There was no mistake as to the eagerness of the people to take
advantage of the opportunity. They assembled in crowds to hear such as
could read, and even, so says Burnet, sent their children to school
that they might carry them with them and hear them read.
It is not to be wondered at that Bonner soon found that his
Advertisement was powerless to check what he dreaded. Not only did
expounders dwell upon such words as "Drink ye all of it," but they
compared the clergy to the Scribes and Pharisees, and identified them
with the generation of vipers, and with priests of Baal. Accordingly,
he put forth a fresh advertisement, in which he said that "diverse,
wilful, and unlearned persons, contrary to all good order and honest
behaviour, have read the Scriptures especially and chiefly at the time
of divine service in this right honourable Catholic church, yea, in
the time of the sermon and declaration of the Word of God, in such
sort as was both to the evil and lewd example of the rest of the
multitude, and also to the high dishonour of the Word of God, over and
beside the great disturbance and unquietness of the people repairing
hither for honest purposes." And he declares that if this friendly
admonition be not attended to he will have the Bibles removed, but
that he shall do so very unwillingly, seeing that he "will be, by
God's grace, right glad that the Scripture and Word of God should be
well known."
There is a painful story in "Foxe's Martyrs," that one John Porter was
thrown into Newgate by Bonner for thus "expounding," and that he died
there of the ill-treatment he received.
In the short reign of Edward VI., great destruction was wrought in the
structure and ornamentation of St. Paul's, and no thanks are due to
the "Protector" that the mischief was not greater. There was no sign
for a month or two. Edward ascended the throne on January 28, 1547,
and just two months later the French king, Francis I., died. On that
occasion, Cranmer, attended by eight bishops, sang a Requiem Mass in
Latin at St. Paul's, and Gardiner preached a funeral sermon before the
Lord Mayor and Aldermen, eulogising this persecutor of the Reformed
Faith. But now came unmistakable signs of change. Ridley, then Master
of Pembroke College, Cambridge, soon to be Bishop of London, preached
a somewhat violent sermon at Paul's Cross against the adoration of
saints, the use of holy water, and the reverence done to pictures and
images. We may note that on the day of the King's Coronation, amid all
the splendid pageantry and decorations, a cable was fastened to the
top of St. Paul's steeple, the other end attached to an anchor by the
Deanery door, and a sailor descended "swift as an arrow from the bow."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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