No word of the old opposition was heard when a bill was introduced granting to the king the greater monasteries which had been saved in 1536.

More than six hundred religious houses fell at a blow, and so great was the spoil that the king promised never again to call on his people for subsidies.

But the Houses were equally at one in withstanding the new innovations in religion, and an act for "abolishing diversity of opinions in certain articles concerning Christian religion" passed with general assent.

On the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which was reasserted by the first of six Articles to which the Act owes its usual name, there was no difference of feeling or belief between the men of the New Learning and the older Catholics.

But the road to a further instalment of even moderate reform seemed closed by the five other articles which sanctioned communion in one kind, the celibacy of the clergy, monastic vows, private masses, and auricular confession.