XII.] SCRAPS. But the king is not satisfied with silent acquiescence; he does not hesitate to urge both houses to work harder at that and other public business ; again we find Tunstall protesting alone against some minor measure : the most remarkable event, from our point of view, is the withdrawal from the House of Lords, at the request of convocation, of a bill allowing laymen to act as ecclesiastical judges ; a measure which, though withdrawn now, became law in 1545. The convocation itself was very busy in the matter of the translation of the Bible and Scriptural formulai of prayer and belief. The same work occupied the session of 1543, in which we find Lord Mountjoy voting by himself against the amplification of the Proclamation Act; and four bishops opposing the Bill for Collectors and Receivers. Clearly the independent spirit has nearly evaporated. The ecclesiastical bills pass without a protest, but the Lords are not reduced so low as they were in 1540. The remaining sessions, those of 1544, 1545, and 1546, furnish nothing that illustrates our subject : the journals record no opposition or protest ; the king has his own way in everything. Time would fail me if I were to attempt to go into the minor parliamentary cases of privilege, or to clothe or colour the dry facts that I have been retailing to you ; or I might describe how, when the Duke of Suffolk opened parliament, all the members, every time the king's name occurred, bowed until their heads all but touched the ground ; or how Henry himself closed the session of 1545 with a sermon on charity; how in 1515 parliament and convocation were so comfortably at one that Taylor, the clerk of the parliament, was prolocutor of the Lower House of Canterbury : or how ecstatically Hare and Moyle praised the beauty of their royal master; or how, when he brought the news of the king's death, the rough old Wriothesley could not speak for tears : or how weary the clerk of the parliament was of Audley's