whereby, if remedy be not provided, the crown of England, which hath been so free at all times, that it has been in no earthly subjection, should be submitted to the Pope; and the laws and statutes of the realm by him be defeated and avoided at his will, in perpetual destruction of the sovereignty of the King our lord, his crown, his regality, and all his realm.' The Commons, therefore, on their part, declared, 'That the things so attempted were clearly against the King's crown and his regality, used and approved of in the time of all his progenitors, and therefore they and all the liege commons of the realm would stand with their said lord the King, and his said crown, in the cases aforesaid, to live and die.'[1] Whether they made allusion to the Act of 1389 does not appear—a measure passed under protest from one of the estates of the realm was possibly held unequal to meet the emergency—at all events they would not rely upon it. For after this peremptory assertion of their own opinion, they desired the King, 'and required him in the way of justice,' to examine severally the lords spiritual and temporal how they thought, and how they would stand.[2] The examination was made, and the result was satisfactory. The lay lords replied without reservation that they would support the Crown. The bishops (they were in a difficulty for which all allowance must be made) gave a cautious, but also a manly answer. They would not affirm, they said, that the Pope had a right to excommunicate them in such cases, and they
