ch were carried out with Cranmer's
help. They issued a book of _Homilies_ and a set of injunctions which
were enforced by a royal visitation. Pictures and much painted glass
were destroyed in churches, frescoed walls were whitewashed, and in
1548, the removal of all images was decreed. Parliament ordered that
bishops should be appointed by letters patent and hold their courts in
the king's name. An act of the last reign granting the king all
chantries and gilds was enlarged and enforced with cruel injustice to
the poor. On the petition of convocation parliament allowed the marriage
of priests; and it further ordered that the laity should receive the cup
in communion. A communion book was issued by the council in English, the
Latin mass being retained for a time. Many German reformers came to
England, were favoured by the council, and gained influence over
Cranmer. The first Book of Common Prayer was authorized by an Act of
Uniformity in 1549; it retained much from old service books, but the
communion office is Lutheran in character. It excited discontent, and a
serious insurrection broke out in the West, the insurgents demanding the
revival of the Act of the Six Articles and the withdrawal of the new
service as "like a Christmas game." After Somerset's fall the government
rapidly pushed forward reformation. A new _Ordinal_ issued with
parliamentary approval in 1550 was significant of the change in
sacramental doctrine, and the four minor orders disappeared. Altars were
destroyed and tables substituted. Five bishops, Bonner of London,
Gardiner of Winchester, and Heath of Worcester, then already in prison,
and two others, were deprived; and the Lady Mary, who would not give up
the mass, was harshly treated. The reformers were not tolerant; for a
woman was burnt for Arianism in 1550 and a male Anabaptist in 1551.
Under the influence of foreign reformers, who took a lower view of the
Eucharist than the Lutheran divines, Cranmer soon advanced beyond the
prayer-book of 1549. A second prayer-book, departing further from the
old order, appeared in 1552, and without being accepted by convocation
was enforced by another Act of Uniformity, and in 1553 a catechism and
forty-two articles of religion were authorized by Edward for
subscription by the clergy, though not laid before convocation. A
revision of the canon law in accordance with the act for "submission of
the clergy" was at last undertaken in 1551, but the only result was a