322 CONFLICT OF 1532. tested and pretended, sending Norfolk to assure the imperial ambassador that the Commons had called for it; that he himself was borne on and overpowered by their zeal for reform ; the prelates had refused their consent, but the people willed to have it; at last by the 19th of March, after two personal visitations, the king forced it through the Lords ; all the bishops and two abbots voted against it ; of the lay peers only one lord, Arundel, had the courage to support them ; thirty lay lords formed a majority for the bill and it went down to the Commons. There also the king's presence was required ; in the house the noes had it. Then Henry insisted on a division ; a taking of single votes which, from some other illustrations which it would be tedious now to refer to, we infer to have been as yet an exceptional method of ascertaining the sense of the house. Partly by promising that there should be no more acts against the pope, partly by the terror of his majestic eyes, he obtained a majority; men could not comfortably vote in the presence of the definer of all praemunires. This much was accomplished before the Easter adjournment ; the Statutes of Wills and Uses passed the Lords but were rejected by the Commons, and the king did not press them at the time. The question of the Annates had opened his eyes to his power of obtaining further concessions. In the beginning of March, by the contrivance of Rochford, the parliament was discussing the possibility of transferring to the king all the power and authority of the archbishops and bishops : the divorce question was simmering in both houses; and Warham had plucked up spirit to speak up for the queen. This was not to be endured. Accordingly the old antagonism of the Commons to the spiritual courts was utilised, and an address drawn up by the king's secretaries was put in their hands to be delivered to the king as the prayer of the Commons.. Audley, as Speaker, and a number of his