They were accused of ordaining serfs without the consent of their lords, consecrating bishops per saltum, i.e.
These are taken from the various schools of interpretation mentioned above, and are now formulated in the words used by the bishop when, in ordaining to any office, he places the vestment on the ordinand with the appropriate words, e.g.
We may grant the pope's contention that the Edwardine church had no belief in priests who offered in sacrifice the body and blood of Christ or in bishops capable of ordaining such priests.
Frederick retorted by announcing his intention of reducing "the clergy, especially the highest, to a state of apostolic poverty," and by ordaining the severest punishments for those priests who should obey the papal sentence.
This act of ordaining ministers, probably after the Genevan order - which they certainly used from May 1568 - and their excommunication of certain deserters from their " church " (so Grindal), clearly mark the fact that this body of some 200 persons had now deliberately taken up a position outside the national church, as being themselves a " church " in a truer sense than any parish church, inasmuch as they conformed to the primitive pattern.