e put under bond not to trade in them; and the German merchants of
the Steelyard were examined. When it was discovered [Sidenote: 1526]
that these foreigners had stopped "the mass of the body of Christ,"
commonly celebrated by them in All Hallows' Church the Great, at
London, they were haled before Wolsey's legatine court, forced to
acknowledge its jurisdiction, and dealt with.

With one accord the leading Englishmen declared against Luther.
Cuthbert Tunstall, a mathematician and diplomatist, and later Bishop of
London, wrote Wolsey from Worms of the devotion of the Germans to their
leader, and sent to him _The Babylonian Captivity_ with the comment,
"there is much strange opinion in it near to the opinions of Boheme; I
pray God keep that book out of England." [Sidenote: January 21, 1521]
Wolsey himself, biassed perhaps by his ambition for the tiara, labored
to suppress the heresy. Most important of all, Sir Thomas More was
promptly and decisively alienated. {283} It was More, according to
Henry VIII, who "by subtle, sinister slights unnaturally procured and
provoked him" to write against the heretic. His _Defence of the Seven
Sacraments_, in reply to the _Babylonian Captivity_, though an
extremely poor work, was greeted, on its appearance, as a masterpiece.
[Sidenote: July, 1521] The handsome copy bound in gold, sent to Leo X,
was read to the pope and declared by him the best antidote to heresy
yet produced. In recognition of so valuable an arm, or of so valiant a
champion, the pope granted an indulgence of ten years and ten periods
of forty days to the readers of the book, and to its author the long
coveted title Defender of the Faith. Luther answered the king with
ridicule and the controversy was continued by Henry's henchmen More,
Fisher, and others. Stung to the quick, Henry, who had already urged
the emperor to crush the heretic, now wrote with the same purpose to
the elector and dukes of Saxony and to other German princes.

[Sidenote: Growth of Lutheranism]

But while the chief priests and rulers were not slow to reject the new
"gospel," the common people heard it gladly. The rapid diffusion of
Lutheranism is proved by many a side light and by the very
proclamations issued from time to time to "resist the damnable
heresies" or to suppress tainted books. John Heywood's _The Four P's:
a merry Interlude of a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Potycary and a Pedlar_,
written about 1528 though not published until some