The clergy saw at last that they must reform. They forbade priests from keeping shops and taverns, playing at dice or other games of chance, passing through towns and villages with hawks and hounds, being present at unbecoming entertainments, and spending the night in suspected houses.[19] Convocation proceeded to enact severe penalties against these disorders, doubling them for adultery, and tripling them for incest. The laity asked how it was that the Church had waited so long before coming to this resolution, and whether these scandals had become criminal only because the Commons condemned them? [Sidenote: Bishops Accuse The Commons.] But the bishops who reformed the lower clergy did not intend to resign their own privileges. One day, when a bill relating to wills was laid before the upper house, the Archbishop of Canterbury and all the other prelates frowned, murmured, and looked uneasily around them.[20] They exclaimed that the Commons were heretics and schismatics, and almost called them infidels and atheists. In all places good men required that morality should again be united with religion, and that piety should not be made to consist merely in certain ceremonies, but in the awakening of the conscience, a lively faith, and holy conduct. The bishops, not discerning that God’s work was then being accomplished in the world, determined to maintain the ancient order of things at all risks. Their efforts had some chance of success, for the House of Lords was essentially conservative. The Bishop of Rochester, a sincere but narrow-minded man, presuming on the respect inspired by his age and character, boldly came forward as the defender of the Church. “My lords,” he said, “these bills have no other object than the destruction of the Church; and, if the Church goes down, all the glory of the kingdom will fall with it. Remember what happened to the Bohemians. Like them our Commons cry out,—‘Down with the Church!’ Whence cometh that cry? Simply from lack of faith.... My lords, save the country, save the Church.” This speech made the Commons very indignant. Some members thought the bishop denied that they were Christians. They sent thirty of their leading men to the king. “Sire,” said the Speaker, “it is an attaint upon the honor of your Majesty to calumniate before the upper house those whom your subjects have elected. They are accused of lack of faith, that is to say, they are no better than Turks, Saracens, and heathens. Be pleased to call before you the bishop who has insulted your Commons.”