All these distressed clerks turned now to the primate. Magnus, who had hitherto habitually tried to please Gustavus, changed his course entirely when he saw that the purses of the priests were threatened! He resolved to have done with reserve, to burn his ships, and haughtily to oppose clerical to civil authority. ‘Have no fear,’ he said to the bishops assembled about him, ‘I will let the king see my power, and I will compel him to bend before us.’ Without any delay the primate established his court on a very grand scale, and received such of the gentry as were dissatisfied with the king. He clothed himself in purple and gold. He undertook a visitation of his diocese with a following of two hundred persons, partly gentlemen and partly guards. Whenever he entered a church rich carpets were spread under his feet, and when he took his meals he ordered the door to be thrown open to the public as a prince does. Every one was struck with the pomp, the solemnity, and the state with which he was surrounded, with the number of the dishes and the magnificence of his table, for in all these things he surpassed the king himself.[423] But neither the opposition offered to the ministers of the Gospel, nor the pride and ostentation of the prelate, could stop the advance of the Reformation. Gustavus was convinced that God made man for progress, and that if there is progress for the body, there is the same likewise for the heart and the understanding. In his view the Reformation constituted a great advance in the sphere of religion; and he saw already many nations of Europe, awakened by the Gospel, marching ahead of others. Why should Sweden be left behind? In order to advance, courage and resolution were undoubtedly necessary; but Gustavus was not deficient in either of these qualities. [Sidenote: The Primate And The King.]