lay not in the severity of his laws or the rigour of his penalties, but in the affections of his people; and not one instance of death or torture for religion stains the brief and troubled annals of his rule.
The absolutism, which came in with the new monarchy and was perfected by Cromwell, was relaxed; and the first Parliament summoned by the Protector (November 4, 1547) effected a complete revolution in the spirit of the laws. Nearly all the treasons created since 1352 were swept away, and many of the felonies. It was, indeed, still treason to deny the Royal Supremacy by writing, printing, overt deed or act; but it was no longer treason to do so by " open preaching, express words or sayings." Benefit of clergy and right of sanctuary were restored; wives of attainted persons were permitted to recover their dower; accusations of treason were to be preferred within thirty days of the offence; no one was to be condemned unless he confessed or was accused by two sufficient and lawful witnesses; and Proclamations were no longer to have the force of law. The heresy laws, the Act of Six Articles, all the prohibitions against printing the Scriptures in English, against reading, preaching, teaching, or expounding the Scriptures, "and all and every other act or acts of Parliament concerning doctrine or matters of religion" were erased from the Statute-book.
The main result of this new-found liberty was to give fresh impetus to the Reformation in England. The Act of Six Articles, with all its ferocious penalties, had failed to cure diversities of opinion; and the controversies of which Henry complained to his Parliament in 1545 now broke out with redoubled fury. Among a people unused to freedom and inflamed by religious passions, liberty naturally degenerated into licence. The tongues of the divines were loosed; and they filled the land with a Babel of voices. Each did what was right in his own eyes, and every parish church became the scene of religious experiment. Exiles from abroad flocked to partake in the work and to propagate the doctrines they had imbibed at their respective Meccas. Some came from Lutheran cities in Germany, some from Geneva, and some from Zwinglian Zurich. In their path followed a host of foreign divines, some invited by Cranmer to form a sort of ecumenical council for the purification of the Anglican Church, some fleeing from the wrath of Charles V or from the perils of civil war. From Strassburg came in 1547 Pietro Martire Vermigli, better known as Peter Martyr, a native of Florence and an ex-Augustinian, and Emmanuel Tremellius the Hebraist, a Jew of Ferrara, and from Augsburg came Bernardino Ochino, a native of Siena, once a Franciscan and then a Capuchin. In 1548 John à Lasco (Laski), a Polish noble, and his disciple, Charles Utenhove, a native of Ghent, followed from Emden; and in 1549 Martin Bucer and Paul Fagius fled hither from Strassburg. Jean Véron, a Frenchman from Sens, had been in England eleven years, but celebrated the era of liberty by publishing in 1547 a violent attack on the Mass. Most of these
