These articles, which have been called _the whip with six strings_ and _the bloody statute_,[288] were submitted to the parliament. But none of the lords temporal, or of the commons, aware that the king was fully resolved, ventured to assail them. One man, however, rose, and this was Cranmer. 'Like a constant patron of God's cause,' says the chronicler, 'he took upon him the earnest defence of the truth oppressed in the parliament; three days together disputing against those six wicked articles; bringing forth such allegations and authorities as might easily have helped the cause, _nisi pars major vicisset, ut sæpe olet, meliorem_.'[289] Cranmer spoke temperately, with respect for the sovereign, but also with fidelity and courage. 'It is not my own cause that I defend,' he said, 'it is that of God Almighty.' The archbishop of Canterbury was not, however, alone. The bishops who belonged to the evangelical party, those of Worcester, Rochester, St. David's, Ely, and Salisbury, likewise spoke against the articles.[290] But the king insisted, and the act passed. These articles, said Cranmer at a later time, were 'in some things so enforced by the evil counsel of certain papists against the truth and common judgment both of divines and lawyers, that if the king's Majesty himself had not come personally into the parliament house, those laws had never passed.'[291] Cranmer never signed nor consented to the Six Articles.[292] The parliament at the same time conferred on the king unlimited powers. A bill was carried purporting that some having by their disobedience shown that they did not well understand what a king can do by virtue of his royal power, it was decreed that every proclamation of his majesty, even when inflicting fines and penalties, should have the same force as an act of parliament. Truth had already been sacrificed, and liberty was to be the next victim.