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Bishop Gardiner, who had been kept in prison while Parliament was in session lest his presence in the Upper House might lead to trouble, was released in January 1548, but in May a peremptory summons was issued commanding him to come to London without delay. He obeyed, and for some time negotiations were carried on, until at last he was ordered to preach against the Pope, monasteries, confession, and in favour of the English Communion service (29th June). He was urged not to treat of the sacrifice of the Mass, or of Transubstantiation, and warned of the serious consequences that might ensue in case he disobeyed; but Gardiner was a man who could not be deterred by such means from speaking his mind, and as a consequence he was again placed under arrest, and sent as a prisoner to the Tower. Cranmer, who had rejected the authority of the Pope because he was a foreigner, finding that he could get no support from the clergy or the universities for in spite of everything that had taken place the theology of Oxford and Cambridge was still frankly conservative invited preachers to come from abroad to assist in weaning the English nation from the Catholic faith. The men who responded to his call formed a motley crowd. They were Germans like Martin Bucer and Paul Fagius, Italian apostate friars like Peter Martyr (Pietro Martire Vermigli) and Ochino, Frenchmen like Jean Véron, Poles like John
Improbable as the story of Becket's trial may seem, such a procedure was strictly in accordance with the forms of the Roman Catholic Church, of which Henry still at that time professed himself a member: moreover it is not without authentic parallels in history: exactly the same measures of reprisal had been taken against Wycliffe at Lutterworth; and Queen Mary shortly afterwards acted in a similar manner towards Bucer and Fagius at Cambridge.
Coming over to England in 1549, each with his great continental fame already won, they had been placed in Cambridge by the young Edward VI., then desirous of completing and perfecting the Reformation of his kingdom Bucer as Professor of Divinity, and Fagius of Hebrew.
Strangely enough, however, he was still unaware that he might have the benefit of a witness more renowned even than Paul Fagius. Not till May 1644 did he chance to learn this fact.
While preparing the second edition he had become aware that strong support from learned authorities might be adduced for his doctrine; in especial, he had become aware that he had had a forerunner in the famous Reformer Paul Fagius. Much of the added matter in the second edition consisted, accordingly, in the citation of Fagius and other witnesses to strengthen his argument.
If they dare, they must then set up an arrogance of their own against all those churches and saints who honoured him without this exception. If they dare not, how can they now make that licentious doctrine in another which was never blamed or confuted in Bucer or in Fagius? It were no trespass, Lords and Commons, though something of less note were attributed to the ordering of a Heavenly Power.
Here we have Justin Martyr again, Tertullian again, Origen, Lactantius, several early Councils, Basil, Epiphanius, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine again, the Laws of Theodosius and Valentinian, Leo, Wycliffe, Luther, Melanchthon, Erasmus, Bucer of course, Fagius of course, the Confession of the Church of Strasburg, Peter Martyr, Musculus, Gualter of Zurich, Hemingius, Hunnius, Bidenbachius, Harbardus, Wigandus, Beza again, Aretius of Berne, Alciat of Milan, Corasius, Wesembechius, and Grotius.
The particular writing of Bucer's in which Milton found this extraordinary coincidence with his own views was the De Regno Christi ad Edw. VI., written by Bucer about 1550, but first published at Basle in 1557. There was reason, Milton is careful to impress on his readers, why Bucer, and Fagius along with Bucer, should be remembered with unusual reverence by the Protestants of England.
"I had learnt," he says, "that Paulus Fagius, one of the chief divines in Germany, sent for by Frederic the Palatine to reform his dominion, and after that invited hither in King Edward's days to be Professor of Divinity in Cambridge, was of the same opinion touching Divorce which these men so lavishly traduced in me.
This fact in English history, it is evident, together with the knowledge of such an amount of scattered opinion in his favour lying in the works of other authors besides his formerly quoted Bucer, Fagius, Erasmus and Grotius, had been acquired by Milton by fresh research since he had published his Bucer Tract.
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