." This notable act was followed by a rapid succession of
sweeping changes. The legal prohibitions of Lollardry were rescinded;
the Six Articles were repealed; a royal injunction removed all pictures
and images from the churches. A formal Statute gave priests the right
to marry. A resolution of Convocation which was confirmed by Parliament
brought about the significant change which first definitely marked the
severance of the English Church in doctrine from the Roman, by ordering
that the sacrament of the altar should be administered in both kinds.

[Sidenote: The Common Prayer.]

A yet more significant change followed. The old tongue of the Church was
now to be disused in public worship. The universal use of Latin had
marked the Catholic and European character of the older religion: the
use of English marked the strictly national and local character of the
new system. In the spring of 1548 a common Communion Service in English
was added to the solitary Mass of the priest; an English book of Common
Prayer, the Liturgy which with slight alterations is still used in the
Church of England, soon replaced the Missal and Breviary from which its
contents are mainly drawn. The name "Common Prayer," which was given to
the new Liturgy, marked its real import. The theory of worship which
prevailed through Mediaeval Christendom, the belief that the worshipper
assisted only at rites wrought for him by priestly hands, at a sacrifice
wrought through priestly intervention, at the offering of prayer and
praise by priestly lips, was now set at naught. "The laity," it has been
picturesquely said, "were called up into the Chancel." The act of
devotion became a "common prayer" of the whole body of worshippers. The
Mass became a "communion" of the whole Christian fellowship. The priest
was no longer the offerer of a mysterious sacrifice, the mediator
between God and the worshipper; he was set on a level with the rest of
the Church, and brought down to be the simple mouthpiece of the
congregation.

[Sidenote: The Triumph of the Emperor.]

What gave a wider importance to these measures was their bearing on the
general politics of Christendom. The adhesion of England to the
Protestant cause came at a moment when Protestantism seemed on the verge
of ruin. The confidence of the Lutheran princes in their ability to
resist the Emperor had been seen in their refusal of succour from Henry
the Eighth. But in the winter of Henry's death the secessio