Luther called Henry VIII "a damnable and rotten worm, a snivelling, drivelling swine of a sophist"; More retorted by complaining of the violent language of "this apostate, this open incestuous lecher, this plain limb of the devil and manifest messenger of hell." Absurd but natural tactic, with a sure effect on the people, which relishes both morals and scandal! To prove that faith justifies, the Protestants pointed to the debauchery of the friars; to prove the mass a sacrifice their enemies mocked at "Friar Martin and Gate Callate his nun lusking together in lechery." But with all the invective there was much solid argument of the kind that appealed to an age of theological politics.

In England as elsewhere the significance of the Reformation was that it was the first issue of supreme importance to be argued by means of the press before the bar of a public opinion sufficiently enlightened to appreciate its importance and sufficiently strong to make a choice and to enforce its decision.
The party of the Reformation in England at first consisted of two classes, London tradesmen and certain members of what Bismarck long afterward called "the learned proletariat." In 1532 the bishops were able to say: In the crime of heresy, thanked be God, there hath no notable person fallen in our time.

Truth it is that certain apostate friars and monks, lewd priests, bankrupt merchants, vagabonds and lewd, idle fellows of corrupt nature have embraced the abominable and erroneous {286} opinions lately sprung in Germany and by them have been some seduced in simplicity and ignorance.
[Sidenote: Anti-clerical feeling] But though both anti-clerical feeling and sympathy with the new doctrines waxed apace, it is probable that no change would have taken place for many years had it not been for the king's divorce.

The importance of this episode, born of the most strangely mingled motives of conscience, policy, and lust, is not that, as sometimes said, it proved the English people ready to follow their government in religious matters as sheep follow their shepherd.

Its importance is simply that it loosed England from its ancient moorings of papal supremacy, and thus established one, though only one, of the cardinal principles of the Protestant revolt.