commemorative and analogical. The " abominable canon " was removed because it shut the door on all but the Roman doctrine of the Mass, and the design of the government was to open the door to the New Learning without definitely closing it on the Old.
The intention was to make the uniform order tolerable to as many as was possible, and the result was a cautious and tentative compromise, a sort of Anglican Interim, which was more successful than its German counterpart. The penalties attached to its non-observance by the First Act of Uniformity were milder than those imposed by any of the subsequent Acts, and they were limited to the clergy. Neither in the First Act of Uniformity nor in the First Book of Common Prayer is there any attempt to impose a doctrinal test or dogmatic unity. All that was enforced was a uniformity of service; and even here considerable latitude was allowed in details like vestments and ritual. A few months later a licensed preacher declared at St Paul's, that faith was not to be "coacted," but that every man might believe as he would. Doctrinal unity was in fact incompatible with that appeal to private judgment which was the essence of the Reformation, and Somerset's government was wise in limiting its efforts to securing an outward and limited uniformity.
Even this was sufficiently difficult. Eager Reformers began at once to agitate for the removal of those parts of the Book of Common Prayer which earned Gardiner's commendation, while Catholics resented its departure from the standard of orthodoxy set up by the Six Articles. Religious liberty was in itself distasteful to the majority; and zealots on either side were less angered by the persecution of themselves than by the toleration of their enemies. Dislike of the new service book was keenest in the west, where the men of Cornwall spoke no English and could not understand an English service book; they knew little Latin, but they were accustomed to the phrases of the ancient Use, and men tolerate the incomprehensible more easily than the unfamiliar. So they rose in July, 1549, and demanded the restoration of the old service, the old ceremonies, the old images, and the ancient monastic endowments. They asked that the Sacrament should be administered to laymen in one kind and only at Easter-a strange demand in the mouths of those who maintained the supreme importance of the sacramental system-and that all who refused to worship it should suffer death as heretics; the Bibles were to be called in again, and Cardinal Pole was to be made first or second in the King's Council.
On the whole the Protector's religious policy was accompanied by singularly little persecution; and the instances quoted by Roman Catholic writers date almost without exception from the period after his fall. The Princess Mary flatly refused to obey the new law; and after some remonstrance Somerset granted her permission to hear Mass privately in her own house. Gardiner was more of an opportunist than Mary; probably he thought that his opposition would be the more effective
