Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/366

346 Protector considered, 'to bring the people from ignorance to knowledge; and where there was a consent among the bishops and learned men in a truth,' he declared that 'he would not suffer the Bishop of Winchester, or a few others, to dissuade the rest.' The authorities for the treatment of Gardiner are a long series of letters and papers, printed in the latest edition of Martyrs, vol. vi. The Protector's concluding letter of the 28th of June is printed also in Collectanea, I must allow myself to add one more extract from Gardiner's general letters of protest. The real feeling among the laity, he saw plainly, was not against the doctrines of the Church, but against the prelates and against ecclesiastical domination. Changes in doctrine, though nominally by the King's authority, would assuredly, when the King came of age, be called in question again, and if the bishops were weak enough to encourage such changes, it would only be made fresh matter of accusation against them.

'When our Sovereign Lord, cometh to his perfect age,' said Gardiner, 'God will reveal what shall be necessary for the governing of his people in religion; and if anything be done in the mean time, having so just a cause, he might use a marvellous speech.

'The bishops, it may then be said, when they had our Sovereign Lord in minority, fashioned the matter as they listed; and then some young man that would have a piece of the bishops' lands shall say—The beastly bishops have always done so, and when they can no longer maintain their pleasures of rule and superiority, then they take another way and let that go, and for the time they be here, spend that they have, eat you and drink you what they list, with edamus et bibamus eras moriemur. If we allege for our defence 'the strength of God's truth' and 'the plainness of Scripture' with 'the word of the Lord,' and many gay terms, the King's Majesty will not be abused with such a vain answer, and this is a politic consideration. The doings in this realm hitherto have never done the Bishop of Rome so much displeasure as the alteration in religion during the King's Majesty's minority shall serve for his purpose.'—Gardiner to the Protector:, vol. vi.

So the question stood between them when the sermon was delivered. It is extant; and unless by tone and gesture the preacher contrived to throw a meaning into