ia, would long since have
done the like also in his kingdom; but, not daring to venture so far
without the consent of the pope, he wrote unto him thereof, and received
his answer inhibitory unto all his proceeding in the same.

* * * * *

I would set down two or three more of the like instruments passed from
that see unto the like end, but this shall suffice, being less common than
the other, which are to be had more plentifully.

As for our churches themselves, bells and times of morning and evening
prayer remain as in times past, saving that all images, shrines,
tabernacles, rood-lofts, and monuments of idolatry are removed, taken
down, and defaced, only the stories in glass windows excepted, which, for
want of sufficient store of new stuff, and by reason of extreme charge
that should grow by the alteration of the same into white panes throughout
the realm, are not altogether abolished in most places at once, but by
little and little suffered to decay, that white glass may be provided and
set up in their rooms. Finally, whereas there was wont to be a great
partition between the choir and the body of the church, now it is either
very small or none at all, and (to say the truth) altogether needless,
sith the minister saith his service commonly in the body of the church,
with his face toward the people, in a little tabernacle of wainscot
provided for the purpose, by which means the ignorant do not only learn
divers of the psalms and usual prayers by heart, but also such as can read
do pray together with him, so that the whole congregation at one instant
pour out their petitions unto the living God for the whole estate of His
church in most earnest and fervent manner. Our holy and festival days are
very well reduced also unto a less number; for whereas (not long since) we
had under the pope four score and fifteen, called festival, and thirty
_profesti_, beside the Sundays, they are all brought unto seven and
twenty, and, with them, the superfluous numbers of idle wakes, guilds,
fraternities, church-ales, help-ales, and soul-ales, called also
dirge-ales, with the heathenish rioting at bride-ales, are well diminished
and laid aside. And no great matter were it if the feasts of all our
apostles, evangelists, and martyrs, with that of all saints, were brought
to the holy days that follow upon Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, and
those of the Virgin Mary, with the rest, utterly removed from t