[1202] He made one exception. Nuns professed before the age of 21 were at liberty to marry after the dissolution of their houses, whereat, according to Dr. London, they “be wonderfull gladde ... and do pray right hartely for the kinges majestie” (Suppression of Monasteries, p. 214).
[1203] Strype’s Eccles. Memor. I. 320.
[1204] Burnet I. 254-55; Collect. 332, 347.
[1205] “Nothing has yet been settled concerning the marriage of the clergy, although some persons have very freely preached before the king upon the subject.”—John Butler to Conrad Pellican (Froude III. 381).
[1206] Burnet, Collect. I. 329.
[1207] Strype’s Eccles. Memor. I. 339, 343.
[1208] Strype’s Eccles. Memor. I. 344.—Wilkins III. 847.
[1209] Yet the moderate party ventured to submit to parliament “A Device for extirpating Heresies among the People,” among the suggestions of which was a bill for abolishing ecclesiastical celibacy, legalizing all existing marriages, and permitting the clergy in general “to have wives and work for their living”—Rolls House MS. (Froude III. 381).
[1210] Burnet I. 258-9.—31 Henry VIII. c. xiv. Mr. Froude endeavors to relieve Henry of the responsibility of this measure, and quotes Melanchthon to show that its cruelty is attributable to Gardiner (Hist. Engl. III. 395). He admits, however, that the bill as passed differs but slightly from that presented by the king himself, with whom the committee which framed it must have acted in concert. According to Strype, “The Parliament men said little against this bill, but seemed all unanimous for it; neither did the Lord Chancellor Audley, no, nor the Lord Privy Seal, Cromwel, speak against it: the reason being, no question, because they saw the king so resolved upon it.... Nay, at the very same time it passed, he (Cranmer) stayed and protested against it, though the king desired him to go out, since he could not consent to it. Worcester (Latimer) also, as well as Sarum (Shaxton), was committed to prison; and he, as well as the other, resigned up his bishopric upon the act”—(Memorials of Cranmer, Book I. Chap. 19). This shows us how the royal influence was used. Cranmer, indeed, in his reply to the Devonshire rebels, when in 1549 they demanded the restoration of the Six Articles, expressly asserts “that if the king’s majesty himself had not come personally into the Parliament house, those lawes had never passed” (Ibid. App. No. XL.).
[1211] 31 Henry VIII. c. 6 (Parl. Hist. I. 536-40).