Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/578

558 difficulty been on their side, a premunire could not compel a reluctant nominee to undergo a ceremony which he disapproved.

Cranmer, who had once maintained that the Crown alone could make a bishop, had modified his views. The bench was unanimous that the service must be maintained. As doggedly Hooper declared that he would wear no vestments, he would have no Bible on his neck, he would not change his coat for the best bishopric in England. Warwick interceded, and the boy King talked of putting out the power of the supremacy and dispensing. But Ridley would have no dispensation, and Hooper would have no surplice, and the public world of the Reformers was shaken to its base. The English divines in general took the side of the bishops; the foreign divines were expected to be on the side of the gospel; and Hooper turned first to Bucer, who was then lecturing at Cambridge. To the sad discouragement of the ultra party, Bucer believed that there were things in the world more important than vestments. He had expressed his opinion freely to the council on the condition to which they were reducing England. About the time when the Hooper controversy began, he had told Calvin that there was no religion at all in England. The bishops, he said, were snarling about their doctrines, the lords were appropriating the Church estates and plate, and in their hearts cared nothing for the Reformation at all; clergymen professing to be Evangelicals held four or five livings, and officiated in none; repentance, faith, and good works—the vital