and three hundred thousand pounds in modern currency. The next was stated to be "the erecting of Grammar schools to the education of youth in virtue and godliness, the further augmenting of the Universities, and better provision for the poor and needy." But the bill introduced into Parliament in 1549 "for the making of schools" failed to pass the House of Lords; and the " further order " designed by the Protector was inevitably postponed. Meanwhile the confiscated chantry lands afforded tempting facilities for the satisfaction of the King's immediate needs. In 1548-9 some five thousand pounds' worth were sold and the proceeds devoted to the defence of the realm. But less legitimate practices soon obtained; the chantry lands were regarded as the last dish in the last course of the feast provided by the wealth of the Church, and the importunity of courtiers correspondingly increased. Grants as well as sales became common; the recipients, with few exceptions, repudiated the obligation to provide for schools out of their newly-won lands; and the fortunes of many private families were raised on funds intended for national education. A few schools were founded by private benefactors, and it is probable that education gained on the whole by its emancipation from the control of the Church. But it was not until the closing years of the reign that the government made a serious endeavour to secure the adequate maintenance of those schools whose foundations had been shaken by the abolition of chantries; and Edward VI's services to education consisted principally in assigning a fixed annual pension to schools whose endowments of much greater potential value had been appropriated.
These proceedings, like the other religious changes made during 1550 and 1551, were effected by the action of the Council, of individual Bishops, or of private persons; for Parliament, which Warwick distrusted, did not meet between February, 1550, and January, 1552. But some of the Council's measures were based upon legislation passed in the session of 1549-50; such were the wholesale destruction of old service-books which wrought particular havoc among the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge, and the compilation and execution of the new Ordinal, which was published in March and brought into use in April, 1550. By it a number of ceremonies hitherto used at ordinations were discontinued; and it embodied a clause which has been divergently interpreted both as abolishing and as retaining all the minor orders beneath that of deacon. Ridley signalised his elevation to the see of London by a severe visitation of his diocese, and by reducing the altars in St Paul's and elsewhere to the status and estimation of " the Lord's tables." Corpus Christi Day and many Saints' days ceased to be observed partly because they savoured of popery, and partly because the cessation of work impeded the acquisition of wealth. Cranmer, Bucer, and Martyr were secretly busy revising the Prayer-Book, and the Council was engaged in an attempt to force the Princess Mary to
