Against this ever-increasing dependence some bishops of the old views made a struggle; to avoid coming into direct conflict with the supremacy, which they had acknowledged, they put forth the assertion that it could not be exercised by a King under age; they connived at the mass being read in side-chapels of their cathedrals, or refused to allow the change of the altars into communion-tables, or kept alive the controversy as to the doctrine of faith. The government on their side persisted in enforcing uniformity. They brought all opponents before a commission consisting of secular as well as ecclesiastical dignities, which had no scruple in pronouncing the deprivation of the bishops: a fate which befell Gardiner of Winchester, Bonner of London, Day of Chichester, Heath of Worcester. In vain did they plead that the court before which they were brought was not a canonical one; the government appealed to the general rights of the temporal power as it had once been exercised by the Roman Emperors. In the conflict of church opinions the Protestant-minded prelates now had the upper hand. Many who did not conform bought toleration from the government by sacrifices of money and goods. Elsewhere the newly-appointed bishops assented to concessions which did not always profit even the crown, but sometimes, as at Lichfield, private persons.[154] Already the further question was discussed whether there is in fact any essential distinction between bishops and presbyters: a church of foreigners was set up in London, to present a pattern of the pure apostolic constitution as an example to the country. The government which had acquired such a thorough mastery over the clergy developed an open disinclination to the old forms of constitution in the church. Who could have said, so long as things remained in the path thus once entered upon, whither this would lead? NOTES: [139] Froude iv. 515 (extracts from the documents). [140] Collier ii. 220 (Records lii). [141] Proclamation of 8 July 1549 in Tytler, England under Edward VI and Mary I, p. 180. [142] The point of view under which it was drawn up appears in a declaration inserted in the edition of 1549: 'the most weighty cause of the abolishment of certain ceremonies was, that they were abused partly by the superstitious blindness of the unlearned, and partly by unsatiable avarice.--Where the old (ceremonies) may be well used there they [their opponents] cannot reprove the old only for their age. They ought rather to have reverence unto them for their antiquity, if they will declare themselves to be more studious of unity and concord, than of innovations and newfangleness which--is always to be eschewed.'