his scandalous and public connexion with the wife of a Nottingham
burgher[64] was not calculated to influence the longing of his flock
for the new teaching. Scory was appointed to Rochester and afterwards
to Chichester, and Miles Coverdale to Oxford.

The zeal of the new bishops in seeking out the suppression of
papistical practices and their readiness to place the property of the
churches at Northumberland's disposal soon showed that those who
selected them had made no mistake. On Ridley's arrival in London he
held a conference for the purpose of compelling the clergy to adopt
the new liturgy in place of the Mass. He issued an order for the
removal of altars, and for the erection in their places of "honest
tables decently covered," whereon Communion might be celebrated. The
high altar in the Cathedral of St. Paul was pulled down, and a plain
Communion table set up in its stead. As such a sacrilegious innovation
was resented by a great body of both clergy and people, the council
felt it necessary to instruct the sheriff of Middlesex to enforce the
commands of the bishop. The example thus set in the capital was to be
followed throughout the country. In November 1550 letters were sent
out to all the bishops in the name of the youthful head of the Church,
commanding them to pull down the altars in their dioceses, and for
disobedience to this order Bishop Day was arrested. Hooper, once his
scruples regarding the episcopal oath and vestments had been removed,
threw himself with ardour into the work of reforming the clergy of his
dioceses of Worcester and Gloucester, but only to find that nothing
less than a royal decree could serve to detach them from their old
"superstitions" (1552). While the wholesale work of destruction was
being pushed forward care was taken that none of the spoils derived
from the plunder of the churches should go to private individuals.
Warwick insisted on the new bishops handing over large portions of