hat they had gained the queen by the concessions
which they had already made, were alarmed to hear that she was resolved
to contract a foreign alliance; and they sent a committee to remonstrate
in strong terms against that dangerous measure. To prevent further
applications of the same kind, she thought proper to dissolve the
parliament.

A convocation had been summoned at the same time with the parliament;
and the majority here also appeared to be of the court religion. An
offer was very frankly made by the Romanists, to dispute concerning
the points controverted between the two communions; and as
transubstantiation was the article which of all others they deemed the
clearest, and founded on the most irresistible arguments, they chose to
try their strength by defending it. The Protestants pushed the dispute
as far as the clamor and noise of their antagonists would permit; and
they fondly imagined that they had obtained some advantage, when, in the
course of the debate, they obliged the Catholics to avow that, according
to their doctrine, Christ had in his last supper held himself in his
hand, and had swallowed and eaten himself.[**]

* Burnet, vol. ii. p. 261.

** Collier, vol. ii. p. 356.

This triumph, however, was confined only to their own party: the
Romanists maintained, that their champions had clearly the better of
the day, that their adversaries were blind and obstinate heretics; that
nothing but the most extreme depravity of heart could induce men to
contest such self-evident principles; and that the severest punishments
were due to their perverse wickedness. So pleased were they with their
superiority in this favorite point, that they soon after renewed the
dispute at Oxford; and, to show that they feared no force of learning or
abilities, where reason was so evident on their side, they sent thither
Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, under a guard, to try whether these
renowned controversialists could find any appearance of argument to
defend their baffled principles.[*] The issue of the debate was very
different from what it appeared to be a few years before, in a famous
conference held at the same place during the reign of Edward.

{1554.} After the parliament and convocation were dismissed, the new
laws with regard to religion, though they had been anticipated in most
places by the zeal of the Catholics, countenanced by government,
were still more openly put in execution: the mass was every where