But certain bishops were to give them more trouble than the rats. Cranmer received them as friends and brethren, and endeavored to take advantage of their presence to promote the triumph of the Gospel in England; but Tonstall, Stokesley, and others left no stone unturned to render their mission abortive. The discussion took place in the archbishop's palace at Lambeth, and they did their best to protract it, obstinately defending the doctrines and the customs of the Middle Ages. They were willing, indeed, to separate from Rome; but this was in order to unite with the Greek church, not with the evangelicals. Each of the two conflicting parties endeavored to gain over to itself those English doctors who were still wavering. One day, Richard Sampson, bishop of Chichester, who usually went with the Scholastic party, having come to Lambeth at an early hour, Cranmer took him aside and so forcibly urged on him the necessity of abandoning tradition that the bishop, a weak man, was convinced. But Stokesley, who had doubtless noticed something in the course of the discussion, in his turn took Sampson aside into the gallery, just when the meeting was breaking up, and spoke to him very earnestly in behalf of the practices of the church. These customs are essential, said Stokesley, for they are found in the Greek church. The poor bishop of Chichester, driven in one direction by the bishop of London and in the opposite by the archbishop of Canterbury, was much embarrassed, and did not know which way to turn. His decision was for the last speaker. The semi-Roman doctors at this period, who sacrificed to the king the Roman rite, felt it incumbent upon them to cross all Europe for the purpose of finding in the Turkish empire the Greek rite, which was for them the Gospel. England must be dressed in a Grecian garb. But Cranmer would not hear of it; and he presented to his countrymen the wedding garment of which the Saviour speaks.[247] [Sidenote: PROLONGED DISCUSSIONS.]