acy was also frustrated.

But while "the congress of kings," as Erasmus called it, was disporting
itself at Guines and Calais, the tide of a new movement was swiftly and
steadily rising, no more obeying them than had the ocean obeyed Canute.
More in England than in most countries the Reformation was an imported
product. Its "dawn came up like thunder" from across the North Sea.

Luther's Theses on Indulgences were sent by Erasmus to his English
friends Thomas More and John Colet little more than four months after
their promulgation. [Sidenote: March 5, 1518] By February, 1519,
Froben had exported to England a number of volumes of Luther's works.
One of them fell into the hands of Henry VIII or his sister Mary,
quondam Queen of France, as is shown by the royal arms stamped on it.
Many others were sold by a bookseller at Oxford throughout 1520, in
which year a government official in London wrote to his son in the
country, [Sidenote: March 3, 1520] "there be heretics here which take
Luther's opinions." The universities were both infected at the same
time. At Cambridge, especially, a number of young men, many of them
later prominent reformers, met at the White Horse Tavern regularly to
discuss the new ideas. The tavern was nicknamed "Germany" [Sidenote:
1521] and the young enthusiasts "Germans" in consequence. But
surprisingly numerous as are the evidences of the spread of Lutheranism
in these early years, naturally it as yet had few prominent adherents.
When Erasmus wrote Luther that he had well-wishers {282} [Sidenote:
May, 1519] in England, and those of the greatest, he was exaggerating
or misinformed. At most he may have been thinking of John Colet, whose
death in September, 1519, came before he could take any part in the
religious controversy.

At an early date the government took its stand against the heresy.
Luther's books were examined by a committee of the University of
Cambridge, [Sidenote: 1520] condemned and burnt by them, and soon
afterwards by the government. At St. Paul's in London, [Sidenote: May
12, 1521] in the presence of many high dignitaries and a crowd of
thirty thousand spectators Luther's books were burnt and his doctrine
"reprobated" in addresses by John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and
Cardinal Wolsey. A little later it was forbidden to read, import or
keep such works, and measures were taken to enforce this law.
Commissions searched for the said pamphlets; stationers and merchants
wer