Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/531

1536.] were both rash and blameable. Their servants, with the hot puritan blood already in their veins, trained in the exposure of the impostures and profligacies of which they had seen so many, scorning and hating the whole monastic race, had paraded their contempt before the world; they had ridden along the highways decked in the spoils of the desecrated chapels, with copes for doublets, tunics for saddle-cloths, and the silver relic cases hammered into sheaths for their daggers. They had been directed to enforce an abrogation of the superfluous holy days; they had shown such excessive zeal that in some places common markets had been held under their direction on Sundays.

Scenes like these working upon tempers already inflamed, gave point to discontent. Heresy, that word of dread and horror to English ears, rang from lip to lip. Their hated enemy was at the people's doors, and their other sufferings were the just vengeance of an angry God. Imagination, as usual, hastened to assist and expand the nucleus of truth. Cromwell had formed the excellent design, which two years later he carried into effect, of instituting parish registers. A report of his intention had gone abroad, and mingling with the irritating inquiries of the subsidy commissioners into the value of men's properties, gave rise to a rumour that a