It was in fact the system of Catholicism itself that trained men to look without surprise on the concentration of all spiritual and secular authority in Cromwell.
Successor to Wolsey as Keeper of the Great Seal, it seemed natural enough that Cromwell should succeed him also as Vicar-General of the Church and that the union of the two powers should be restored in the hands of a minister of the king.

But the mere fact that these powers were united in the hands not of a priest but of a layman showed the new drift of the royal policy.

The Church was no longer to be brought indirectly under the royal power; in the policy of Cromwell it was to be openly laid prostrate at the foot of the throne.
[Sidenote: Subjection of the Bishops] And this policy his position enabled him to carry out with a terrible thoroughness.

One great step towards its realization had already been taken in the statute which annihilated the free legislative powers of the convocations of the Clergy.

Another followed in an act which under the pretext of restoring the free election of bishops turned every prelate into a nominee of the king.