His efforts were successful. So brilliant an exploit must needs be rewarded, and his rise in the Church was rapid. In the spring of 1531, he was made Archdeacon of Leicester, and in November of the same year he was installed Bishop of Winchester. "I have often squared" (meaning passed over) "with you, Gardiner," said the King, when he gave his Minister this valuable preferment, "but I love you never the worse, as the Bishoprick I now give will convince you." The newly-made Bishop sat with Dr. Cranmer, then Archbishop of Canterbury, when that prelate declared Queen Katherine's marriage with the King to be null and void, May 23rd, 1533. He was then sent to Marseilles to intimate to the Pope and the French King, that in case difficulties should be made respecting the divorce, the King of England would appeal to a General Council. On his return home he was called upon, together with all the other Bishops, to acknowledge Henry as Supreme Head of the Church; and his pen was henceforth constantly employed in vindicating Henry's proceedings, both respecting that monarch's divorce and subsequent marriage, and also with regard to his having thrown off the dominion of the See of Rome. Gardiner's writings on these difficult subjects obtained for him at the time the highest reputation. During this period of religious agitation, a strange spirit prevailed amongst all classes of people, of whatever denomination of religion they might be. Though all needed tolerance, none would grant it. On the contrary, intolerance and bigotry seemed to rule every man's heart. Even those who, whilst they were themselves undergoing its sufferings, had groaned the loudest under persecution, were, when relieved, equally loud in their opposition to the smallest indulgence being extended to those who differed from them in opinion. Whichever might be the party in the ascendant, its leaders were urged on to institute persecutions and trials, and to enforce executions whenever a doctrine was started to which they did not agree. Some writers assert that Gardiner was vindictive and cruel; others, that he was forced tacitly to permit proceedings of which he disapproved, and of which he would willingly have mitigated the severity. Others again say that the King's love of power, and his desire to show himself as a true son of the Church, although he had assumed her temporal headship, induced him to bear witness to his faith by severe measures, whenever her authority in doctrines was impugned by his subjects. Certain it is, that now began a series of religious persecutions that cast shame and disgrace upon all who professed the name of Christ. His holy Church on earth, far from being a tender mother to poor, suffering, and ignorant mortals, became a by-word for cruelty and bigotry, a very Moloch, who desired the sacrifice of her children both by fire and by the sword.