The bills for regulating the clergy met with some opposition in the house of lords. Bishop Fisher, in particular, imputed these measures of the commons to their want of faith; and to a formed design, derived from heretical and Lutheran principles, of robbing the church of her patrimony, and over-turning the national religion. The duke of Norfolk reproved the prelate in severe, and even somewhat indecent terms. He told him, that the greatest clerks were not always the wisest men. But Fisher replied, that he did not remember any fools in his time who had proved great clerks. The exceptions taken at the bishop of Rochester’s speech stopped not there. The commons, by the mouth of Sir Thomas Audley, their speaker, made complaints to the king of the reflections thrown upon them; and the bishop was obliged to put a more favorable construction on his words.[*] Henry was not displeased that the court of Rome and the clergy should be sensible that they were entirely dependent on him, and that his parliament, if he were willing to second their inclinations, was sufficiently disposed to reduce the power and privileges of the ecclesiastics. The commons gratified the king in another particular of moment: they granted him a discharge of all those debts which he had contracted since the beginning of his reign,[**] and they grounded this bill, which occasioned many complaints, on a pretence of the king’s great care of the nation, and of his regularly employing all the money which he had borrowed in the public service. * Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 59. **Burnet, vol. ii. p. 82. Most of the king’s creditors consisted of friends to the cardinal who had been engaged by their patron to contribute to the supply of Henry’s necessities; and the present courtiers were well pleased to take the opportunity of mulcting them.[*] Several also approved of an expedient which, they hoped, would ever after discredit a method of supply so irregular and so unparliamentary. * Burnet, vol. ii. p. 83.