He then refused to sign the articles that had been sent him previously, and to which he had in a measure assented, and he vehemently demanded to be tried as to the grounds of his imprisonment. But the Privy Council refused his prayer, and his bishopric was sequestrated. All these proceedings were much censured as being contrary to the liberties of Englishmen, and contrary also to all forms of legal procedure. It was thought very hard that a man should be put in prison solely from a complaint having been made against him, and still more hard that after two years' durance, and without further inquiry, articles should be put to him for his signature. Such actions were quite indefensible upon any constitutional principles. Archbishop Cranmer greatly deprecated this illegal harshness, for he foresaw the injurious consequences. Such ill-timed severity would inevitably drive men like Gardiner, Tonstall, and Day, who had already acknowledged the King's supremacy, back to the Church of Rome, and the progress of the Reformation must thereby be sorely hindered. And so it proved. During the few remaining years of Edward's life, Gardiner remained in the Tower, a prisoner, and yet not strictly kept, for during this period he wrote many controversial pieces, and several Latin poems, besides putting into verse some of the most beautiful and poetical passages in the books of Ecclesiastes, Wisdom, and Job. On the 3rd August, 1553, Queen Mary made her solemn entry into the Tower, when Bishop Gardiner, for himself, and also in the name of his fellow prisoners, the Duke of Norfolk, the Duchess of Somerset, Lord Courtney, and others of high rank, delivered a congratulatory speech to Her Majesty, who at its conclusion gave them their liberty. On August 8th, he, with Archbishop Cranmer, and in the presence of the Queen, performed the obsequies of the late King Edward VI. The young monarch was buried in Westminster Abbey, and the ceremonial was the English funeral service. The next day Bishop Gardiner again took possession of Winchester House, Southwark, after an imprisonment of rather more than five years. On the 23rd, he was declared Chancellor of England. On the 1st October he had the honour of crowning the Queen, and on the 5th of the same month he opened the first Parliament of her reign. He was also again restored to his academical honours, and was re-elected Master of Trinity Hall. Not only were distinctions and emoluments thus showered upon him, but the esteem that the Queen manifestly had for him, and the confidence she reposed in him, led to his being speedily endowed with an unusually large share of civil as well as ecclesiastical power. Mary was exceedingly anxious on three points.