Catherine on her part did not remain behind: she wrote a pathetic letter to the pope, informing him that her husband had banished her from the palace. Clement, in the depths of his perplexity, behaved, however, very properly: he called upon the king (25th January) to take back the queen, and to dismiss Anne Boleyn from court. Henry spiritedly rejected the pontiff’s demand. ‘Never was a prince treated by a pope as your Holiness has treated me,’ he said; ‘not painted reason,[169] but the truth alone, must be our guide.’ The king prepared to begin the emancipation of England. [Sidenote: Character Of Cromwell.] Thomas Cromwell is the representative of the political reform achieved by that prince. He was one of those powerful natures which God creates to work important things. His prompt and sure judgment taught him what it would be possible to do under a Tudor king, and his intrepid energy put him in a position to accomplish it. He had an instinctive horror of superstitions and abuses, tracked them to their remotest corner, and threw them down with a vigorous arm. Every obstacle was scattered under the wheels of his car. He even defended the evangelicals against their persecutors, without committing himself, however, and encouraged the reading of Holy Scripture; but the royal supremacy, of which he was the originator, was his idol. The exactions of Rome in England were numerous: the king and Cromwell were content for the moment to abolish one, the appropriation by the papacy of the first year’s income of all ecclesiastical benefices. ‘These _annates_,’ said Cromwell, ‘have cost England eight hundred thousand ducats since the second year of Henry VII.[170] If, in consequence of the abolition of annates, the pope does not send a bishop his bull of ordination, the archbishop or two bishops shall ordain him, as in the old times.’ Accordingly, in March, 1532, the Lower House agreed to a resolution, which they expressed in these words: _A cest bille les communes sont assentes_, To this bill the Commons assent. The bishops were overjoyed: they had to incur great expenses for their establishment, and the first money arising from their benefice went to the pope. Their friends used to make them pecuniary advances; but if the bishop died shortly after his enthronization, these advances were lost. Some of the bishops, fearing the opposition of the pope, exclaimed: ‘These exactions are contrary to God’s law. St. Paul bids us withdraw ourselves from all such as walk inordinately. Therefore, if the pope claims to keep the annates, let it please your Majesty and parliament to withdraw the obedience of the people from the see of Rome.’[171] The king was more moderate than the prelates: he said he would wait a year or two before giving his assent to the bill.