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242 YORK.
convocations by the Archbishops. And such mandates
were occasionally issued. But it was now provided
that convocation could only be assembled by
the king's writ ; that not a step could be taken with
regard to making any new canons or ecclesiastical
regulations of whate^er kind, without license from
the Crown ; and that when made they would be
devoid of ^orce without a formal sanction from the
same supreme authority.
This statute was the harbinger of one which
speedily followed (26 Hen. YIIL, c. i)—that which
was to concentrate in the Cro\\Ti the supreme authority
over things spiritual as well as things temporal. This
great statute enacted that the king " shall be taken,
accepted, and reputed the only supreme head on
earth of the Church of England with full
power to visit, repress, redress, reform, and amend all
such errors, heresies, abuses, contempts, and enormities
which, by any manner of spiritual authority or
jurisdiction, might or may lawfully be reformed."
Before the royal assent was formally given to this
act, measures were carefully taken to ascertain the
feeling of the clerg)-, of the universities, and of the
monastic bodies respecting so great and momentous
a change as it involved. The renunciation of the
papal authority and the proposition that Holy Scripture
gives no sanction to the exercise on the part of
the pope of any higher jurisdiction than that of any
other bishop met with general acceptance. Lee, the
Archbishop of York, fonvarded a declaration to this
effect from the convocation of the northern province,
dated June ist, 1534. The convocation of Canter-