In reality the king’s intervention restored only the old political order of things. The old religion was restored in outward appearance only, and for the time being as a matter of expedience. At heart the people of Danzig remained thoroughly sympathetic with the new religious teaching and the proposed religious reforms. So did the aristocratic city council now restored again to power as a result of the king’s intervention. With the restoration of the conservatives to power every effort was made to preserve the old forms of worship. At the same time the conservative aristocratic city council saw to it that to the pulpits of all the more important city churches only preachers sympathetic with the new teaching were appointed.[56] Under the leadership of this council and such conservative and tactful men as Dr. Alexander, Urban Ulric, Peter Bischoff, Pancratius Klemme, and Klein, the Reformation in Danzig went forward quietly, and by 1540 became an accomplished fact, not only in spirit, but also in form. This being the case, the king acquiesced.[57] The Reformation spread rapidly to other West Prussian cities, and was accepted everywhere with enthusiasm. In the city of Thorn, the birth-place of Copernicus, Luther’s doctrines were preached as early as 1520-1521. That they were favorably received and found many adherents may be seen from the following incident. The papal legate Ferrei, having come to Thorn at this time, proceeded publicly to burn Luther’s portrait and some of his writings before the Church of St. John. The residents of the city made an attack on him and his followers, drove them away with stones, and rescued Luther’s picture from the flames.[58] It is more than probable that the ferment the Reformation was causing at Thorn was partly responsible for the publication in that city, July the 24, 1520, of the king’s Thorn Edict, by which the importation of Luther’s writings into the land were forbidden under penalty of confiscation of all property and of exile from the country.[59] In Braunsberg, the seat of the bishop of Warmya, the Lutheran form of worship was introduced in 1520 without the bishop’s persecution of the innovators. When the cathedral canons upbraided the bishop for his leniency, he laconically replied that Luther based his doctrines on the Scriptures, and that whosoever felt himself capable of refuting them was welcome to undertake the job.[60] Other West Prussian cities, too, felt the force of the new movement, and responded to it in varied degrees. The Reformation struck roots into the West Prussian soil so deeply that even the vigorous suppression of it in Danzig in 1526 and the following reaction through West Prussia were unable to exterminate it.[61]