During the following Lent he was three times commanded to preach before the king, and shortly after (24 May) was one of the representatives of his university who, together with the same number from Oxford, assisted the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of Durham in drawing up a condemnation of certain doctrinal views.
These were expressed in certain English religious books, such as The Wicked Mammon and The Obedience of a Christian Man, which assailed the Catholic doctrines of purgatory, the merit derived from good works, invocation of saints, confession, and others.
While at Cambridge Crome had gained some insight into the ideas of religious reformers by attending the meetings of "gospellers" at the White Horse tavern in St. Benet's, and in spite of his acquiescence in the prohibition of their books, his preaching was so coloured with their views that he was brought before the Bishop of London to be examined.
At about this time Crome is frequently mentioned in connection with Latimer, Bilney, and Robert Barnes; he was one of the preachers appointed by Humfrey Monmouth, a leading London citizen and evangelical, to preach memorial sermons in the church of All Hallows Barking.
[2] After the passing of the Act of Six Articles in 1539, in consequence of which Latimer and Nicholas Shaxton, bishop of Salisbury, resigned their sees and were imprisoned, Crome preached two sermons which his enemies hoped would give them a handle; but he went to the king and asked him to cease his severities.
The articles alleged against Crome were denial of justification by works, the efficacy of masses for the dead and prayers to saints, and the non-necessity of truths not deduced from holy scripture.
His answer was a rejoinder argument that these articles were true and orthodox; but the king only ordered him to preach at St Paul's Cross and read a recantation with a statement that would in future be punished if hereafter he were to be convicted of a similar offence.
Arrested in May he was brought before Bishop Stephen Gardiner and others of the council he was ordered as before to preach in contradiction of what he had said at St Paul's Cross, but his sermon rather hinted that the king's recent abolition of chantries showed that he held the same opinion.
He also exposed Sir George Blagge, a poet and court favourite of the king, Master Wourley, a Sewer John Lassels, a client of the Howard family, and William Morice, about whom little is otherwise known.