The king soon showed that he was pleased with the Commons. Two bills met with a stern opposition from the Lords; they were those abolishing pluralism and non-residence. These two customs were so convenient and advantageous that the clergy determined not to give them up. Henry, seeing that the two houses would never agree, resolved to cut the difficulty. At his desire eight members from each met one afternoon in the Star Chamber. There was an animated discussion; but the lay lords, who were in the conference, taking part with the commons, the bishops were forced to yield. The two bills passed the Lords the next day, and received the king’s assent. After this triumph the king adjourned parliament in the middle of December. The different reforms that had been carried through were important, but they were not the Reformation. Many abuses were corrected, but the doctrines remained unaltered; the power of the clergy was restricted, but the authority of Christ was not increased; the dry branches of the tree had been lopped off, but a scion calculated to bear good fruit had not been grafted on the wild stock. Had matters stopped here, we might perhaps have obtained a Church with morals less repulsive, but not with a holy doctrine and a new life. But the Reformation was not contented with more decorous forms, it required a second creation. At the same time parliament had taken a great stride towards the revolution that was to transform the Church. A new power had taken its place in the world: the laity had triumphed over the clergy. No doubt there were upright catholics who gave their assent to the laws passed in 1529; but these laws were nevertheless a product of the Reformation. This it was that had inspired the laity with that new energy, parliament with that bold action, and given the liberties of the nation that impulse which they had wanted hitherto. The joy was great throughout the kingdom; and, while the king removed to Greenwich to keep Christmas there “with great plenty of viands, and disguisings, and interludes,” the members of the Commons were welcomed in the towns and villages with public rejoicings.[21] In the people’s eyes their representatives were like soldiers who had just gained a brilliant victory. The clergy alone, in all England, were downcast and exasperated. On returning to their residences the bishops could not conceal their anguish at the danger of the Church.[22] The priests, who had been the first victims offered up on the altar of reform, bent their heads. But if the clergy foresaw days of mourning, the laity hailed with joy the glorious era of the liberties of the people, and of the greatness of England. The friends of the Reformation went farther still; they believed that the Gospel would work a complete change in the world, and talked, as Tyndale informs us, “as though the golden age would come again.”[23] Footnote 18: Foxe, _Acts_, iv. p. 611. Footnote 19: