Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/365

1548.] , and with a schedule of detailed opinions, which he was required to maintain.

To this Gardiner answered promptly, that he would not 'maintain another man's device.' 'It was a marvellous unreasonable matter, touching his honour and conscience.' The Duke then sent for him, and produced a lawyer's opinion, showing 'what a king might lawfully command a bishop to do,' and he was himself, he said, in the place of a king. Gardiner answered that he knew the law of England: 'no law could enjoin him to say as his opinion what was not his opinion;' and, although the Duke told him 'he should do that or worse,' he refused distinctly to bind himself to the schedule, and retired, saying merely that he trusted his sermon would be satisfactory. It was to be delivered on the 29th of June, the feast of St Peter and St Paul. On the 27th Cecil came to him again, with the Duke's 'advice,' that he should not speak of the sacrament. He asked for something more definite. Cecil said he was not to speak of transubstantiation. 'You do not know what transubstantiation is,' he answered; 'the mass, as I understand it, is the foundation of religion. The ancient faith in this matter is still the law of the land, and I shall speak what I think, if I am to be hanged when I leave the pulpit. I wish the Protector would leave religion to the clergy, and cease to meddle with it.'

The reply to this was a letter the next day from Somerset, interdicting Gardiner positively from touching the subject. It was his duty, the