Dudley tried hard to buy Knox, and offered him the See of Rochester; but the duke excited the deepest distrust and dislike in the preacher, who called him “that wretched and miserable Northumberland.” He rejected the preferment, and indeed, from the beginning, bad blood seems to have lain between the Calvinists and the court. Writing at the beginning of 1554, Knox expressed his opinion of the reforming aristocracy in emphatic language, beginning with Somerset, “who became so cold in hearing Godis Word, that the year befoir his last apprehensioun, he wald ga visit his masonis, and wald not dainyie himself to ga frome his gallerie to his hall for heiring of a sermone.”[285] Afterward matters grew worse, for “the haill Counsaile had said, Thay wald heir no mo of thair sermonis: thay wer but indifferent fellowis; (yea, and sum of thame eschameit not to call thame pratting knaves.)”[286] Finally, just before Edward’s death the open rupture came. Knox had a supreme contempt and antipathy for the Lord Treasurer, Paulet, Marquis of Winchester, whom he called a “crafty fox.” During Edward’s life, jeered Knox, “who was moste bolde to crye, Bastarde, bastarde, incestuous bastarde, Mary shall never rule over us,” and now that Mary is on the throne it is to her Paulet “crouches and kneeleth.”[287] In the last sermon he preached before the king he let loose his tongue, and probably he would have quitted the court, even had the reign continued. In this sermon Dudley was Ahithophel, Paulet, Shebna:-- “I made this affirmacion, That commonlye it was sene, that the most godly princes hadde officers and chief counseilours moste ungodlye, conjured enemies to Goddes true religion, and traitours to their princes.... Was David, sayd I, and Ezechias, princes of great and godly giftes and experience, abused by crafty counsailers and dissemblyng hypocrites? What wonder is it then, that a yonge and innocent Kinge be deceived by craftye, covetouse, wycked, and ungodly counselours? I am greatly afrayd, that Achitophel be counsailer, that Judas beare the purse, and that Sobna be scribe, comptroller, and treasurer. This, and somwhat more I spake that daye, not in a corner (as many yet can wytnesse) but even before those whome my conscience judged worthy of accusation.”[288] Knox understood the relation which men of his stamp bore to Anglicanism. In 1549 much land yet remained to be divided, therefore he and his like were flattered and cajoled until Paulet and his friends should be strong enough to discard them. Faith, in the hands of the monied oligarchy, became an instrument of police, and, from the Reformation downward, revelation has been expounded in England by statute. Hence men of the imaginative type, who could not accept their creed with their stipend, were at any moment in danger of being adjudged heretics, and suffering the extreme penalty of insubordination.