Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/299

1547.] exclaimed as if a saint were cast into the fire.' Mary's complaints, the Protector supposed, had originated with some naughty, malicious persons, who had suggested them to her; and as to the late King's intentions, he was fulfilling them better in carrying out the Reformation, than she was fulfilling them by resisting it.

At last he gave the popular movement the formal sanction of the Government. Injunctions were issued for the general purification of the churches. From wall and window every picture, every image commemorative of saint, or prophet, or apostle, was to be extirpated and put away, 'so that there should remain no memory of the same.' Painted glass survives to show that the order was imperfectly obeyed; but, in general, spoliation became the law of the land—the statues crashed from their niches, rood and roodloft were laid low, and the sunlight stared in white and stainless upon the whitened aisles; 'the churches were new whitelimed, with the Commandments written on the walls,' where the quaint frescoes had told the story of the gospel to the eyes of generation after generation. The superstition which had paid an undue reverence to the symbols of holy things, was avenged by the superstition of as blind a hatred.