In the autumn came an attempt to include More, with Bishop Fisher and certain monks and friars, in the treason of the “Holy Maid of Kent,”--Elizabeth Barton, a Canterbury nun. The “treason” amounted to this, that the nun, who was given to prophesying, declared that God had revealed to her to speak against Henry’s divorce, and it was sufficient to bring her to Tyburn. But against Sir Thomas More no shred of evidence could be procured, for none existed. He had seen the nun, and talked with her, and “held her in great estimation,” but would neither commit himself to a belief in her visions, nor permit any discussion on the king’s doings; but wrote to the nun a letter which could not have been more prudent, as he exhorted her “to attend to devotion, and not meddle in the affairs of princes.” The name of Sir Thomas More was struck out of the bill of attainder, but the days of his liberty were already numbered. The Act of Succession, passed in March, 1534, made Mary, the daughter of Henry and Catherine, illegitimate, and Elizabeth, Anne’s child, the heir to the throne. The act also declared that “all the nobles of the realm, spiritual and temporal, and all other subjects arrived at full age, should be obliged to take corporal oath, in the presence of the king or his commissioners, to observe and maintain the whole effect and contents of the act,” under the penalties for treason for refusal. The words of the oath were not inserted in the act, and the commissioners drew up a formula, requiring all persons to affirm in addition that the marriage with Catherine was invalid, and the marriage with Anne valid, and further to recall and repudiate allegiance to any foreign authority, prince, or potentate. This was a much larger demand than parliament had authorised, for it contained a denial of the papal supremacy, while all that the act had required was an acknowledgment of the succession to the crown. The pope had only just given his final decision on Henry’s appeal for divorce (March, 1534), and the decision had been against the king and in favour of the marriage. The oath now administered was in direct opposition to the supremacy of Rome, and as such was impossible to the consciences of men like Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher, though the great bulk of the clergy took it without giving any trouble.