Previous to the passing of this act, therefore, the bishops, who had power to arrest laymen on suspicion of heresy, and detain them in prison untried,[89] had no power to imprison priests, even though convicted of adultery or incest. The legislature were supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Cardinal Morton procured authority from the pope to visit the religious houses, the abominations of which had become notorious;[90] and in a provincial synod held on the 24th of February, 1486, he laid the condition of the secular clergy before the assembled prelates. Many priests, it was stated, spent their time in hawking or hunting, in lounging at taverns, in the dissolute enjoyment of the world. They wore their hair long like laymen; they were to be seen lounging in the streets with cloak and doublet, sword and dagger. By the scandal of their lives they imperilled the stability of their order.[91] A number of the worst offenders, in London especially, were summoned before the synod and admonished;[92] certain of the more zealous among the learned (_complures docti_) who had preached against clerical abuses were advised to be more cautious, for the avoiding of scandal;[93] but the archbishop, taking the duty upon himself, sent round a circular among the clergy of his province, exhorting them to general amendment.[94] Yet this little cloud again disappeared. Henry VII. sat too insecurely on his throne to venture on a resolute reform, even if his feelings had inclined him towards it, which they did not. Morton durst not resolutely grapple with the evil. He rebuked and remonstrated; but punishment would have caused a public scandal. He would not invite the inspection of the laity into a disease which, without their assistance, he had not the strength to encounter; and his incipient reformation died away ineffectually in words. The church, to outward appearance, stood more securely than ever. The obnoxious statutes of the Plantagenets were in abeyance, their very existence, as it seemed, was forgotten; and Thomas a Becket never desired more absolute independence for the ecclesiastical order than Archbishop Warham found established when he succeeded to the primacy. He, too, ventured to repeat the experiment of his predecessor. In 1511 he attempted a second visitation of the monasteries, and again exhorted a reform; but his efforts were even slighter than Morton's, and in their results equally without fruit. The maintenance of his order in its political supremacy was of greater moment to him than its moral purity: a decent veil was cast over the clerical infirmities, and their vices were forgotten as soon as they ceased to be proclaimed.[95] Henry VIII., a mere boy on his accession, was borne away with the prevailing stream; and trained from his childhood by theologians, he entered upon his reign saturated with theological prepossessions. The intensity of his nature recognising no half measures, he was prepared to make them the law of his