Protestantism in England From the Times of Henry VIII - James Aitken Wylie

jurisdiction ecclesiastical but by, under, and from
the Royal Majesty."[8]
Thus did Henry VIII undo the work of Gregory
VII. Hildebrand had gone to war that he might
have the power of appointing to all .the sees of
Christendom. Not a mitre would he permit to be
worn unless he himself had placed it on the head of
its possessor; nor would he give consecration to
any one till first he had sworn him to "defend the
regalities of St. Peter." From his chair at Rome,
Gregory was thus able to govern Europe, for not a
bishop was there in all Christendom whom he had
not by this oath chained to his throne, and through
the bishops, the kings and their nations. It was this
terrible serfdom which Henry VIII rose up against
and broke in pieces, so far as his own Kingdom of
England was concerned. The appointment of
English bishops he wrested from the Pope, and
took into his own hands, and the oath which he
administered to those whom he placed in these sees
bound them to fealty, not to the chair of Peter, but
to the throne of England. As against the usurped
foreign authority which the King of England now
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