When the King of England received his ambassador's message, he could hardly restrain his anger. At the very moment when he had made a concession, which appeared to him the height of condescension, Rome treated him with contempt and sacrificed him to Charles V. Even the nation was aroused. The pope, it was said, commissions a foreign prince to execute his decrees; soldiers newly raised in Germany, and brimful of insults and threats, are preparing to land in Great Britain![12] National pride arrayed the people on the King's side. Henry no longer hesitated; his offended honor demanded reparation: a complete rupture alone could satisfy it. He wrote a treatise entitled: 'On the power of Christian kings over their Churches, against the tyranny and horrible impiety of the pope.'[13] This book against the pope, and the very different one that he had formerly written against Luther, are the two claims of this prince to theological renown. Consulting merely his own interests, he threw himself now on one side, now on the other. Many writers supported him. 'The pope,' said Dr. Samsons, dean of the Chapel Royal, 'has no more power in England than the Archbishop of Canterbury in Rome. It was only by tacit consent that the pope crept into the kingdom, but we intend to drive him out now by express consent.'[14] The two houses of parliament were almost unanimously of that opinion. The privy council proposed to call upon the lord mayor to see that anti-Romish doctrines were taught in every house in London. Lastly, the people showed their opposition after their fashion, indulging in games and masquerades, in which a cardinal at one time, the pope at another, were represented. To call a man a 'papist' or 'a priest of the pope' was one of the greatest insults.[15] Even the clergy declared against Rome. On the 31st March the lower house of convocation discussed whether the Roman pontiff had in England, according to Scripture, a higher jurisdiction than any other foreign bishop.[16] Thirty-three voted in the negative, only four in the affirmative. The king immediately forwarded the same question to all the ecclesiastical corporations of the kingdom. The friends of the Gospel were filled with joy. The pope had made a great mistake when, imitating the style of ancient Rome, he had hurled the bolts of the Vatican, as Jupiter had in days of old launched the thunders of the Capitol. A great revolution seemed to be working itself out unopposed in this island, so long the slave of the Roman pontiffs. There was just at this time nothing to be feared from without: Charles V. was overwhelmed with business; the King of Scotland was on better terms with his uncle of England, and Francis I. was preparing for a friendly interview with Henry VIII.[17] And yet the danger had never been greater; but the mine was discovered in March 1534, before the match could be applied to it.