Submission of the Clergy (1532)

The Submission of the Clergy (1532) was an agreement by which the English bishops accepted the king’s control over church legislation and their own collective proceedings. Its significance in the novel lies in how it converts a dispute over spiritual jurisdiction into an enforceable political settlement: the clergy’s lawmaking and assembly become subject to royal licence, while the reach of Parliament and the king’s appointees extends into the review of existing church law.

Terms and Immediate Effect

On 15 May, the bishops signed a document of submission to the king. They undertook not to make new church legislation without his licence and agreed that existing laws would be reviewed by a commission including members of Parliament and the king’s appointees. They also agreed not to meet in Convocation without the king’s permission. The settlement therefore reached beyond a general declaration of allegiance: it restricted the clergy’s ability to legislate, subjected their existing rules to outside review, and made their assembly dependent on royal approval.

The Political Struggle Behind the Agreement

The document followed a widening assertion of royal authority over the Church. In the debate over the king’s title as head of the Church in England, Katherine of Aragon objects that the bishops have been pressured into accepting it, while Thomas Cromwell argues that the king’s position is supported by ancient precedent. The qualifying phrase “as far as the law of Christ allows” becomes a focus of disagreement: Katherine regards it as a concession meant to soothe episcopal conscience, while Cromwell treats it as a claim whose meaning can be developed and redefined. The submission’s control of legislation and Convocation gives this contest an institutional form.

The political pressure also appears in the Commons. When Cromwell introduces a bill to suspend annates paid to Rome, he calls for an unusual division of the House, allowing the king to observe who supports the measure and who opposes it. The method both tests allegiance and helps identify opponents. The novel places this parliamentary manoeuvre alongside the bishops’ submission, showing two connected means by which royal policy gains force: legislative action in Parliament and limits on the independent authority of the clergy.

Consequences and Wider Significance

The agreement does not, by itself, settle the competing claims of king, Church, and Pope. Katherine continues to maintain that the Pope is head of the Church everywhere and that the lawfulness of government ultimately flows from Rome. Cromwell, by contrast, later advances an argument based on Marsiglio of Padua: priests are subjects rather than rulers, while a king’s authority is exercised through a legislative body acting on behalf of the people. These positions expose the jurisdictional conflict that the submission helps bring into domestic political procedure.

The novel presents the agreement as part of a cumulative change, not an isolated reform. Royal licensing, parliamentary involvement in reviewing church laws, and restrictions on Convocation make ecclesiastical authority increasingly answerable to the crown. At the same time, later scenes show the limits and risks of that transformation: Thomas Cranmer’s secret marriage to Margarete leaves him vulnerable because clerical marriage remains unacceptable at court, while Thomas More argues that Parliament can decide temporal matters but cannot exercise spiritual jurisdiction that lies beyond the realm. The submission thus marks a decisive institutional shift, even as the novel keeps visible the religious and legal disagreement that the shift cannot simply erase.