enforcing the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity a visitation
of both provinces was arranged. In London Masses were still
celebrated, and attended by great multitudes; in Canterbury itself
within sight of the archiepiscopal palace public religious processions
were carried out. In Winchester, where the memory of Gardiner was
still cherished, many of the clergy refused to attend the visitation;
the laymen were discreetly absent when their assent was required; the
churches were deserted and even the people attending the cathedral
"were corrupted by the clergy." In Hereford Bishop Scory described his
cathedral, "as a very nest of blasphemy, whoredom, pride,
superstition, and ignorance;" the justices threw every obstacle in the
way of his reforms; fasts and feasts were observed as of old; and even
the very butchers seemed leagued against him, for they refused to sell
meat on Thursdays. In Bath and Wells many of the justices were openly
disobedient, and even the people who conformed outwardly could not be
relied upon. In Norwich, Ely, Salisbury and Chichester "Popery" was
still strong amongst the clergy, people, and officials. At Eton it was
necessary to expel the provost and all the teachers except three
before the college could be reduced to subjection, and at Oxford the
visitors were driven to admit, that if they expelled the fellows who
refused to subscribe, and the students who would have no religious
service except the Mass, the houses would be deserted. In the northern
provinces where the visitation did not begin till some time later it
was discovered that matters were still worse. The principal noblemen
were openly Catholic, and many of the magistrates denied that they had
ever heard of the Act of Supremacy, while others of them "winked and
looked through their fingers." In York the diocese was in a state of
anarchy; in Carlisle the bishop confessed that he could not prevent
the public celebration of the Mass; in Durham the bishop wrote that he
found himself engaged in a conflict with wild beasts even more savage