At Easter, 1529, Lutheran books began to circulate at court, books {288} advocating the confiscation of ecclesiastical property and the reduction of the church to a state of primitive simplicity.

To Chapuis, the imperial ambassador, Henry pointedly praised Luther, whom he had lately called "a wolf of hell and a limb of Satan," remarking that though he had mixed heresy in his books that was not sufficient reason for reproving and rejecting the many truths he had brought to light.

To punish Wolsey for the failure to secure what was wanted from Rome, [Sidenote: November 4, 1530] the pampered minister was arrested for treason, but died of chagrin before he could be executed.

"Had I served my God," said he, "as diligently as I have served my king, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs." [Sidenote: Reformation Parliament, November 3, 1529] In the meantime there had already met that Parliament that was to pass, in the seven years of its existence, the most momentous and revolutionary laws as yet placed upon the statute-books.

The elections were free, or nearly so; the franchise varied from a fairly democratic one in London to a highly oligarchical one in some boroughs.
Notwithstanding the popular feeling that Catharine was an injured woman and that war with the Empire might ruin the valuable trade with Flanders, the "government," as would now be said, that is, the king, received hearty support by the majority of members.