Frankfort evaded the question. At last the Frankfort Puritans showed
their hand: they disapproved of various things in the Prayer Book. Knox,
summoned from Geneva, a reluctant visitor, was already one of their
preachers. In November 1554 came Grindal, later Archbishop of
Canterbury, from Zurich, ready to omit some ceremonies, so that he and
his faction might have "the substance" of the Prayer Book. Negotiations
went on, and it was proposed by the Puritans to use the Geneva service.
But Knox declined to do that, without the knowledge of the non-Puritan
exiles at Zurich and elsewhere, or to use the English book, and offered
his resignation. Nothing could be more fair and above-board.

There was an inchoate plan for a new Order. That failed; and Knox, with
others, consulted Calvin, giving him a sketch of the nature of the
English service. They drew his attention to the surplice; the Litany,
"devised by Pope Gregory," whereby "we use a certain conjuring of God";
the kneeling at the Communion; the use of the cross in baptism, and of
the ring in marriage, clearly a thing of human, if not of diabolical
invention, and the "imposition of hands" in confirmation. The churching
of women, they said, is both Pagan and Jewish. "Other things not so much
shame itself as a certain kind of pity compelleth us to keep close."

"The tone of the letter throughout was expressly calculated to prejudice
Calvin on the point submitted to him," says Professor Hume Brown. {56}
Calvin replied that the quarrel might be all very well if the exiles were
happy and at ease in their circumstances, though in the Liturgy, as
described, there were "tolerable (endurable) follies." On the whole he
sided with the Knoxian party. The English Liturgy is not pure enough;
and the English exiles, not at Frankfort, merely like it because they are
accustomed to it. Some are partial to "popish dregs."