Convocation had met on the day after the assembly of Parliament. The
lower house presented four petitions to the bishops, the most
important of which was that the proctors of the clergy should be
admitted to Parliament, or at least that ecclesiastical legislation
should not pass until the clergy had been consulted, but the bishops
were too conscious of their helplessness to support such an appeal. It
is doubtful if the bill regarding Communion under both kinds was ever
submitted regularly to Convocation, though later on a proposal to
abolish the canons enforcing clerical celibacy was carried by a
majority. It is asserted, and apparently on good authority, that the
higher and more learned of the clergy consented to this proposal only
under pressure.

The year 1548 opened ominously for the Catholic party. Preachers,
licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and protected openly by the
court, delivered wild harangues against Catholic doctrines and
practices. Pamphlets, for the most part translations of heretical
works published in Germany or Switzerland attacking the Mass,
Transubstantiation, and the Real Presence, were sold publicly in the
market places without any interference from the authorities. In
January a royal proclamation was issued enjoining the observance of
the Lenten fasts, but ten days later an order was made forbidding the
use of candles on Candlemas Day, of ashes on Ash Wednesday, or of
palms on Palm Sunday. This was followed quickly by a command for the
removal of all statues, images, pictures, etc. from the churches. The
use of Communion under both kinds was to come into force at Easter
1548, and to prepare for this a royal proclamation was set forth
making obligatory the English /Order for Communion/. As the new rite
regarded only the Communion of the laity, the Latin Mass was to remain
in use as heretofore "without any varying of any rite or