Bishop Nix ordered the arrest of protestant reformer Thomas Bilney. Bilney had been arrested on several previous occassions, and had already spent one lengthy imprisonment in the Tower of London for preaching reform in the Catholic church. Articles were drawn up against Bilney by Convocation. Bilney was tried, degraded from his orders and handed over to the civil authorities to be burned. The sentence was carried out in London on the 19th of August 1531. A parliamentary inquiry was threatened into this case, not because parliament approved of Bilney's doctrine but because it was alleged that Bilney's execution had been obtained by the ecclesiastics without the proper authorization by the state. In 1534 Bishop Nix was condemned on this charge.