rithing under the
inhibitions, looked on in sullen acquiescence, submitting in a forced
conformity, and believing, not without cause, that a tide which flowed
so hotly would before long turn and ebb back again. Among the Reforming
clergy there was neither union nor prudence; and the Protestants, in the
sudden sunshine, were becoming unmanageable and extravagant. On the
bench there were but four prelates who were on the moving
side,--Cranmer, Latimer, Shaxton, and Barlow,[528]--and among these
Cranmer only approved the policy of the government. Shaxton was an
arrogant braggart, and Barlow a feeble enthusiast. Shaxton, who had
flinched from the stake when Bilney was burnt, Shaxton, who
subsequently relapsed under Mary, and became himself a Romanist
persecutor, was now strutting in his new authority, and punishing,
suspending, and inhibiting in behalf of Protestant doctrines which were
not yet tolerated by the law.[529] Barlow had been openly preaching that
purgatory was a delusion; that a layman might be a bishop; that where
two or three, it might be, "cobblers or weavers," "were in company in
the name of God, there was the church of God."[530] Such ill-judged
precipitancy was of darker omen to the Reformation than papal
excommunications or imperial menaces, and would soon be dearly paid for
in fresh martyr-fires. Latimer, too, notwithstanding his clear
perception and gallant heart, looked with bitterness on the confiscation
of establishments which his mind had pictured to him as garrisoned with
a Reforming army, as nurseries of apostles of the truth. Like most
fiery-natured men, he was ill-pleased to see the stream flowing in a
channel other than that which he had marked for it; and the state of his
feeling, and the state of the English world, with all its confused
imaginings, in these months, is described with some distinctness in a
letter written by a London curate to the Mayor of Plymouth, on the 13th
of March, 1535-36, while the bill for the suppression of the abbeys was
in progress through parliament.

[Sidenote: Letter of a London curate to the Mayor of Plymouth.]

[Sidenote: Vision of the Trinity by Dr. Crewkhorne.]

"Right Worshipful,--On the morrow after that Master Hawkins departed
from hence, I, having nothing to do, as an idler went to Lambeth to the
bishop's palace, to see what news; and I took a wherry at Paul's Wharf,
wherein also was already a doctor named Crewkhorne, which was sent for
to come to the