Gustavus believed that the time was now come to complete his work. He wished to deliver the kingdom out of the state of strife in which it was plunged. Many members of the Diet and officers of the army urged him to get himself crowned, but he did not care for a name and a crown without the reality which they symbolize. The substance of kingly power was really in the hands of the clergy. The bishops had made themselves masters of the principal fortresses, had usurped a part of the rights of the monarch, and were in possession of wealth surpassing that of the State. Gustavus now opened his mind to his clever, eloquent, and bold chancellor, Lawrence Anderson. The latter had discerned the numerous evils brought upon the Church and the State by the temporal power and possessions of the clergy. He reminded the prince of the statement that in the primitive Church the faithful distributed their property to one another according as each had need, and that the apostles declared by the mouths of St. Peter and St. John that they had neither silver nor gold. Anderson, holding the same faith as Luther, frequently conversed with Gustavus about the principles advanced in Germany by that admirable doctor, and urged that this wholesome doctrine should be substituted for the horrible maxims of the priests. Gustavus understood him, and formed the purpose of withdrawing resolutely from the foreign domination of Rome, which had cost Scandinavia so much generous blood. He loved the evangelical doctrine; but we are obliged to confess that policy had a good deal to do with his resolution. The priest had invaded the rights of the crown, and he undertook to reconquer them. This conquest was juster and more legitimate than that of the Alexanders and the Cæsars. For the accomplishment of the great work of religious renovation he relied upon Olaf and Lawrence Petri and Anderson. The Romish party immediately began to spread abroad the most abusive reports respecting these three persons. The chancellor, they said, intends to destroy the churches and the convents, and to introduce a new faith; and the two Petri to whom he entrusts the work are heretics and scoundrels.[442]