to cope with antagonists who regarded theology as a matter for private judgment, and had by study of the Scriptures to some extent prepared themselves for its exercise. The authority of the Church, to which Catholics bowed, had suffered many rude shocks; and in the appeal to the Scriptures they were no match for the zeal and conviction of their opponents.
Under the circumstances it might seem that the Council would have done well to resort to some of Henry VIH's methods for enforcing uniformity; and indeed both parties agreed in demanding greater rigour. But they could not agree on the question to whom the rigour should be applied; their contentions indirectly tended towards the emancipation of conscience from the control of authority, though such a solution seemed shocking alike to those who believed in the Royal and to those who believed in the Papal Supremacy. There was no course open to the government that would have satisfied all contemporary or modern critics. England was in the throes of a revolution in which no government could have maintained perfect order or avoided all persecution. The Council's policy lacked the extreme moderation and humanity of Somerset's rule, but it averted open disruption, and did so at the cost of less rigour than characterised the rule of Henry VIII, of Mary, or of Elizabeth.
At one end of the religious scale Joan Bocher, whom Somerset had left in prison after her condemnation by the ecclesiastical Courts in the hope that she might be converted, was burnt in May, 1550; and a year later another heretic, George van Paris, suffered a similar fate. Against Roman Catholics the penalties of the first Act of Uniformity now began to be enforced; but they were limited to clerical offenders and of these there seem to have been comparatively few. Dr Cole was expelled from the Wardenship of New College, and Dr Morwen, President of Corpus Christi, Oxford, was sent for a time to the Fleet; two divines, Crispin and Moreman, who had been implicated in the Cornish rebellion, were confined in the Tower; two of Gardiner's chaplains, Seton and Watson, are said to have been subjected to some restraint; four others, John Boxall, afterwards Queen Mary's Secretary, William Rastell, More's nephew, Nicholas Harpsfield and Dr Richard Smith, whose recantations were as numerous as his apologies for the Catholic faith, fled to Flanders; and these, with Cardinal Pole, whose attainder was not reversed, make up the list of those who are said by Roman martyrologists to have suffered for their belief in the reign of Edward VI. To them, however, must be added five or six Bishops, who were deposed. Bonner was the only Bishop deprived in 1550, but in the following year Gardiner, Heath of Worcester, Day of Chichester, and Voysey of Exeter all vacated their sees, and Tunstall of Durham was sent to the Tower. Their places were filled with zealous Reformers; Coverdale became Bishop of Exeter, Ridley succeeded Bonner at London, and Ponet took Ridley's see; Ponet was soon transferred to Gardiner's seat at Winchester, and Scory supplied
