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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 1537 a bishop opposed the doctrine of faith without works and upheld the rule of celibacy for the clergy ; at St. Bride's in June a Carmelite friar, licensed by the bishop, omitted to mention the royal supremacy and de- nounced another preacher who had called Our Lady ' a maintainer of bawdery.' ^~^ Richard Grafton, a member of the Grocers' Company, was corresponding with Cromwell in August 1537 about a version of the whole Bible in English, which had been printed at the expense of himself and another London merchant. Coverdale's version of 1535, dedicated to the king, had been for some time allowed to circulate ; but Grafton now obtained for the new one, founded on those of Tyndale and Coverdale, the approval of the archbishop, and it was published with a royal licence. His enterprise seems to have been largely a commercial speculation. In asking Cromwell to command all curates of the ' papistical sort ' to buy a copy, he hinted at the large numbers of such to be found in the diocese of London.^' Alderman Monmouth died in November, having left ^10 to Dr. Barnes, and arranged that his funeral should be unlike any hitherto known in the City, and that sermons were to be preached in the place of masses sung for his soul.^'° In June the Grocers' Company had nominated Thomas Garret, the heretic of 1528 who had once been curate there, to the rectory of Allhallows Honey Lane ; but the Merchant Taylors' Company in December nominated to that of St. Martin Outwich Dr. Wilson,^" formerly rector of St. Thomas Apostle, who had been deprived of his living and kept in the Tower for more than two years for refusing to acknowledge the royal supremacy ; he had ' dissembled the matter ' and received a pardon in May.**' The same impression of the existence of much diversity of opinion in London is given by a letter written by the French ambassador in February 1538.^'* Probably the short period of reaction came to an end about August 1537. The next year saw the most decided changes which had yet taken place in the religious life of the City. The first of these was the destruction of some images, which began during a new visitation of the monasteries. The rood of Boxley in Kent, with its device of ' old wire and rotten sticks ' by which the eyes and lips had once been made to move, was exhibited by Bishop Hilsey at Paul's Cross on 24 February, and after his sermon, which was clearly meant to prepare the Londoners for a general destruction of such images, it was broken in pieces by ' the rude people and boys.' ^^* The "' L. and P. Hen. Fill, xii (i), 530 ; (2), 65. For preaching in July see xii (z), 258. In September Stokesley complained in reply to a royal request for a nomination to a prebend that he was destitute of learned men, having no fitting promotion for them ; ibid. 720. For other examples during the period of Cromwell's power of similar requests made to the patrons of London benefices see L. and P. Hen. Fill, iv (3), 5410 ; V, 1227, 1270 ; ix, 992 ; xii (l), 874 ; (2), 62I ; xiii (l), 669, 682, 745. Such requests could hardly be refused, and must have been an effective method of increasing the power of the reforming party and depressing their opponents. "^ L. and P. Hen. Fill, xii (2), 512, 593, App. 35 ; Diet. Nat. Biog. ; Gairdner, Hist, of Engl. Ch. in fith Cent. 188-92 ; Lollardy and the Reformation, ii, 280-3 '■> Kenyon, Our Bible, 218-19 ; Wriothesley, op. cit. i, 74. "° Strype, Mem. i (ii), 368 ; cf. Wriothesley, op. cit. i, 72. Cf. the very different arrangements made, partly at the suggestion of the mayor, at the death of Queen Jane ; State Papers Hen. Fill, , 574 ; Rec. Corp. Letter Bk. P, fol. 135*. "' Hennessy, Novum Refert. '" Hall, Chron. 25 Hen. VIII ; L. and P. Hen. Fill, xii (i), 1330 (64). '" Corresp. politique deMM.de Castillon et de Marillac (Inventaire Analytique des Archives), 22 ; cf. p. 41. •" Wriothesley, Chnn. (Camd. Soc), i, 75-6 ; Lond. Chron. 11 xiCamd. Misc. iv ; L. and P. Hen. Fill, xiii (i), 231, 339, 348,407 ; (2), 880 ; Orig. Letters (Parker Soc), ii, 606. 267