The king's course with respect to Cranmer is not so strange as it appears. Without Cranmer, he would have been under the necessity of choosing another primate, and what a task would that have been. Gardiner, indeed, was quite ready to take the post; but the king, although he sometimes listened to him, placed no confidence in him. Not only did it seem to Henry difficult to find any other man than Cranmer; but there was a further difficulty of appointing an archbishop in due form. Could it be done by the aid of the pope? Impossible. Without the pope? This too was very difficult. The priesthood would not concede such a power to the king, nor was it probable that they would accept his choice. The king foresaw troubles and conflicts without end. The best course was to keep the present primate, and this was the course adopted. Herein lay the security of the archbishop in the midst of the misfortunes and scenes of blood around him. He had made a declaration of his faith, and he did not withdraw from it. He hoped for better things, according to the advances which were made him. He believed that by keeping his post he might prevent many calamities. The Six Articles were a storm which must be allowed to blow over; and, in accordance with his character, he bowed his head while the wind blew in that direction. The bloody statute was the cause of profound sorrow among the evangelical Christians. Some of them, more hasty than others, making use of the strong language of the time, asserted that the Six Articles had been written, not with Gardiner's ink, as people said, 'but with the blood of a dragon, or rather the claws of the Devil.'[295] They have been spoken of, even by Roman Catholics of our own age, as 'the enactments of this severe and barbarous statute.'[296] But the Catholics of that age rejoiced in them, and believed that it was all over with the Reformation. Commissioners were immediately named to execute this cruel law, and there was always a bishop among them. These commissioners, who sat in London, in Mercer's Chapel, formerly a dwelling house and the place of Becket's birth,[297] even exaggerated the harshness of the Six Articles. Fifteen days had not elapsed before five hundred persons were imprisoned, some for having read the Bible, others for their posture at church. The greatest zeal was displayed by Norfolk among the lords temporal, and by Stokesley, Gardiner, and Tonstall among the lords spiritual. Their aim was to get a _Book of Ceremonies_, a strange farrago of Romish superstitions, adopted as the rule of worship.