Between this and the next session of Parliament, in November, the arbitrary method of proceeding by proclamations was in full force. The Reformers did not as yet press advanced doctrinal views. There was a proclamation for the observance of the Lenten Fast--expressly for the sake of the fisheries. Another enforced a new Communion Office, pending the completion of a new Prayer-book; but in this the service of the Mass remained unaltered and in Latin: no doctrinal change was implied, though the Communion in both kinds was ordered to be administered to the laity, in accordance with the recent Act and the recommendation of Convocation. More significant was a further proclamation for the destruction of "images," in which the distinction between "abused" images and others, previously laid down, was cancelled. In the meantime no unauthorised innovations were to be permitted. Cranmer was still striving vainly after his ideal of a conference between leading continental and English reformers, who should come to an agreement upon a common body of doctrine. It was _prima facie_ reasonable that while awaiting the new authoritative formularies, now avowedly in course of preparation by a commission on which the Catholic party was not unrepresented, partisan preaching should be discouraged, and all but licensed preachers be confined to the Homilies; it was however unfortunate that the licences for preaching should have been systematically granted both by Somerset and Cranmer--to whom the power was restricted--only to keen and sometimes extravagant partisans of the "New Learning"; a term at that time appropriated to the advocates of Protestantism at large. It is not surprising that Gardiner so far placed himself in opposition as to be called upon to express publicly his approval of these proceedings, nor that he should have found himself unable to do so in terms satisfactory to the Council. Before the summer was over the Bishop of Winchester was relegated to the Tower. More unfortunate still was the encouragement to sacrilegious irreverence given by the personal conduct of the Protector, who pulled down one chapel and began to lay hands on another in order to build himself a new palace. [Sidenote: Somerset's ideas]