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Updated: June 6, 2025
His animosity however, now aroused against England, was not easy to remove: and it was an additional source of grief to Mary and a great vexation to the Cardinal that Paul deprived him of his Legatine authority. The contest between Philip and Henry of France continued.
Wolsey had begun the internal amendment, by his visitation and suppression of the smallest monasteries and the appropriation of ecclesiastical property to educational purposes, and by some substitution of the superior organisation of the legatine court for that of the Ordinaries; but the latter step had been cancelled by his fall and by the ominous appeal to the statute of Praemunire against legatine jurisdiction.
Henry VIII. was a careful observer of Continental affairs and was as anxious as Francis I. to strengthen his own position by grasping the authority of the Church. He secured a /de facto/ headship of the Church in England when he succeeded in getting Cardinal Wolsey invested with permanent legatine powers.
To make matters worse for Henry, Rome was sacked the Pope was a prisoner in the Emperor's hands. At all costs, the Pope must be set free on this errand Wolsey now set out for France. But Charles V. was no less wily than Wolsey, and dispatched Cardinal Quignon to Rome to frustrate his endeavours, and to deprive Wolsey of his legatine powers.
For exercising legatine powers in England Cardinal Wolsey had been indicted and found guilty of the violation of the stature of Praemunire, and as the clergy had submitted to his legatine authority they were charged as a body with being participators in his guilt.
Henry, having failed to obtain a favourable verdict from the legatine commission, determined to frighten the Pope into compliance with his wishes by showing him that behind the King of England stood the English Parliament. The most elaborate precautions were taken to secure that members likely to be friendly were elected.
Like his acceptance of legatine authority, the expedient was a desperate one, and if it failed it was ruinous. The nation at that time was sincerely attached to Spain. The alliance with the house of Burgundy was of old date; the commercial intercourse with Flanders was enormous, Flanders, in fact, absorbing all the English exports; and as many as 15,000 Flemings were settled in London.
To make use of comparison, it was Cardinal Wolsey's assumption of full legatine power by permission of the Pope which first suggested to Henry VIII that he could dispense with His Holiness altogether. He saw that the Cardinal wielded both spiritual and temporal jurisdiction.
From the two legatine councils of 1070, at Winchester and Windsor, a series begins of great national synods, meeting at intervals to the end of the reign. Complete divorce from the State was not at first possible. The council was held at a meeting of the court, and was summoned by the king.
It was against this degradation of the Crown that the Statutes of Provisors and Præmunire had been long since aimed. The need of Papal support to their disputed title which had been felt by the Houses of Lancaster and York had held these statutes in suspense, and the Legatine Court of Wolsey had openly defied them.
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