Two years later he was convicted with four others of heresy and sentenced to be burnt at the stake, but received a pardon owing to the intervention of Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester,[1][2] who said he was "but a musitian".
This set the liturgy to semi-rhythmical melodies partly adapted from Gregorian chant; it was rendered obsolete when the Prayer Book was revised in 1552.
Merbecke wrote several devotional and controversial works, and a number of his musical compositions are preserved in manuscript in the British Library, and at Oxford and Cambridge.
In 1843, William Dyce published plainsong music for all the Anglican services, which included nearly all of Merbecke's settings, adapted for the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
His setting has also been adapted for the liturgy of many other denominations; the Catholic Church drew on it for the new English-language form of the Mass of Paul VI following the Second Vatican Council of 1962–65.