Footnote 722: Brinkelow, Complaynt of Roderik Mors (Early English Text Society), pp. 12, 13; for other evidence of the attitude of Parliament towards social grievances, see John Hales's letter to Somerset in Lansdowne MS., 238; Crowley's Works (Early English Text Society), passim; Latimer, Sermons, p. 247.[(back)]
Footnote 723: The first Parliament of the reign met in January, 1510, the second in February, 1512. It had a second session, November-December of the same year (L. and P., i., 3502). A third Parliament met for its first session on 23rd January, 1514, for its second on 5th February, 1515, and for its third on 12th November, 1515 (ibid., i., 5616, 5725, ii., 1130). It was this last of which Wolsey urged "the more speedy dissolution"; then for fourteen years there was only one Parliament, that of 1523. These dates illustrate the antagonism between Wolsey and Parliament and show how natural it was that Wolsey should fall in 1529, and that his fall should coincide with the revival of Parliament.[(back)]
Footnote 724: L. and P., i., 2082.[(back)]
Footnote 725: Holinshed, Chronicles, iii., 956.[(back)]
Footnote 726: Hallam, Const. Hist., ii., 4.[(back)]
Footnote 727: L. and P., ii., 1314. In some respects the House of Commons appears to have exercised unconstitutional powers, e.g., in 1529 one Thomas Bradshaw, a cleric, was indicted for having conspired to poison members of Sir James Worsley's household, and on 27th February, 1531, Henry VIII. orders Lady Worsley not to trouble Bradshaw any more, "as the House of Commons has decided that he is not culpable" (ibid., iv., 6293; v., 117; cf. the case of John Wolf and his wife, ibid., vi., 742; vii., passim). The claim to criminal jurisdiction which the House of Commons asserted in Floyd's case (1621) seems in fact to have been admitted by Henry VIII.; compare the frequent use of acts of attainder.[(back)]
Footnote 728: Foxe, ed. Townsend, vi., 33.[(back)]
Footnote 729: Ibid., vi., 43.[(back)]
Footnote 730: In the House of Lords in 1531 the Bishops of St. Asaph and of Bath with a similar immunity attacked the defence of Henry's divorce policy made by the Bishops of Lincoln and London (L. and P., v., 171).[(back)]
Footnote 731: Narratives of the Reformation (Camden Soc.), p. 25.[(back)]