Though Browne, like his masters Cromwell and Cranmer, was inclined to push forward rapidly with his radical schemes of reform, yet, well aware of the state of feeling in Dublin and throughout the country, he feared to give offence by proceeding at once to extremes. At first he contented himself with issuing the "bedes" or a form of prayer for the king as supreme head of the church, for Prince Edward, for the Deputy, council, and nobles, and for the faithful departed. Encouraged, however, by the wholesale attack on images and pilgrimage shrines begun in England (1538), he determined to undertake a similar work in Ireland in the same year. But such a work proved to be so distasteful to the people that he was obliged to deny that he had any intention of pulling down the image of Our Lady of Trim or the Holy Cross in Tipperary, though in his letter to Cromwell he admitted that "his conscience would right well serve him to oppress such idols."[25] In August of the same year Lord Butler reported to Cromwell that the vicar of Chester announced in the presence of the Deputy, the archbishop, and several members of the council that the king had commanded that images should be set up again and worshipped as before, whereupon the Deputy remained silent, but some of the others answered, that if the vicar were not protected by the presence of the Deputy they "would put him fast by the heels," as he deserved grievous punishment.[26] In October Lord Grey, the Archbishop of Dublin, and others attended the sessions at Trim for the trial of a bishop and of a Franciscan friar, and, to the no small indignation of the archbishop, Lord Grey visited the shrine of Our Lady of Trim to pray before the image.[27] The encouragement given to Browne and his friends by Cromwell's instructions (Dec. 1538) strengthened them to continue their campaign "for the plucking down of idols and the extinguishing of idolatry." The shrine of Our Lady at Trim was destroyed; the Staff of Jesus was burned publicly; the Cross of Ballybogan was broken, and a special commission was established to search for and to destroy images, pictures, and relics.[28] Even the Deputy, who was accused of favouring idols and papistry, had already despoiled the Cathedral of Down, the monastery of Killeigh and the collegiate church of Galway, though in all probability this action was taken not so much out of contempt for the practices of the Church as with the hope of raising money to pay his troops, and of securing the favour of the king.