rsuade or induce any, whether
religious or secular, since my coming over once to preach the Word of
God, nor the just title of our illustrious Prince."

Even the acceptance of the supremacy, which had been so quietly
effected, was brought into question when its results became clear. The
bishops abstained from compliance with the order to erase the Pope's
name out of their mass-books. The pulpits remained steadily silent. When
Browne ordered the destruction of the images and relics in his own
cathedral, he had to report that the prior and canons "find them so
sweet for their gain that they heed not my words."

Cromwell, however, was resolute for a religious uniformity between the
two islands, and the primate borrowed some of his patron's vigor.
Recalcitrant priests were thrown into prison, images were plucked down
from the rood-loft, and the most venerable of Irish relics, the staff
of St. Patrick, was burned in the market-place. But he found no support
in his vigor save from across the channel. The Irish council looked
coldly on; even the Lord Deputy still knelt to say prayers before an
image at Trim. A sullen, dogged opposition baffled Cromwell's efforts,
and their only result was to unite all Ireland against the Crown.

But Cromwell found it easier to deal with Irish inaction than with the
feverish activity which his reforms stirred in England itself. It was
impossible to strike blow after blow at the Church without rousing wild
hopes in the party who sympathized with the work which Luther was doing
oversea. Few as these "Lutherans" or "Protestants" still were in
numbers, their new hopes made them a formidable force; and in the school
of persecution they had learned a violence which delighted in outrages
on the faith which had so long trampled them under foot. At the very
outset of Cromwell's changes, four Suffolk youths broke into a church at
Dovercourt, tore down a wonder-working crucifix, and burned it in the
fields.

The suppression of the lesser monasteries was the signal for a new
outburst of ribald insult to the old religion. The roughness, insolence,
and extortion of the commissioners sent to effect it drove the whole
monastic body to despair. Their servants rode along the road with copes
for doublets or tunicles for saddle-cloths, and scattered panic among
the larger houses which were left. Some sold their jewels and relics to
provide for the evil day they saw approaching. Some begged of their own
will fo