_, on Peter, the rock. Whereas, after the sixteenth century, it
became a State Church, dependent, not on Peter, but upon Parliament,
and as purely local, national, and English as the British Army or the
British Navy. Bramhall tells us that, "whatsoever power our laws did
divest the Pope of, they invested the King with" (_Schism Guarded_, p.
340).
We dealt in the last chapter with the relation between the
pre-Reformation Archbishops and Metropolitans and the Pope, and we saw
how each in turn swore obedience to the Vicar of Christ as his
spiritual sovereign. We will now conclude the present chapter by
transcribing a typical address presented by another representative
body of men to the Pope, in past times. It is the year 1427. Now
Chicheley, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had been accused at Rome of
some fault or indiscretion, so the other Bishops of the province met
together for the purpose of defending him. With this end in view,
they address a letter to Pope Martin V. It begins as follows:--
"Most Blessed Father, one and only undoubted Sovereign Pontiff, Vicar
of Jesus Christ upon earth, with all promptitude of service and
obedience, kissing most devoutly your blessed feet," and so forth.
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