beled Puritans, their reformist example was influential. The Lollards,
who denied transubstantiation and looked to the Bible for doctrine,
kept a kind of Protestantism alive into the 1530's and 1540's, as is
demonstrated by the forced abjuration of 218 Lollards between
1527 and 1532 in the London diocese alone. Bilney had preached
to East Anglian Lollard communities, and Lollard precedents can
be found for most specimens of heresy in Henry's day. Late Lol-
lardry blended easily with early Protestantism; in communities
where Lollardry had flourished between 1558, Puritanism developed
afterwards.

A second factor is more readily analyzed: the influence of exile on
English Protestants. In 1539 the reactionary Statute of Six Articles
caused many radical Protestants to flee to the Continent. In Ed-
ward's reign the government repealed the unpopular heresy acts and
permitted the growth of Protestantism. The Communion service
was to be said in English, and a general confession was authorized
as a substitute for private confession. But the returned exiles, notably
Miles Coverdale, John Rogers, John Bale, and John Hooper, were
all well imbued with the ideals of the Continental Reformed
churches and were far from happy with the moderate Protestantism
being promoted by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury,
and his aide Bishop Nicholas Ridley, neither of whom had seen the
Continental churches. (The career of one of these exiles, John
Hooper, is discussed below, pp. 47 ff.)

A third factor was the influence of Continental reformers and
Reformed congregations within England. The defeat of the Ger-
man Protestant forces at Mühlberg and the Interim Agreement
that followed caused many Protestants to look to England for a
new home. Several who came were prominent leaders. The famous
theologian Peter Martyr, who had been divinity professor at Stras-
bourg, came to England and occupied a similar position at Oxford.
Martin Bucer, another Continental theologian, occupied the chair
of divinity at Cambridge. Though Cranmer invited Lutherans as
well as Reformed, only the latter came, and Lutheran influence
waned. The Continental Reformed approach to worship could it-
self be observed in Edwardian England, when a notable church for
foreigners, ministered to by John á Lasco, was established in Lon-
don.

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