It is true that heretics coming under the category of blasphemers or deniers of Christianity could still be put to death by common law, and two men were actually executed for speculations about the divinity of Christ, but such cases were wholly exceptional.
[Sidenote: Social disorders] The social disorders of the time, coming to a head, seemed to threaten England with a rising of the lower classes similar to the Peasants' War of 1525 in Germany.

The events in England prove that, however much these ebullitions might be stimulated by the atmosphere of the religious change, they wore not the direct result of the new gospel.
In the west of England and in Oxfordshire the lower classes rebelled {315} under the leadership of Catholic priests; in the east the rising, known as Kett's rebellion, took on an Anabaptist character.

The real causes of discontent were the same in both cases.

The growing wealth of the commercial classes had widened the gap between rich and poor.
The inclosures continued to be a grievance, by the ejection of small tenants and the appropriation of common lands.

But by far the greatest cause of hardship to the poor was the debasement of the coinage.
Wheat, barley, oats and cattle rose in price to two or three times their previous cost, while wages, kept down by law, rose only 11 per cent.