It was popularly believed that Petre had avowed this intention in a coarse metaphor borrowed from the rhetoric of the East.

He would, he said, make them eat dirt, the vilest and most loathsome of all dirt.

But, tyrannical and malignant as the mandate was, would the Anglican priesthood refuse to obey?
The King's temper was arbitrary and severe.

The proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Commission were as summary as those of a court martial.
Whoever ventured to resist might in a week be ejected from his parsonage, deprived of his whole income, pronounced incapable of holding any other spiritual preferment, and left to beg from door to door.

If, indeed, the whole body offered an united opposition to the royal will, it was probable that even James would scarcely venture to punish ten thousand delinquents at once.