his opening of the Bible in English churches had
given rise; but men, who had caught a glimpse of hidden verities,
could not all be forced to deny the things which they had seen. The
most lasting result of Henry's repressive tyranny was the stimulus it
gave to reform in the reign of his son, even as the persecutions (p. 401)
of Mary finally ruined in England the cause of the Roman Church.
Henry's bishops themselves could scarcely be brought to agreement.
Latimer and Shaxton lost their sees; but the submission of the rest
did not extend to complete recantation, and the endeavour to stretch
all his subjects on the Procrustean bed of Six Articles was one of
Henry's least successful enterprises.[1112] It was easier to sacrifice
a portion of his monastic spoils to found new bishoprics. This had
been a project of Wolsey's, interrupted by the Cardinal's fall.
Parliament subsequently authorised Henry to erect twenty-six sees; he
actually established six, the Bishoprics of Peterborough, Oxford,
Chester, Gloucester, Bristol and Westminster. Funds were also provided
for the endowment, in both universities, of Regius professorships of
Divinity, Hebrew, Greek, Civil Law and Medicine; and the royal
interest in the advancement of science was further evinced by the
grant of a charter to the College of Surgeons, similar to that
accorded early in the reign to the Physicians.[1113]

[Footnote 1112: Henry soon recognised this himself,
and a year after the Act was passed he ordered that
"no further persecution should take place for
religion, and that those in prison should be set at
liberty on finding security for their appearance
when called for" (_L. and P._, xvi., 271). Cranmer
himself wrote that "within a year or a little more"
Henry "was fain to temper his said laws, and
moderate them in divers points; so that the Statute
of Six Articles continued in force little above the
space of one year" (_Works_, ii., 168). The idea
that from 1539 to 1547 there was a continuous and
rigorous persecution is a legend derived from Foxe;
there were outbursts of rigour in 1540, 1543, and
1546, but except for these the Six Articles
remained almost a dea