In nearly every particular the council of executors failed to carry
out the wishes of the late king. The Earl of Hertford, created later
on Duke of Somerset, became Protector with almost royal powers, and
instead of defending the religious settlement the majority of the
council set themselves from the very beginning to initiate a more
advanced policy. Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury could be relied
upon to support such a course of action, while, of the principal men
who might be expected to oppose it, the Duke of Norfolk was a prisoner
in the Tower and the Lord Chancellor Wriothesley was dismissed to make
way for a more pliable successor. The bishops, who were regarded
merely as state officials, were commanded to take out new commissions.
Cranmer obeyed without protest, as did all the others except Gardiner,
who questioned the authority of the council to issue such a command at
least until the supreme head of the Church should have reached his
majority.[45]

Those who had been held in check by the repressive legislation of
Henry VIII. felt themselves free to renew the attacks on the practices
and doctrines of the Church. The royal preachers who had been
appointed for the Lenten sermons, Dr. Barlow, Bishop of St. David's,
Ridley one of Cranmer's chaplains, and others, not content with
abusing the Bishop of Rome, declared war on images, relics, and even
on the Lenten fasts and abstinences. Against such novelties Gardiner
addressed an indignant protest to the Protector and council, warning
them that during the minority of the king there was no power in
England competent to change the religious settlement that had been
accomplished by Henry VIII. But his protest fell on deaf ears. The war
against images was carried on vigorously, though legally only those
images that had been abused were forbidden, and even in Bishop
Gardiner's own diocese he was powerless to resist those who knew they