwell:  BURNET’S Collectanea, p. 350.

[689] Ibid.

[690] Ibid.

[691] More to Cromwell:  STRYPE’S Memorials, vol. i.  Appendix, p. 195.

[692] More to the King:  ELLIS, first series, vol. ii. p. 47.

[693] Cromwell to Fisher:  Suppression of the Monasteries, p. 27, et seq.

[694] Suppression of the Monasteries, p. 27, et seq.

[695] John Fisher to the Lords in Parliament:  ELLIS, third series, vol. ii. p. 289.

[696] Lords’ Journals, p. 72.

[697] 25 Hen.  VIII. cap. 12.