the effect that his sovereign rights as Supreme Head were not clear, because every bishop at his consecration had made an oath of allegiance to the Pope. The Commons were asked to rectify this, and were about to pass severe censure on the bishops, when they were prorogued once more on account of the ragings of the plague. Before he let them go, however, the King had probably ascertained that the clergy intended to submit. Threatened on all sides, Convocation on the 16th of May finally agreed not to pass any more new regulations without the King’s licence, and to examine and revise, according to the royal wishes, the canons already made[207]. The most important result of the controversy for us to notice is that the King, acting (as he evidently did) on the advice of Cromwell, had succeeded in reducing Convocation to complete subjugation, and in making Parliament pliant to his will, as it had never been before. The scheme of controlling the clergy is doubly significant, first, as the cause of a great change in itself; second, as the first step of the dominant policy of the next ten years, for establishing the Royal Supremacy in Church and State. It must not be forgotten however that Cromwell’s action, in defiance of Papal authority at this juncture, arose from no hate of the Romish dogmas nor from any love of the new religion. He carried out all his schemes solely from political motives; the religious, the emotional side left him absolutely untouched; the practical, the politically serviceable aspect of the case, alone appealed to him.