Some of the Kentish clergy who resented the Archbishop's action had laid their heads together in March 1543, and formulated a set of accusations against him. This the two most active movers in the protest had carried to the metropolis for submission to Gardiner. They first, however, approached the Dr. London already referred to, who rewrote the accusations with additions of his own, in order to bring the accused within the penal law. The two first movers, Willoughby and Searl, took fright at this, for it was a dangerous thing to attack the Archbishop, and hastily returned home; but Dr. London had enough for his present purpose, and handed his enlarged version of their depositions to Gardiner. London's disgrace, already related, stayed the matter for a time, but a few months afterwards a fresh set of articles, alleging illegal acts on the part of the Archbishop, was forwarded by the discontented clergy to Gardiner, and the accusers were then summoned before the Privy Council, where they were encouraged to make their testimony as strong as possible. When the depositions were complete they were sent to the King by Gardiner, in the hope that now the great stumblingblock of the Catholic party might be cleared from the path, and that the new Queen's ruin might promptly follow that of the Primate. But they reckoned without Henry's love for Cranmer. Rowing on the Thames one evening in the late autumn soon after the depositions had been handed to him, the King called at the pier by Lambeth Palace and took Cranmer into his barge. "Ah, my chaplain," he said jocosely, as the Archbishop took his seat in the boat, "I have news for you. I know now who is the greatest heretic in Kent;" and with this he drew from his sleeve and handed to Cranmer the depositions of those who had sought to ruin him. The Archbishop insisted upon a regular Commission being issued to test the truth of the accusations; but Henry could be generous when it suited him, and he never knew how soon he might need Cranmer's pliable ingenuity again. So, although he issued the Commission, he made Cranmer its head, and gave to him the appointment of its members; with the natural result that the accusers and all their abettors were imprisoned and forced to beg the Primate's forgiveness for their action.[242] But the man who gave life to the whole plot, Bishop Gardiner of Winchester, still led the King's political counsels, much as Henry disliked him personally; for the armed alliance with the Emperor could only bring its full harvest of profit and glory to the King of England if the Catholic powers on the Continent were convinced of Henry's essential orthodoxy, notwithstanding his quarrel with the Pope.[243] So, though Cranmer might be favoured privately and Katharine's coquetting with the new learning and its professors winked at, Gardiner, whose Catholicism was stronger than that of his master, had to be the figure-head to impress foreigners.