At the same time new and loud complaints of the Romish exactions were heard in parliament. ‘For centuries the Roman bishops have been deceiving us,’ said the eloquent speakers, ‘making us believe that they have the power of dispensing with everything, even with God’s commandments. We send to Rome the treasures of England, and Rome sends us back in return ... a piece of paper. The monster which has fattened on the substance of our people bears a hundred different names. They call it reliefs, dues, pensions, provisions, procurations, delegation, rescript, appeal, abolition, rehabilitation, relaxation of canonical penalties, licenses, Peter’s pence, and many other names besides. And after having thus caught our money by all sorts of tricks, the Romans laugh at us in their sleeves.’ Parliament forbade everybody, even the king himself,[376] to apply to Rome for any dispensation or delegation whatsoever, and ordered them, in case of need, to have recourse to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Then, immediately putting these principles into practice, they declared the king’s marriage with Catherine to be null, for ‘no man has power to dispense with God’s laws,’[377] and ratified the marriage between Henry and Anne, proclaiming their children heirs to the crown. At the same time, wishing England to become entirely English, they deprived two Italians, Campeggi and Ghinucci, of the sees of Salisbury and Worcester, which they held. It was during the month of March, 1534—an important date for England—that the main branches of the tree of popery were thus lopped off one after another. The trunk indeed remained, although stripped; but yet a few months, and that too was to strew the earth with its fall. Still the Commons showed a certain degree of consideration. When Clement had threatened the king with excommunication, he had given him three months’ grace; England, desiring to return his politeness, informed the pope that he might receive some compensation. At the same time she made an important declaration: ‘We do not separate from the Christian Church,’ said the Commons, ‘but merely from the usurped authority of the Pope of Rome; and we preserve the catholic faith, as _it is set forth in the Holy Scriptures_.’ All these reforms were effected with great unanimity, at least in appearance. The bishops, even the most scholastic, such as Stokesley of London, Tonstal of Durham, Gardiner of Winchester, and Rowland Lee of Coventry, declared the Roman papacy to be of human invention, and that the pope was, in regard to them, only a _bishop_, a _brother_, as his predecessors had been to the bishops of antiquity.[378] Every Sunday during the cessation of parliament a prelate preached at St. Paul’s Cross ‘that the pope was not the head of the Church,’ and all the people said AMEN.