Strassburg echoed the refusal. Knox however, who had been chosen
minister by the Frankfort congregation, moved rapidly forward, rejecting
the communion service altogether as superstitious, and drawing up a new
"order" of worship after the Genevan model. But in the spring of 1555
these efforts were foiled by the arrival of fresh exiles from England of
a more conservative turn: the reformers were outvoted; Knox was driven
from the town by the magistrates "in fear of the Emperor" whom he had
outraged in an "Admonition" to the English people which he had lately
issued; and the English service was restored. Whittingham and his
adherents, still resolute, as Bale wrote, "to erect a Church of the
Purity" (we may perhaps trace in the sneer the origin of their later
name of Puritans), found a fresh refuge at Basle and Geneva, where the
leaders of the party occupied themselves in a metrical translation of
the Psalms which left its traces on English psalmody and in the
production of what was afterwards known as the Geneva Bible.

[Sidenote: The seditious books.]

Petty as this strife at Frankfort may seem, it marks the first open
appearance of English Puritanism, and the beginning of a struggle which
widened through the reign of Elizabeth till under the Stuarts it broke
England in pieces. But busy as they were in strife among themselves, the
exiles were still more busy in fanning the discontent at home. Books,
pamphlets, broadsides, were written and sent for distribution to
England. The violence of their language was incredible. No sooner had
Bonner issued his injunctions than Bale denounced him in a fierce reply
as "a beastly belly-god and damnable dung-hill." With a spirit worthy of
the "bloody bitesheeps" whom he attacked, the ex-Bishop of Ossory
regretted that when Henry plucked down Becket's shrine he had not burned
the idolatrous priests upon it. It probably mattered little to Bale that
at the moment when he wrote not a single Protestant had as yet been sent
to the stake; but language such as this was hardly likely to stir Mary
to a spirit of moderation. The Spanish marriage gave the refugees a
fairer opportunity of attack, and the Government was forced to make
enquiries of the wardens of city gilds "whether they had seen or heard
of any of these books which had come from beyond seas." The violence of
the exiles was doubled by the suppression of Wyatt's revolt. Poinet, the
late Bishop of Winchester, who had taken part in it,