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INJUN'CTIONS ABOUT PREACHING. 249-
the vicar-general. The Archbishop, it seems, had
done his best to restrain the preaching of" novelties,"
but "yet they preach," said he, and some were
contumacious enough to say that they would get the
king's license to preach : but he hopes no such
license would be granted without his privity. Some,-
he complains, allege that they have license of my
Lord of Canterbury. It is somewhat amusing to see
the way in which the old jealousy of Canterbury still
animates the Northern primate:— "if they have,
none shalbee obeyed here, but onlie the kinge's and
you res."
The injunctions which had been issued on the
subject of preaching were very stringent. The
supremacy of the king in ecclesiastical matters was to
be prominently brought before the people, and no one
was to maintain the papal authority. On the subjects
of purgatory, honouring of saints, clerical celibac}',
justification by faith, pilgrimages, and alleged miracles,
the lips of the preachers were to be sealed for a year.
The marriage of the king, sanctioned as it had been
by the determination of the most learned universities
of Christendom, the convocations of the two provinces,
and the assent of the lords spiritual and
temporal, and the commons of the realm in Parliament
assembled, was no longer a matter for argument,
but was to be accepted as " a thing of mere verity and
so to be allowed in all men's opinions." On one point
alone had they free liberty of speech,—namely, the pretended
claim of the pope to pronounce upon the king's
divorce, on which a preacher was not only permitted
but enjoined to animadvert without let or hindrance.