Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/369

A.D. 1553.] there was considerable opposition, for there the people had read and reflected, but generally throughout the agricultural districts the change took place with the case and rapidity of the scene-shifting at a theatre. Many of the married priests, however, would not abandon their wives and children, and were turned adrift into the highways, or were thrust into prison. Many fled abroad, hoping for more Christian treatment from the reformed churches there, but in vain, for their doctrines did not accord with those of the foreign Reformers, who deemed them heretical.



About half the English bishops conformed, the rest were ejected from their sees, and several of them were imprisoned. Soon after Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley were sent to the Tower, Holgate, Archbishop of York, was sent thither also. Poynet, who was Bishop of Winchester during Gardiner's expulsion, was imprisoned for having married. Taylor of Lincoln and Harley of