useful to or favoured by himself, or sold them to rich
purchasers. In 1536 he dictated the belief and ceremonial of the church
by issuing Ten Articles which were subscribed by convocation. This first
formulary of the English Church as separate from Rome did not contravene
Catholic doctrine, though it showed the influence of Lutheran models.
Another exposition of Anglican doctrine was made in the _Institution of
a Christian Man_ or "Bishops' book," in some respects more likely to
satisfy those attached to the tenets of Rome, in others, as in the
distinct repudiation of purgatory and the declaration that salvation
depended solely on the merits of Christ, showing an advance. It was
published in 1537 with Henry's sanction but not by authority. In that
year licence was granted for the sale of a translation of the Bible, and
in 1538 another version called Matthew's Bible, was ordered to be kept
in all churches (see BIBLE). Pilgrimages were suppressed and images
used for worship destroyed. Denial of the king's supremacy, denial of
the corporal presence in the Eucharist, and insults to Catholic rites
were alike punished by cruel death. The publication abroad of the king's
excommunication rendered an assertion of orthodoxy advisable for
political reasons, and in 1539 came the Act of the Six Articles
attaching extreme penalties to deviations from Catholic doctrines. The
backward swing of the pendulum continued; Cromwell was beheaded and
three reforming preachers were burnt in 1540. Prosecutions for heresy
under the act were fitful: four gospellers were burnt in London in 1546,
of whom the celebrated Anne Askew was one. Cranmer, however, did not
lose the king's favour. A fresh attempt to define doctrine was made in
the _Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian Man_, the "King's
Book," published by authority in 1543, which, while repudiating the
pope, was a declaration of Catholic orthodoxy. A _Primer_, or private
prayer-book, of which parts were in English, as the litany composed by
Cranmer, and virtually the same as at present, was issued in 1546, and
further liturgical change seemed probable when Henry died in 1547.

Henry, while changing many things in the church, would not allow any
deviation in essentials from the religion of Catholic Europe, which was
not then so dogmatically defined as it was later by the council of
Trent. Edward VI. was a child, and the Protector Somerset and the
council favoured further changes, whi