imprisonment for the first offence, a year's imprisonment for the second, and lifelong imprisonment for the third.
This Second Act of Uniformity also imposed a Second Book of Common Prayer. The First Book of Common Prayer had scarcely received the sanction of Parliament in 1549, when it began to be attacked as a halting makeshift by the Reformers. The fact that Gardiner expressed a modified approval of it was enough to condemn it in their eyes, and in the Second Book those parts which had won Gardiner's approval were carefully eliminated or revised. The Prayer Book of 1549 was elaborately examined by Bucer and more superficially by Peter Martyr; but the changes actually made were rather on lines indicated by Cranmer in his controversy with Gardiner than on those suggested by Bucer; and the actual revision was done by the Archbishop, assisted at times by Ridley. There is no proof that Convocation was consulted in the matter, nor is there any evidence that the Book underwent modification in its passage through Parliament. The net result was to minimise the possibility of such Catholic interpretations as had been placed on the earlier Book; in particular the Communion Office was radically altered until it approached very nearly to the Zwinglian idea of a commemorative rite. The celebrated Black Rubric, explaining away the significance of the ceremony of kneeling at Communion, was inserted on the Council's authority after the Act had been passed by Parliament. Two other ecclesiastical measures of importance were the Reformatio legum, ecclesiasticarum and the compilation of the Forty-two Articles. The Articles of Religion, originally drawn up by Cranmer, were revised at the Council's direction and did not receive the royal signature until June, 1553, while Parliament in the same year refused its sanction to the Book of Canon Law prepared by the commissioners; lay objections to spiritual jurisdiction were the same, whether it was exercised by Catholic or by Protestant prelates.
The extensive reduction of Church ritual effected by the Second Act of Uniformity rendered superfluous a large quantity of Church property, and for its seizure by the Crown the government's financial embarrassments supplied an obvious motive. The subsidies granted in 1549-50, the money paid for the restitution of Boulogne, profits made by the debasement of the coinage, and other sources, had enabled Northumberland to tide over the Parliament of 1552, without demanding from it any further financial aid. But these sources were now exhausted, and in the ensuing summer the final gleanings from the Church were gathered in. Such chantry lands as had not been sold or granted away were now disposed of; all unnecessary church ornaments were appropriated; the lands of the dissolved bishoprics and attainted conspirators were placed on the market; church bells were taken down, organs were removed, and lead was stripped off the roofs. When these means failed, the heroic measure was proposed of demanding an account from all Crown officers
