a member of convocation, Shaxton signed not only the 'articles about religion' drawn up in 1536, but also the declaration 'touching the sacrament of holy orders,' and the reasons why general councils should be summoned by princes, and not by the sole authority of the pope. When the Lincolnshire rebellion broke out in October, he was called on to furnish two hundred men out of his bishopric to serve the king, and he was one of the six bishops 'whom the rebels complained of as subverting the faith. In Salisbury, the king's proclamations as head of the church were torn down, and his own chaplain, a Scot, who had been a friar, was put in prison by the mayor and aldermen for a sermon in which he threatened to inform the king's council of such matters. Shaxton had further disputes with the municipal authorities, who claimed that the city was the king's city, while he maintained that by a grant of Edward IV it was the bishop's. This was an old controversy, complicated by the Reformation changes. The mayor and aldermen wrote earnestly to Cromwell against Shaxton having a confirmation of the liberties granted to his predecessors, and ultimately imprisoned his under-bailiff Goodall. In 1537 he took part in the discussion among the bishops as to the number of the sacraments, opposing John Stokesley, who maintained that there were seven. Along with John Capon, he gave an opinion in favour of confirmation as being a sacrament of the New Testament, though not instituted by Christ himself. He also signed 'the bishops' book,' entitled The Institution of a Christian Man. In 1538 he issued injunctions to his clergy, which were printed at the time by John Byddell. Like other bishops of that day, however, he exercised his episcopal functions subject to the control of Cromwell, the king's vicegerent, who became tired of complaints against him. Resignation and heresy charge Shaxton resigned his bishopric in 1539 because he opposed the King's Six Articles, for which he was imprisoned. He was one of the bishops who opposed the articles in parliament, till the king, as one of the lords present remarked, 'confounded them all with God's learning.' When the act was passed he and Latimer resigned their bishoprics. He was desired, when he gave in his resignation, to keep it secret; but it soon became known, and he wrote to ask Cromwell whether