[416] 24 Hen. VIII. cap. 12
[417] State Papers, vol. vii. p. 441.
[418] D'Inteville to Francis the First: MS. Bibliothèque Impérial, Paris—Pilgrim, p. 92.
[419] 24 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.
[420] He had been selected as Warham's successor; and had been consecrated on the 30th of March, 1533. On the occasion of the ceremony when the usual oath to the Pope was presented to him, he took it with a declaration that his first duty and first obedience was to the crown and laws of his own country. It is idle trifling, to build up, as too many writers have attempted to do, a charge of insincerity upon an action which was forced upon him by the existing relation between England and Rome. The Act of Appeals was the law of the land. The separation from communion with the papacy was a contingency which there was still a hope might be avoided. Such a protest as Cranmer made was therefore the easiest solution of the difficulty. See it in STRYPE'S Cranmer, Appendix, p. 683.
[421] BURNET, Vol. iii. pp. 122-3
[422] Bennet to Henry VIII.: State Papers, vol. vii. p. 402. Sir Gregory Cassalis to the same: Rolls House MS.
[423] BURNET, vol. iii. p. 123.
[424] Ibid. vol. i. p. 210.
[425] See State Papers, vol. i. pp. 415, 420, etc.