, neither by oath of them solemnly taken, nor yet by threats of
sharp correction may I persuade or induce any whether religious or secular
since my coming over once to preach the Word of God nor the just title of
our illustrious Prince." Even the acceptance of the Supremacy, which had
been so quietly effected, was brought into question when its results
became clear. The bishops abstained from compliance with the order to
erase the Pope's name out of their mass-books. The pulpits remained
steadily silent. When Browne ordered the destruction of the images and
relics in his own cathedral, he had to report that the prior and canons
"find them so sweet for their gain that they heed not my words." Cromwell
however was resolute for a religious uniformity between the two islands,
and the Primate borrowed some of his patron's vigour. Recalcitrant priests
were thrown into prison, images were plucked down from the rood-loft, and
the most venerable of Irish relics, the staff of St. Patrick, was burned
in the market-place. But he found no support in his vigour save from
across the Channel. The Irish Council looked coldly on; even the Lord
Deputy still knelt to say prayers before an image at Trim. A sullen dogged
opposition baffled Cromwell's efforts, and their only result was to unite
all Ireland against the Crown.

[Sidenote: The English Protestants]

But Cromwell found it easier to deal with Irish inaction than with the
feverish activity which his reforms stirred in England itself. It was
impossible to strike blow after blow at the Church without rousing wild
hopes in the party who sympathized with the work which Luther was doing
over-sea. Few as these "Lutherans" or "Protestants" still were in numbers,
their new hopes made them a formidable force; and in the school of
persecution they had learned a violence which delighted in outrages on the
faith which had so long trampled them under foot. At the very outset of
Cromwell's changes four Suffolk youths broke into a church at Dovercourt,
tore down a wonder-working crucifix, and burned it in the fields. The
suppression of the lesser monasteries was the signal for a new outburst of
ribald insult to the old religion. The roughness, insolence, and extortion
of the Commissioners sent to effect it drove the whole monastic body to
despair. Their servants rode along the road with copes for doublets or
tunicles for saddle-cloths, and scattered panic among the larger houses
which were left.