‘Yf they saye by the Lawe of god, Lett theym bring foorth sc_ri_ptur but I thinke theym not so impudent as to saye so. ‘Yf they saye by the busshop of Romes Authoritie. Lett theym exercise it still, yf they thinke it mete. ‘Yf they saye by the Kinges permission why be they more discontent that the king shuld call agein nowe to his hand_es_ that which came from hym to theym, than they wolde haue ben_e_ yf he had never graunted it theym. And surely they are not able to iustifie thexercise of their iurisdiction hetherto.’ Fortified by such reasoning as this did the Royal Supremacy pass into effect. Having thus obtained the complete submission of the greater lights of the Church, Cromwell consistently pursued his relentless policy with the humbler orders of friars and monks. His method of dealing with the latter did not differ materially from his policy with the former, except that it was perhaps more sanguinary. Priors Lawrence and Webster, two Carthusians who denied the validity of the King’s new title, were examined by Cromwell, and when they stubbornly refused to retract their assertions, they were promptly sentenced and executed[232]. Three others, Houghton, Hale, and Reynolds, suffered death a little later, and the latter dared to tell Cromwell that in spite of the terror he had caused by his late proceedings, all good men in the kingdom really held the same opinion, that the Headship of the Church was not the King’s[233]. But notwithstanding the wide popular dissatisfaction at the new measures, most malcontents, both lay and spiritual, kept their thoughts to themselves. Men were beginning to discover how dangerous it was to criticize the doings of the King and his minister. The elaborate system of espionage and the commissions to seek out and punish treason, which Cromwell had so laboriously established all over the country in 1532, had now begun to bear fruit. It was impossible to tell who the government spies were: impossible to know when or against whom the next accusation would be made. The words which men spoke in the bosom of their families or to their most intimate friends and neighbours were as likely to be laid to their charge as their utterances in public: harmless, obscure and ignorant country folk were brought before the magistrates as often as those of higher degree. Edmond Brocke, husbandman, eighty years of age, of Crowle in Worcestershire, was walking home in the rain from Worcester market on the Saturday before St. Thomas’ Day, in company with Margaret Higons. ‘Yt ys long of the Kyng that this wedre is so troblous or vnstable,’ he said, ‘and I wene we shall nevir haue bett_er_ wedre whillis the Kinge Reigneth, and therefore it makith no matt_er_ if he were knocked or patted on the heed[234].’ These facts were declared on August 12, 1535, before John Russell Esq., Justice of the Peace, by Richard Fulke, husbandman, and Joan Danyell of Crowle. Brocke confessed that he had said ‘that it was a