As a first step in this process every bishop, abbot, and parish priest was required by the new Vicar-General to preach against the usurpation of the Papacy and to proclaim the king as supreme Head of the Church on earth.

The very topics of the sermon were carefully prescribed; the bishops were held responsible for the compliance of the clergy with these orders; and the sheriffs were held responsible for the obedience of the bishops.
[Sidenote: The Terror] While the great revolution which struck down the Church was in progress England looked silently on.

In all the earlier ecclesiastical changes, in the contest over the Papal jurisdiction and Papal exactions, in the reform of the Church courts, even in the curtailment of the legislative independence of the clergy, the nation as a whole had gone with the king.
But from the enslavement of the priesthood, from the gagging of the pulpits, from the suppression of the monasteries, the bulk of the nation stood aloof.

There were few voices indeed of protest.

As the royal policy disclosed itself, as the Monarchy trampled under foot the tradition and reverence of ages gone by, as its figure rose bare and terrible out of the wreck of old institutions, England simply held her breath.