The Irish Council looked coldly on; even the Lord Deputy still knelt to say prayers before an image at Trim.

A sullen dogged opposition baffled Cromwell's efforts, and their only result was to unite all Ireland against the Crown.
[Sidenote: The English Protestants] But Cromwell found it easier to deal with Irish inaction than with the feverish activity which his reforms stirred in England itself.

It was impossible to strike blow after blow at the Church without rousing wild hopes in the party who sympathized with the work which Luther was doing over-sea.

Few as these "Lutherans" or "Protestants" still were in numbers, their new hopes made them a formidable force; and in the school of persecution they had learned a violence which delighted in outrages on the faith which had so long trampled them under foot.

At the very outset of Cromwell's changes four Suffolk youths broke into a church at Dovercourt, tore down a wonder-working crucifix, and burned it in the fields.