A HISTORY OF LONDON ready to consider the arguments in its favour when its followers were suffering from persecution. Whatever the cause it seems certain that by the end of 1546 the majority of the citizens were prepared, if not to welcome, at least not to oppose, the changes which began soon after. Another point worthy of notice in connexion with the persecution of 1 546 is that all who suffered are said to have held erroneous opinions concerning the Eucharist. Up till 1543 those who denied transubstantiation were usually men in obscure positions, and till 1531 a connexion can be traced between all but one of them and the ' sect ' of Lollards which existed in the City before 1 52 1. In 1540 only 61 out of the 200 persons whom Foxe mentions as having been persecuted under the Act of Six Articles seem to have been ' sacramentaries.' Robert Wisdom's recantation in 1 543 contains nothing about the mass. Dr. Crome's declaration of 1541 only mentions it in connexion with the efficacy of prayers for the dead, while his recantation of 1546 is entirely concerned with it, and includes an assertion that the bread and wine becomes the very Body and Blood of our Saviour.'^^ It seems clear that either the leaders of religious thought in London had learnt to think differently on this matter, or public opinion had altered so much that they dared to teach openly what they already thought. The parochial and other records, however, indicate that the outward manifestations of religion were as yet little affected. The ' general processions* described so fully by the chroniclers as marking almost every occasion of joy or humiliation were different in two respects, the absence of monks and friars and the language of the prayers ; but the description of that which celebrated the peace made with France in June i 546 would otherwise serve for them all. Every parish church sent its silver cross, which was followed by the clerks in rich robes, and the priests in copes. After these came the quire of St. Paul's with their crosses and copes, then the bishop bearing the Sacrament of the Altar under a rich canopy, bareheaded, his cross and mitre borne before him, with torches about the sacrament. The lord mayor and aldermen fol- lowed, with all the crafts of the City in their best liveries. Stow notes that ' this was the last show of the rich crosses and copes in London, for shortly after they, with other their churchplate, were called into the king's treasury.' '°* In 1546 the City at last succeeded in its efforts to preserve some of the property of religious houses for charitable uses, and obtained from the king the precinct of the Grey Friars with the buildings upon it, the hospital of St. Bar- tholomew ^" with its church and some of its endowment, the income from the rectories of St. Nicholas Shambles, St. Ewen's, and that part of St. Sepulchre's which lay within Newgate, and also the management of the hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem, which had not been suppressed. The dwellers within the latter hospital became parishioners of St. Botolph Bishopsgate, and the rest of the area affected was formed into two parishes, the churches of St. Nicholas and St. Ewen being pulled down. The arrangements made show what provision was considered desirable for the needs of both large and small parishes at that period. The vicar of St. Bartholomew's, who was to have "' See the recantations, &c., in Foxe, op. cit. iv and v, and L. and P. Hen. Fill, passim. '^- Wriothesley, op. cit. i, 163-4 ! Mcnum. Franc. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 210 ; Stow, Annals. '^^ This had been refounded in 1544 by letters patent, but apparently the arrangement failed — probably the endowment was insufficient. For the earlier re-foundation see the section on ' Religious Houses.' 286
