well exercised these twenty years, to suffer and to
bear evil reports and lies, and have not been much
grieved thereat, and have borne all things quietly;
yet where untrue reports and lies turn to the
hindrance of God's truth, they be in no ways to be
tolerated and suffered. Wherefore these be to
signify to the world that it was not I that did set
up the mass at Canterbury, but a false, flattering,
lying, and dissembling monk, which caused the mass
to be set up there without my advice and counsel:
and as for offering myself to say mass before the
Queen's Highness, or in any other place, I never
did, as her Grace knoweth well. But if her Grace
will give me leave, I shall be ready to prove
against all that will say the contrary, that the
Communion-book, set forth by the most innocent and
godly prince King Edward VI., in his High Court of
Parliament, is conformable to the order which our
Saviour Christ did both observe and command to be
observed, which his Apostles and primitive Church
used many years; whereas the mass in many things
not only hath no foundation of Christ, his
Apostles, nor the primitive Church, but also is
contrary to the same, and containeth many horrible
blasphemies."]

{p.050} The challenge was answered by an immediate summons before the
council; the archbishop was accused of attempting to excite sedition
among the people, and was forthwith committed to the Tower to wait,
with Ridley and Latimer, there, till his fate should be decided on.
Meantime the eagerness with which the country generally availed itself
of the permission to restore the Catholic ritual, proved beyond a
doubt that, except in London and a few large towns, the popular
feeling was with the queen. The English people had no affection for
the Papacy. They did not wish for the re-establishment of the
religious orders, or the odious domination of the clergy. But the
numerical majority among them did desire a celibate priesthood, the
ceremonies which the customs of centuries