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 enlarge the adjoining parish church, and the abbey church of Westminster was made the cathedral of the new diocese. At St. Helen's the whole church became parochial ; the chapel of St. Bartholomew's Hospital remained a parish church for the inhabitants of the precinct; after prolonged negotiations the parishioners of St. Alphage obtained the south aisle of the church of Elsing Spital, the north aisle and their own church being pulled down. St. Mary Overy in Southwark became, under the name of St. Saviour's, the church of a new parish including those of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Margaret. Wriothesley says that 'the good bishop of Winchester' helped the parishioners to buy this, 'the largest and fairest church about London'; the parochial records show that he gave £24 13s. 11d. himself and obtained subscriptions from others. On Candlemas Eve 1540 the Sacrament was solemnly brought from St. Margaret's to St. Mary Overy 'to join the same parishes together.'

The ecclesiastical history of London during the next few months is difficult to separate from the political history of England. A controversy between Gardiner and Barnes on the problem of justification by faith was closely connected with the contemporary political events which ended in the fall of Cromwell, for Barnes had helped to negotiate the marriage of King Henry with Anne of Cleves, and Gardiner was Cromwell's chief opponent. Thomas Garret, rector of Allhallows Honey Lane, and William Jerome, vicar of Stepney, were prominent among the 'seditious preachers' associated with Barnes, while Gardiner was supported by the Dean of St. Paul's (Richard Sampson, Bishop of Chichester) and Dr. Nicholas Wilson of St. Martin Outwich.

At the beginning of the year the reforming party expected much from the influence of the new queen; books of every kind were allowed to be exposed for sale, and 'good pastors' were 'freely preaching the truth.' In fact it was the opposite party that was being persecuted, for a learned friar named Watts, who had lectured against the new opinions to great audiences in London during the summer of 1539, had been put in the stocks and imprisoned by order of the archbishop. Gardiner had been for months excluded from the Privy Council, and it was said that this was because he had spoken against the appointment of Barnes as ambassador. Barnes and his friends, however, must have been disappointed when Gardiner and Dr. Wilson were appointed to preach before the king. Gardiner also preached at Paul's Cross on 15 February, and warned his hearers against the abuse of Scripture and the doctrine of justification by faith alone; Barnes answered this attack in a sermon at the Cross a fortnight later with personal abuse of Gardiner, for which the king