Parliament petitioned that the old jurisdiction of the clergy should be restored, that the liberty granted to the Church by the Magna Charta should be confirmed, and that the English religious service-books of the previous reign should be delivered to the flames. Once it was made clear that the owners of ecclesiastical property should not be disturbed there was no difficulty in procuring a complete reversal of all the laws that had been passed against the apostolic See of Rome since the twentieth year of Henry VIII. (3rd January 1555).[2]
The close connexion of the leaders of the Reformers with the late rebellion, the ugly pamphlets that made their way into England from Frankfurt and Geneva, the fact that prayers were offered in secret for the speedy death of the queen, that a shot had been fired at one of the royal preachers while he was in the pulpit, and that a violent commotion was being stirred up, that led later on to a priest being struck down at the altar by one who is designated by Foxe as "a faithful servant of God,"[3] made it necessary for the safety of the crown and the advancement of religion to deal harshly with those who themselves had relied on persecution for the promotion of their designs. Mary herself, Philip, and Cardinal Pole did not favour a recourse to violent measures, but they were overruled by the judgment of those who should have known best the character of the opponents with whom they had to deal. An Act was passed renewing the legislation that had been made in the reigns of Richard II., Henry IV., and Henry V. for the suppression of the Lollard heresy.
Parliament was dissolved in January 1555, and several of the political prisoners were released from the Tower. The heretical leaders, who though under arrest had been treated with great mildness and allowed such liberty that they were able to meet together and to publish writings and challenges against Mary's religious policy,[4] were brought to trial before a commission presided over by Gardiner. A few consented to sign a formula of recantation, but the majority, persisting in their opposition, were degraded and handed over for punishment to the civil authorities. On the 4th February the long series of burnings began. John Rogers was committed to the flames in Smithfield, Bishop Hooper in Gloucester, Taylor in Suffolk, Saunders in Coventry, and before the year had elapsed about seventy prisoners had met a similar fate. In September 1555 a commission was sent down to Oxford to examine Latimer and Ridley. Both refused to admit Transubstantiation, the sacrificial character of the Mass, or Roman supremacy. They were condemned, and it must be said of them that they met their fate like men. Judges were appointed by the Pope to take evidence against Cranmer. He was charged with perjury because he had broken his oath to the Pope, with heresy on account of his teaching against the Eucharist, and with adultery. The minutes of the trial were forwarded to Rome for the final decision, and after careful consideration the Pope deposed him from the Archbishopric of Canterbury, and excommunicated him. Meanwhile Cranmer's theological views had been undergoing another revision. On the question of prayers for the dead, Purgatory, and the Mass, he was willing to admit that he might have been mistaken, and even on the question of papal supremacy he professed himself ready to listen to argument. In his eagerness to escape punishment he signed recantation after recantation, each of them more comprehensive and more submissive than its predecessor, acknowledging his guilt as a persecutor of the Church and a disturber of the faith of the English nation, and praying for pardon from the sovereigns, the Pope, and God. But in the end, when he realised that his recantations could not save him and that he was face to face with death, he deceived his chaplains at the last moment as he had deceived many others, by withdrawing his previous admissions and announcing that he still clung to his heretical views[5] (21st March 1556).
