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should be decided in England, and that the clergy should continue
their ministrations in spite of any censures or interdicts that might
be promulgated by the Pope. The bill was accepted by the House of
Lords, but met with serious opposition in the Commons. An offer was
made to raise £200,000 for the king's use if only he would refer the
whole question to a General Council, but in the end, partly by threats
and partly by deception regarding the attitude of the Pope and the
Emperor, the opposition was induced to give way and the bill became
law. By this Act it was declared that the realm of England should be
governed by one supreme head and king, to whom both spirituality and
temporality were bound to yield, "next to God a natural and humble
obedience," that the English Church was competent to manage its own
affairs without the interference of foreigners, and that all spiritual
cases should be heard and determined by the king's jurisdiction and
authority.[26] The question of the divorce was brought before the
Convocation in March 1533, and though Fisher spoke out boldly in
defence of Catharine's marriage, his brethren failed to support him,
and Convocation declared against the legitimacy of the marriage.

Henry was now free to throw off the mask. He could point to the
verdict given in his favour by both Parliament and Convocation, and
could rely on Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury to carry out his
wishes. In order to provide for the legitimacy of the child that was
soon to be born, he had married Anne Boleyn privately in January 1533.
In April Cranmer requested permission to be allowed to hold a court to
consider Henry's marriage with Catharine, to which request, inspired
as it had been by himself, the king graciously assented. The court sat
at Dunstable, where Catharine was cited to appear. On her refusal to
plead she was condemned as contumacious. Sentence was given by the
archbishop that her marriage with Henry was invalid (23rd April,
1533). Cranmer next turned his attention to Henry's marriage with
Anne, and as might be expected, this pliant minister had no difficulty
in pronouncing in its favour. On Whit Sunday (1533) Anne was crowned
as queen in Westminster Abbey. The popular feeling in London and
throughout the kingdom was decidedly hostile to the new queen and to
the French ambassador, who was blamed for taking sides against
Catharine, but Henry was so confident of his own power that he was
unmoved by the conduct of the London mob. In September, to the great
disappointment of the king who had been led by the astrologers and
sorcerers to believe that he might expect the advent of an heir, a
daughter was born to whom was given the name Elizabeth.

The Pope, acting on the request of the French and English ambassadors,
had delayed to pronounce a definitive sentence, but the news of
Henry's marriage with Anne and of the verdict that had been
promulgated by the Archbishop of Canterbury made it imperative that
decisive measures should be taken. On the 11th July it was decreed
that Henry's divorce from Catharine and his marriage with Anne were
null and void.[27] Sentence of excommunication against him was
prepared, but its publication was postponed till September, when an
interview had been arranged to take place between the Pope and Francis
I. Francis I. was not without hope even still that an amicable
settlement could be arranged. Throughout the whole proceedings he had
espoused warmly Henry's cause, in the belief that England, having
broken completely with Catharine's nephew Charles V., might be forced
to conclude an alliance with France; but he never wished that Henry
VIII. should set the Holy See at defiance, or that England should be
separated from the Catholic Church. To the Pope and to Henry he had
addressed his remonstrances and petitions in turn, but events had
reached such a climax that mediation was almost an impossibility. The
interview arranged between the Pope and Francis I. took place at
Marseilles in October 1533. Regardless of all the rules of diplomatic
courtesy and of good manners, Henry's representative forced his way
into the presence of the Pope, and announced to him that the King of
England had appealed from the verdict of Rome to the judgment of a
General Council. Notices of this appeal were posted up in London, and
preachers were ordered to declaim against the authority of the Pope,
who was to be styled henceforth Bishop of Rome, and whose sentences
and excommunications, the people were to be informed, were of no
greater importance than those of any other foreign bishop. The way was
now open for the final act of separation.

Parliament met in January 1534. The law passed the previous year