promised so much submission that he was liberated. But Cromwell now knew what to think of the matter. A conspiracy was threatening the work which he had been at so much pains to accomplish. He observed that the archbishop's influence was declining at court, and he began to have secret forebodings of calamity in which he would be himself involved. Gardiner, in fact, energetically urged the king to re-establish all the ancient usages. Thus, although but a little while before orders had been given to place bibles in the churches, and to preach against pilgrimages, tapers, kissing of relics, and other like practices,[259] it was now forbidden to translate, publish, and circulate any religious works without the king's permission; and injunctions were issued for the use of holy water, for processions, for kneeling down and crawling before the cross, and for lighting of tapers before the _Corpus Christi_. Discussions about this sacrament of the Eucharist were prohibited.[260] It was Gardiner's wish to seal these ordinances with the blood of martyrs. He had begun by striking _in anima vili_; the persecution of the Dutch sacramentarians was merely the _exordium_; it was needful now to proceed to the very action itself, to strike a blow at an evangelical and esteemed Englishman, and to invest his death with a certain importance. [Sidenote: JOHN NICHOLSON.] There was at this time in London, a minister named John Nicholson, who had studied at the university of Cambridge, had been converted by means of his conversations with Bilney, and had afterwards been the friend of Tyndale and Frith, and by his intercourse with them had been strengthened in the faith. He was a conscientious man, who did not suppose that it was enough to hold a doctrine comformable with the Word of God, but, conscious of the great value of the truth, was ready to lay down his life for it, even if there were nothing at stake but a point looked upon as secondary. Faithfulness or unfaithfulness to one's convictions--this was in his view the decisive test of the morality or immorality of a man. In the age of the Reformation there were greater preachers and greater theologians than Nicholson; but there was not one more deserving of honor. Having translated from the Latin and the Greek works which might give offence, and having professed his faith, he had been obliged to cross the sea, and he became chaplain to the English house at Antwerp. Here it was that he became acquainted with Tyndale and Frith. Being accused of heresy by one Barlow, he was taken to London, by order of Sir Thomas More, then chancellor, and was kept prisoner at Oxford, in the house of Archbishop Warham, where he was deprived of every thing, especially of books. On the occasion of his appearance, in 1532, before the archbishop and other prelates, Nicholson steadfastly maintained that all that is necessary to salvation is to be found in the Holy Scripture. 'This,' he said, 'is