He therefore turned his attention to the ecclesiastical courts, which from the time of Becket had been antagonistic to royal encroachments.  The war between the civil power and these courts had begun before the fall of Wolsey, and had resulted in the curtailment of probate duties, legacies, and mortuaries, by which the clergy had been enriched.  A limitation of pluralities and enforcement of residence had also been effected.  But a still greater blow to the privileges of the clergy was struck by the Parliament under the influence of Cromwell, who had elevated it in order to give legality to the despotic measures of the Crown; and in this way a law was passed that no one under the rank of a sub-deacon, if convicted of felony, should be allowed to plead his “benefit of clergy,” but should be punished like ordinary criminals,—­thus re-establishing the constitutions of Clarendon in the time of Becket.  Another act also was passed, by which no one could be summoned, as aforetime, to the archbishop’s court out of his own diocese,—­a very beneficent act, since the people had been needlessly subject to great expense and injustice in being obliged to travel considerable distances.  It was moreover enacted that men could not burden their estates beyond twenty years by providing priests to sing masses for their souls.  The Parliament likewise abolished annats,—­a custom which had long prevailed in Europe, which required one year’s income to be sent to the Pope on any new preferment; a great burden to the clergy; a sort of tribute to a foreign power.  Within fifty years, one hundred and sixty thousand pounds had thus been sent from England to Rome, from this one source of papal revenue alone,—­equal to three million pounds at the present time, or fifteen millions of dollars, from a country of only three millions of people.  It was the passage of that act which induced Sir Thomas More (a devoted Catholic, but a just and able and incorruptible judge) to resign the seals which he had so long and so honorably held,—­the most prominent man in England after Cromwell and Cranmer; and it was the execution of this lofty character, because he held out against the imperious demands of Henry, which is the greatest stain upon this monarch’s reign.  Parliament also called the clergy to account for excessive acts of despotism, and subjected them to the penalty of a premunire (the offence of bringing a foreign authority into England), from which they were freed only by enormous fines.

Thus it would seem that many abuses were removed by Cromwell and the Parliament during the reign of Henry VIII. which may almost be considered as reforms of the Church itself.  The authority of the Church was not attacked, still less its doctrines, but only abuses and privileges the restraint of which was of public benefit, and which tended to reduce the power of the clergy.  It was this reduction of clerical usurpations and privileges which is the main feature in the legislation of Henry VIII., so far as it pertained