An offer was very frankly made by the Romanists, to dispute concerning the points controverted between the two communions; and as transubstantiation was the article which of all others they deemed the clearest, and founded on the most irresistible arguments, they chose to try their strength by defending it.

The Protestants pushed the dispute as far as the clamor and noise of their antagonists would permit; and they fondly imagined that they had obtained some advantage, when, in the course of the debate, they obliged the Catholics to avow that, according to their doctrine, Christ had in his last supper held himself in his hand, and had swallowed and eaten himself.[**] * Burnet, vol.ii.p.

261.
** Collier, vol.ii.p.

356.
This triumph, however, was confined only to their own party: the Romanists maintained, that their champions had clearly the better of the day, that their adversaries were blind and obstinate heretics; that nothing but the most extreme depravity of heart could induce men to contest such self-evident principles; and that the severest punishments were due to their perverse wickedness.

So pleased were they with their superiority in this favorite point, that they soon after renewed the dispute at Oxford; and, to show that they feared no force of learning or abilities, where reason was so evident on their side, they sent thither Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, under a guard, to try whether these renowned controversialists could find any appearance of argument to defend their baffled principles.[*] The issue of the debate was very different from what it appeared to be a few years before, in a famous conference held at the same place during the reign of Edward.
{1554.} After the parliament and convocation were dismissed, the new laws with regard to religion, though they had been anticipated in most places by the zeal of the Catholics, countenanced by government, were still more openly put in execution: the mass was every where reestablished; and marriage was declared to be incompatible with any spiritual office.