On 29 April 1538 a letter was sent from Archbishop Cranmer to Thomas Cromwell complaining about the indictment of five men of Smarden and Pluckley in Kent. They had been holding “unlawful assemblies” and, so Cranmer argued, were indicted “of none occasion or ground else, but for by cause they are accounted fauters [supporters] of the new doctrine, as they call it.” He pleaded that their indictments might be overturned, for “if the king's subjects within this realm which favour God's word, shall be unjustly vexed at sessions, it will be no marvel though much sedition be daily engendered within this realm.” In view of the imminent conservative turn that religious policy was about to take in England, a development that would bring down Cromwell in its wake, Cranmer's concern at the ability of Catholic-minded local officials to harass Protestants is not to be wondered at.