On the 12th of April 1532, the Convocation of Canterbury gathered in Westminster with the weight of the English Church upon its shoulders, unaware that the meeting would end in total submission to a monarch who had just declared them half-subjects. King Henry VIII had sent a schedule of three articles to the bishops demanding that the Church renounce its ancient authority to make laws without royal permission, a move that struck at the very heart of ecclesiastical independence. Archbishop William Warham, the head of the English Church, immediately adjourned the session to the remote chapel of St. Catherine within the Westminster Abbey infirmary, seeking a private strategy to resist the King's demands. Warham prorogued the formal session for three days and led the prelates to St Dunstan's chapel for a secret conference, while a delegation was sent to Rochester to consult John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, who was absent from the proceedings. Fisher, known for his previous views, likely argued for firm resistance, but the political landscape was shifting beneath the feet of the clergy with terrifying speed. The King, accompanied by his councillors in Parliament, made a speech on the 11th of May attacking the clergy, stating that the prelates made an oath to the Pope that was clean contrary to the oath they made to him, effectively calling them traitors to the Crown. This confrontation set the stage for a power struggle that would redefine the relationship between church and state in England forever.
The Rump Convocation Vote
The King abruptly decreed that Warham should end the session, and when the prelates met for the last time on the 15th of May, Warham informed them of the decision to prorogue the Convocation until the 4th of November. Some of the King's most prominent councillors arrived to demand that the clergy should agree to the articles without amendment, including the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquess of Exeter, the Earl of Oxford, the Earl of Wiltshire, and William Sandys. After this confrontation, which lasted about an hour, the nobles left and the inferior clergy went to vote on the King's three articles, with eighteen of them voting no to renouncing legislative authority and nineteen against the canons committee. The rejection of the articles by the lower clergy was a significant moment of resistance, yet it was short-lived as Warham advised the inferior clergy to retire because he thought the councillors might return at any moment. The Duke of Norfolk and a few others did return a few hours later but left after talking with Warham, leaving the upper house to decide the fate of the Church. The Upper House of the Convocation voted on the articles with John Longland, the Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Henry Standish, the Bishop of St. Asaph, and John Stokesley, the Bishop of London speaking in favour of the articles but with some reservation. John Clerk, the Bishop of Bath and Wells was strongly opposed, yet a majority voted for the articles, and the Convocation was prorogued. On the 16th of May, the Submission of the Clergy, as the three articles became known, was officially signed by representatives of the clergy and the bishops, though the historian Michael Kelly has noted that the Submission was enacted by a rump Convocation due to the scarce attendance of the vote.