[Sidenote: The House passes the Clergy Discipline Act.] A fierce struggle between the Commons and the bishops ensued; but the House was firm, and passed several bills, and among them the Clergy Discipline Act. The effect was to cut down ecclesiastical incomes, probate and legacy duties were defined, mortuaries were curtailed, extortionate fees for burial terminated, clergymen were forbidden to engage in farming, tanning, brewing, or to buy merchandise for the purpose of selling it again. It was made unlawful any longer to hold eight or nine benefices, or to purchase dispensations for not doing duty. They were compelled to reside in the parishes for the care of which they were paid, under penalty of £10 a month; and it was made a high penal offence to obtain dispensations from any of the provisions of this Act from Rome. [Sidenote: The Church is compelled to submit.] Nothing could be more significant of the position of the parties than the high-toned, the conservative moderation of these Acts. The bishops did not yield, however, without a struggle. In all directions from the pulpits arose a cry of "atheism," "lack of faith," "heresy." But the House resolutely stood to its ground. Still more, it sent its speaker to the king with a complaint against the Bishop of Rochester, who had dared to stigmatize it as "infidel." The bishop was compelled to equivocate and apologize. [Sidenote: The king is sustained by his people.] The English nation and their king were thus together in the suppression of the monasteries; they were together in the enforcing of ecclesiastical reforms. It was nothing but this harmony which so quickly brought the clergy to reason, and induced them, in 1532, to anticipate both Parliament and the people in actually offering to separate themselves from Rome. In the next year the king had destroyed the vast power which in so many centuries had gathered round ecclesiastical institutions, and had forced the clergy into a fitting subordination. Henceforth there was no prospect that they would monopolize all the influential and lucrative places in the realm; henceforth, year by year, with many vicissitudes and changes, their power continued to decline. Their special pursuit, theology, was separated more and more perfectly from politics. In the House of Lords, of which they had once constituted one-half, they became a mere shadow.