ologians Lutheranism was melting gradually away. Cranmer, of whose backwardness the letters of the ultra party,[1] during the first year of Edward's reign, contain abundant complaints, was yielding to the arguments of Ridley. Latimer, who cared comparatively little for doctrinal questions, whose conception of the Reformation was not so much an improvement of speculative theory, as a practical return to obedience and the fear of God, was more difficult to move than Cranmer; but he, too, was giving way. An attempt was to be made in the next Parliament for an effective and authoritative change.
Somerset himself meanwhile found an adviser in Calvin. The great Genevan, knowing much of religion and little of the English disposition, laid his views before the Protector in a noticeable letter, written in 1548.
'As I understand, my Lord,' wrote Calvin, 'you have two kinds of mutineers against the King and the estates of the realm; the one are fantastical people, who under colour of the gospel would set all to confusion; the others are stubborn people in the superstition of the Antichrist of Rome. These all together do deserve to be well punished by the sword, seeing they do conspire against the King and against God, who had set him in the royal seat.'
- ↑ Epistolæ Tigurinæ, Anno 1547.
estates, will take order for the redress thereof in his dominions, and appoint unto the good bishops an honest and competent living sufficient for their maintenance, taking from them the rest of their worldly possessions and dignities, thereby to avoid the vain glory that letteth them sincerely to do their office.'—MS. Harleian, 523.
