This was just what the priests did not want. They thought it strange to be asked for money for an offence they had not committed. ‘My lord,’ answered one, ‘we have never offended against the _præmumire_, we have never meddled with cardinal’s faculties.[135] Let the bishops and abbots pay; they committed the offence, and they have good places.’—‘My lord,’ added another, ‘twenty nobles[136] a year is but a bare living for a priest, and yet it is all we have. Everything is now so dear that poverty compels us to say No. Having no need of the king’s pardon we have no desire to pay.’ These words were drowned in applause. ‘No,’ exclaimed the crowd, which was getting noisy again, ‘we will pay nothing.’ The bishop’s officers grew angry, and came to high words; the priests returned abuse for abuse; and the citizens, delighted to see their ‘masters’ quarrelling, fanned the strife. From words they soon came to blows. The episcopal ushers, who tried to restore order, were ‘buffeted and stricken,’ and even the bishop’s life was in danger. At last the meeting broke up in great confusion. Stokesley hastened to complain to the chancellor, Sir Thomas More, who, being a great friend of the prelate’s, sent fifteen priests and five laymen to prison. They deserved it, no doubt; but the bishops, who, to spare their superfluity, robbed poor curates of their necessaries, were more guilty still. [Sidenote: The Bishops And Priests.] Such was the unity that existed between the bishops and the priests of England at the very time the Reformation was appearing at the doors. The prelates understood the danger to which they were exposed through that evangelical doctrine, the source of light and life. They knew that all their ecclesiastical pretensions would crumble away before the breath of the divine Word. Accordingly, not content with robbing of their little substance the poor pastors to whom they should have been as fathers, they determined to deprive those whom they called _heretics_, not only of their money, but of their liberty and life. Would Henry permit this?