The other Acts referred to above were passed before the Submission of the Clergy was completed. The Mortmain and Benefit of Clergy Acts were respectively in limitation of bequests to the Church and of privileges of clerical criminals. They were merely normal steps in the reform of abuses. The Annates Act however demands closer attention. Every bishop on appointment to his see paid the first year's income to Rome--whether on an original appointment, or on translation from one see to another. Obviously this was a tremendous tax on the bishops and a source of large income to Rome. There had been frequent complaints, and suggestions that the Pope should reduce his claim. Very recently, Gardiner had been obliged to borrow heavily to meet the exaction on becoming bishop of Winchester. The Bill provided that five per cent. only should be paid, by way of compensation for expenses of papal Bulls, the ground taken up being that the papal claim was contrary to the ruling of the General Council of Basle, and that the payment, being an alienation of the property of the See, was contrary to the bishops consecration oath. The Bill was passed, the bishops--according to letters of the foreign ambassadors in London--dissenting; a course perfectly natural on their part as a protest, not in favour of the payment, but against the authority of the temporal power to intervene. Yet it is frequently stated as a matter of common knowledge that the clergy themselves were the prime movers, and that the Bill was brought in on their petition. This belief would seem to rest exclusively on the misinterpretation of a document attributed by a later historian [Footnote: Strype, _Eccl. Memorials_ I., ii., 158. Froude, i., 361 ff. (Ed. 1862). But _cf._. Gairdner, _English Church_, p. 116. The present writer fell into the usual error in a previous volume on _Cranmer_; and has to thank Mr. Tomlinson for correcting him.] to Convocation, but almost certainly of parliamentary origin. The Act however was not put in immediate execution: but the English agents in Italy were instructed to hold it _in terrorem_ over Clement's head. [Sidenote: The European Powers and the Divorce]