Two parties therefore existed in England, and these frequently concerned themselves more with the points on which they differed than with the great facts of their religion. In one pulpit a preacher would call for reformation of the abuses of Rome; in a neighboring church, another preacher would advocate their maintenance at any cost. One monk of York preached against purgatory, while some of his colleagues defended the doctrine. All this gave rise to most exciting discussion amongst the hearers. In addition to the two chief parties, there were the profane, animated by a spirit of unbelief and without reverence for sacred things. While pious men were peacefully assembled for the reading of the Holy Scriptures, these mockers sat in public-houses over their pots of beer, uttering their sarcasms against every body, and especially against the priests. If they spoke of those who gave only the wafer, and not the wine, they would say:--'That is because he has drunk the whole of it; the bottle is empty.' At times they undertook even to discuss, as in old times was done at Byzantium, the most difficult points in theology, and this was still worse. The king, anxious to play his part as head of the church, was desirous of bringing about a union of the two chief parties, and had no doubt that the party of the profane would then disappear. His favorite notion, like that of princes in general, was to have but one single religious opinion in his kingdom. Freedom was a restraint to him. He therefore began, as the emperor Constantine had done, by attempting to gain his end by means of a system of indifference and of subjection to his will. In a royal proclamation he required that the party of reformation and the party of tradition should 'draw in one yoke,'[284] like a pair of good oxen at the plough. He did not omit, however, to read the priests a lesson. He rebuked them for busying themselves far more with the distribution of the consecrated wafer and with the sprinkling of their flocks with holy water than with teaching them what these acts meant. Indifference, however, was of course unattainable, for it implies that each party should consider unimportant the very doctrines on which it sets the highest value. Henry, nevertheless, boldly made the attempt.