The second Act of Uniformity need not detain us. The Prayer-book had been elaborately revised, still without the initiative or concurrence of Parliament. The statute of 1549, however, hindered the use of the revised Book; to use it was a penal offence. It was therefore necessary to put the revised Book in the legal position occupied by the unrevised Book. This was done by the Act of the fifth and sixth of Edward VI., in which opportunity was taken to add some pious reflections, which may breathe the spirit of Northumberland and the Council, and some further penalties, which may seem to us more in accordance with the spirit of the time. There was a clause cautiously relaxing the bonds in which the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was held, in order that it might come to the assistance of the champions of Uniformity. The only other point of interest is the statement that the revised Book was "annexed and joined" to the statute, a precedent which was followed in 1662. In the second session of Mary's first Parliament the Acts of Uniformity were repealed. But the appetite for legislation was aroused. Mary, too, had ideas about legal uniformity. She had no handy and comprehensive service-book, the use of which could be enforced; but the vague standard of what was customary at a certain date was set up: All such Divine Service and Administration of Sacraments, as were most commonly used in the Realm of England in the last year of the reign of our late Sovereign Lord King Henry the Eight, were alone to be used. Strangely enough, no penalties were appointed for the disobedient. [12] Elizabeth, immediately upon her accession, began to take measures quietly and cautiously for returning to the Edwardian position. She revived the use of the English Litany in her chapel, and encouraged it elsewhere. So far nothing was done seriously contrary to the statute of Mary, for the Litany as now used varied but little from that used under Henry VIII. Others, however, went further. The returning exiles, and those who had secretly sympathized with them, began to use the Edwardian Prayer-book. [13] There were no statutory penalties to restrain them, and the bishops looked on helpless, or acquiescent. Even in the Queen's chapel, it is said, the English service was used on Easter Day. [14] Long before the Prayer-book was restored to its legal position. Parkhurst was able to write to Bullinger, perhaps with some exaggeration, that it was again in general use: _Nunc iterum per totam Angliam in usu passim est_. [15]