[303] These were the sufficiency of the bread without the wine for the laity in partaking of the communion;[A] the celibacy of the clergy; the perpetual obligation of vows to remain unmarried; the propriety of private masses; and, lastly, of confession. The act was popularly known as "the whip with six strings."
[A] The custom of the Church had long been that the priest alone should partake of the wine at communion. The Hussites, and later the Protestants, demanded that the laity should receive both the bread and the wine.
It was arranged that the son was to succeed to the throne. In case he died without heirs, Mary and then Elizabeth were to follow.
[305] These may be found in any Book of Common Prayer of the English Church or of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States.
[306] For an extract from the Bishop of Worcester's diary, recording these changes, see Readings, Chapter XXVII.
[307] The Catholics in their turn, it should be noted, suffered serious persecution under Elizabeth and James I, the Protestant successors of Mary. Death was the penalty fixed in many cases for those who obstinately refused to recognize the monarch as the rightful head of the English Church, and heavy fines were imposed for the failure to attend Protestant worship. Two hundred Catholic priests are said to have been executed under Elizabeth; others were tortured or perished miserably in prison. See below, p. 462, and Green, Short History, pp. 407–410.
[308] There is an admirable account of the spirit of the conservative reformers in the Cambridge Modern History, Vol. I, Chapter XVIII.
[309] Protestant writers commonly call the reformation of the mediæval Catholic Church the "counter-reformation" or "Catholic reaction," as if Protestantism were entirely responsible for it. It is clear, however, that the conservative reform began some time before the Protestants revolted. Their secession from the Church only stimulated a movement already well under way. See Maurenbrecher, Geschichte der Katholischen Reformation.