Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/139

1534.] had taken place. A bishop was to preach each Sunday at Paul's Cross, on the Pope's usurpation. Every secular priest was directed to preach on the same subject week after week, in his parish church. Abbots and priors were to teach their convents; noblemen and gentlemen their families and servants; mayors and aldermen the boroughs. In town and country, in all houses, at all dinner-tables, the conduct of the Pope and the causes of the separation from Rome were to be the one subject of conversation; that the whole nation might be informed accurately and faithfully of the grounds on which the Government had acted. No wiser method could have been adopted. The Imperial agents would be busy under the surface; and the mendicant friars, and all the missionaries of insurrection. The machinery of order was set in force to counteract the machinery of sedition.

Further, every bishop, in addition to the oath of allegiance, had sworn obedience to the King as Supreme Head of the Church; and this was the title under which he was to be spoken of in all churches of the realm. A royal order had been issued, 'that all manner of prayers, rubrics, canons of Mass books, and all other books in the churches wherein the Bishop of Rome was named, or his presumptuous and proud pomp and authority preferred, should utterly be abolished, eradicated, and rased out, and his name and memory should be never more, except to his contumely and reproach,