The king did not wish to withdraw England from the papal jurisdiction without the assent of the clergy. If he did so of his own authority, the priests would rise against him and compare him to Luther. There were at that time three great parties in Christendom: the evangelical, the catholic, and the popish. Henry purposed to overthrow popery, but without going so far as evangelism: he desired to remain in catholicism. One means occurred of satisfying the clergy. Although they were fanatical partisans of the Church, they had sacrificed the pope; they now imagined that, by sacrificing a few heretics, they would atone for their cowardly submission. In a later age Louis XIV. did the same to make up for errors of another kind. The provincial synod of Canterbury met and addressed the king: ‘Your Highness one time defended the Church with your pen, when you were only a member of it; now that you are its supreme head, your Majesty should crush its enemies, and so shall your merits exceed all praise.’[137] In order to prove that he was not another Luther, Henry VIII. consented to hand over the disciples of that heretic to the priests, and gave them authority to imprison and burn them, provided they would aid the king to resume the power usurped by the pope. The bishops immediately began to hunt down the friends of the Gospel. A will had given rise to much talk in the county of Gloucester. William Tracy, a gentleman of irreproachable conduct and ‘full of good works, equally generous to the clergy and the laity,’[138] had died, praying God to save his soul through the merits of Jesus Christ, but leaving no money to the priests for masses. The primate of England had his bones dug up and burnt. But this was not enough: they must also burn the living. Footnote 131: ‘Immediately and only upon your grace.’—Juramentum. Rymer, _Acta_, vi. p. 169. Footnote 132: ‘The rest forced the door, rushed in, and the bishop’s servants were beaten and ill-used.’—Burnet, i. p. 110. Footnote 133: ‘They struck the bishop’s officers over the face.’—Hall, _Chronicles of England_, p. 783. Footnote 134: Hall, _Chronicles_. Footnote 135: Ibid. p. 783. Footnote 136: The noble was worth six shillings and eightpence. Footnote 137: ‘Tanta ejus Majestatis merita quod nullis laudibus æquari queant.’—_Concilia_, M. Brit. p. 742. Footnote 138: Latimer, _Sermons_, i. p. 46 (Parker Soc.); Tyndale, _Op._ iii. p. 231. CHAPTER XII. THE MARTYRS. (1531.) [Sidenote: Proclamation Against Papal Bulls.]