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In such estimation, indeed, were his knowledge and experience held, even in matters of subordinate importance relating to public buildings and state ceremonials, that he appears to have been the oracle chiefly consulted in the direction of such concerns. In the year 1507 he was chosen master of Pembroke-hall, in Cambridge, which place he retained till the year 1519. His talents at negociation were again employed in 1507, and part of 1508, at Calais, with other commissioners, to bring about a treaty of marriage between Mary, the king's third daughter, and Charles, archduke of Austria, afterwards the emperor Charles V.; which was at length agreed upon, but broken in the reign of Henry VIII. who bestowed his sister on Lewis XII. king of France. Thus was bishop Fox engaged in matters of the greatest importance, and possessed of the greatest weight and influence in public affairs, during the whole reign of Henry VII. who appointed him one of the executors to his will, and particularly recommended him to his son and successor Henry VIII. In the reign of that prince, however, his influence soon greatly declined at court; for Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey and lord-treasurer, by his blind compliance with the will of his master, who was entirely devoted to his pleasures and diversions, began rapidly to gain an ascendancy over him in the king's regard. In order to supplant so dangerous a rival, bishop, Fox introduced Wolsey, one of his chaplains, to court; where that able and artful man speedily succeeded in wholly en grossing the favour of Henry. And no sooner did he find himself secure of the royal attachment, than he engrossed also the sole administration of public affairs; and soon found means of driving from court all who could give him any jealousy on account of the king's esteem for them. In the year 1510, bishop Fox was sent on an embassy to France, with the earl of Surrey and the bishop of Durham, during which a treaty of alliance was concluded with Lewis XII. About the same time, a warm dispute arose between bishop Fox and Warham archbishop of Canterbury, concerning the extent of the jurisdiction of the prerogative court; which, after an appeal to the pope, and a reference back to the king, was terminated by the latter in the bishop's favour, against the claims of his metropolitan. In the year 1513 the bishop attended the king in his expedition into France, with a large retinue, and was present at the taking of Terouenne; and in the same year, jointly with Thomas Grey, marquis of Dorset, concluded with the emperor Maximilian a new

treaty of alliance against France. But in 1515, chagrined at seeing his own interest with the king completely undermined by Wolsey, whom he had himself been the means of raising to power, and receiving from that ungrateful man. insults and mortifications which his spirit could not brook, he retired in discontent and disgust to his diocese. The rest of his days were spent by him in acts of munificence and charity. To him is the university of Oxford indebted for the foundation of Corpus Christi college, on which he employed himself after he had withdrawn from court. It was his intention at first to erect his college as a seminary for the monks of St. Swithin's priory in Winchester; but he was persuaded to alter his design, by Hugh Oldham, bishop of Exeter, who contributed a considerable sum towards the building, and, next to the founder, stands the first among its benefactors. "What! my lord," said bishop Oldham, "shall we build houses, and provide livelihoods, for a company of bussing monks, whose end and fall we ourselves may live to see? No, no; it is more meet a great deal, that we should have care to provide for the increase of learning, and for such as by their learning shall do good in the church and commonwealth." Bishop Fox also shewed his regard for the interests of learning, by establish ing free-schools at Taunton, in Somersetshire, where he had a manor as bishop of Winchester, and at Grantham, near his native place. During about the ten last years of his life he had the misfortune to be deprived of his sight; which circumstance, however, did not prevent him from attending the parliament in the year 1523.. But Wolsey, meanly desirous of taking advan tage of his infirmities, endeavoured to persuade him to resign his bishopric to him, and to be satisfied with a pension. Powerful as that mi nister was, he must have been mortified at the spirited answer which the old prelate returned to the proposal made to him. He ordered the person employed to deliver it to tell his master, "that though, by reason of his blindness, he was not able to distinguish white from black, yet he could discern between true and false, right and wrong and plainly enough saw, without eyes, the malice of that ungrateful man, which he did not see before. That it behoved the cardinal to take care, not to be so blinded with ambition as not to foresee his own end. He needed not trouble himself with the bishopric of Winchester, but rather should mind the king's affairs." Bishop Fox died in the year 1528, at a very advanced age, leaving behind him a character very eminent for poli

tical sagacity, and the ability and address with
which he conducted the most important and
difficult state negociations of his time. He is
said to have been a generous patron of learned
men; and certainly is entitled to the gratitude
of posterity, on account of the noble and use-
ful institutions which he founded for the en-
He
couragement of literature and science.
does not appear to have published any thing;
but a letter of his is printed in Strype's Memo-
rials, and in the collections at the end of Fid-
des's Life of Wolsey, on the subject of the
cardinal's intended general visitation and re-
formation of the English clergy. That day, he
says, he wished as ardently to see, as Simeon
did to behold the Messiah; and he adds, that
for three years past, almost all his studies,
labours, thoughts, and cares, had been directed
to that object within his own particular juris-
diction. Biog. Britan.-M.

FOX, EDWARD, an eminent English prelate
and statesman in the sixteenth century, was
born at Dursley, in Gloucestershire, but in
what year we are not informed. He was edu-
cated at Eton school, whence he was sent to
the university of Cambridge, and admitted
scholar of King's college in the year 1512. He
appears to have possessed excellent natural ta-
lents; and he so well improved by the advan-
tages of his situation, that he acquired a high
reputation for learning, and the other accom-
Added to this, he was
plishments of his time.
distinguished by great vivacity of temper, united
to a degree of prudence which eminently quali-
fied him for stations of activity and confidence.
In the year 1528 he was elected provost of his
college, and retained that post to the time of
his death. Being recommended to cardinal
Wolsey, as admirably qualified by his know-
ledge, his acuteness, and address, to conduct
political negociations, he took him into his
service; and in the year 1528 obtained for him
the appointment of embassador to Rome, jointly
with Stephen Gardiner, afterwards bishop of
Winchester, in order to procure the bull of
pope Clement VII. for king Henry VIIIth's
divorce from his queen, Catherine of Aragon.
At that time he was almoner to the king, and
had the reputation of being one of the best di-
vines in England. From the circumstances in
which Clement was placed on the arrival of the
embassadors at Rome, when the armies of the
king of France, with whom Henry was in al-
liance, were likely to become possessed of the
whole of Italy, they found that pontiff appa-
rently disposed to grant whatever the king re-
quired; and accordingly obtained from him a

bull, empowering the cardinals Wolsey and Campeggi to try the affair of the divorce in England. After his return home, Fox had the honour of being employed in embassies both to, France and Germany. In the account which we have given of the life of archbishop Cranmer, we have already related how Fox was the instrument of his first introduction to the notice of the king, by relating to his majesty the, conversation which himself and Gardiner had held with him on the subject of the divorce, and the advice which he had given, to be determined by the opinions of the most learned persons and universities in Christendom, instead of waiting for the slow and uncertain judgment of the court of Rome. When the king had resolved to follow Cranmer's counsel, he sent Fox and Gardiner to Cambridge; where, though not without much opposition from a party who entertained a rooted aversion to Lu-, ther's doctrines, to which the chief promoters of the divorce were favourable, they obtained. the university's determination," that the king's marriage was against the law of God." Preferments now began to flow in upon Fox, who was installed archdeacon of Leicester in the year 1531, and made archdeacon of Dorset in 1533. When after the fall of Wolsey an indictment was brought into the court of King's bench against all the clergy of England, forhaving incurred a premunire, Fox had consider able influence in convincing the convocation of Canterbury of their perilous situation, and in persuading them to make their submission to the king; which they did, by acknowledging him the protector and supreme head of the church and clergy of England, and praying his acceptance of a hundred thousand pounds, by way of composition for their delinquency. In the year 1535 he was promoted to the bishopric of Hereford; and in the same year was sent embassador jointly with Heath, at that time archdeacon of Stafford, to the protestant princes of Germany, then assembled at Smal-. kalde, whom he exhorted to unite in point of doctrine with the church of England. He spent the winter at Wittemberg, where he had repeated conferences with the German divines, and endeavoured to conclude a treaty with them respecting many articles of religion; but after three months' negociation, nothing was effected. In the third volume of bishop Burnet's "History of the Reformation," the reader may find a particular account of this negociation. Bishop Fox returned to England in 1536; and, after having enjoyed his episcopate only two years and seven months, died at London in the year

1538. He was a man of considerable abilities and learning, and an excellent preacher; but his inclination led him to devote himself more to the business of a statesman than to the duties of the clerical character. To the Reforma tion he was a secret well-wisher, and privately contributed by his influence and advice to the furtherance of the measures by which it was ultimately effected. But he did not act the same open manly part with Cranmer, and others of its friends, who did not conceal their wishes to proceed much farther than the king's bigotry and jealousy of the effects of innovations would permit. With the wariness which he had learned in the school of politics, he took care to avoid the hazard of persecution on account of his religion by avowing a greater latitude in opinion than was allowed by the Statutes. He was the author of a treatise "De vera Differentia regiæ Potestatis & ecclesiasticæ, & quæ sit ipsa Veritas utriusque," 1534, which was translated into English by Henry lord Stafford. He also wrote " Annotations upon Mantuan, the Poet." In the account of Thomas lord Cromwell, in the second volume of Fox's" Acts and Monuments," there is extant an "Oration" of his; and a joint Letter from him and Gardiner, concerning their proceedings at Cambridge, may be found in the collection of records at the end of the first volume of bishop Burnet's "History of the Reformation." Biog.

Britan-M.

FOX, JOHN, a learned and worthy English divine and celebrated church historian in the sixteenth century, was born at Boston in Lincolnshire, of respectable parents, in the year 1517. In consequence of his father's death when he was very young, and his mother's marrying again, the care of his early education devolved on his father-in-law, who gave him those advantages of instruction by which he became qualified for the university. At sixteen years of age he was entered at Brazen-nose college, Oxford. In the year 1538 he was admitted to the degree of B.A.; and having powerfully recommended himself to notice by his great abilities and extraordinary proficiency, was elected a fellow of Magdalen college, and proceeded M.A. in 1543. In his younger years he discovered a genius for poetry, and wrote several Latin comedies, the subjects of which were taken from sacred history. One of them, entitled "De Christo triumphante," was published at London in 1551, and at Basil in 1556, in octavo. It was afterwards translated into English by Richard Day, son of John Day, the famous printer in the reign of queen

Elizabeth, and published at London in 1579, under the title of "Jesus Christ triumphant; wherein is described the glorious Triumph and Conquest of Christ over Sin, Death, and the Law, &c." octavo. But the strongest bent of his mind was to the study of divinity, to which he applied with the utmost fervour and assiduity, sparing no pains to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the controversies which then agitated the Christian world, and to discover, from his own enquiries, what was truth. From the account of his life written by his son it appears, that before he was thirty years of age he had read over all the Greek and Latin fathers, the schoolmen, the decrces of councils and consistories, and had also acquired a competent skill in the Hebrew language. His application was severe and incessant, frequently continued through the greatest part of the night, and leading him to divorce himself from company of every kind, and to shut himself up in the most solitary retirement. In the course of his enquiries he became thoroughly convinced of the errors of popery; and his alienation from the established church was suspected, in, consequence of his absenting himself from public worship, on which he had used to be a constant attendant. His enemies, therefore, took such measures to be assured of the fact, as fully confirmed their suspicions; for he was too honest and open to disguise his real sentiments, and, upon being examined, avowed the change that had taken place in his religious creed. A charge of heresy was in consequence preferred against him, in the year 1545, and by the judgment of the college he was pronounced guilty of the crime, and expelled the house; it being declared at the same time to be a mark of favour and clemency towards him, that the punishment inflicted did not affect his life. By this event Mr. Fox lost the favour of his friends, who were unwilling or afraid to countenance and protect a person who had been convicted of so heinous a crime; and to add to his afflictions, his father-in-law took advantage of his situation to withhold from him his paternal estate; probably thinking that, as he was become obnoxious to the penalties of the law himself, he would with difficulty obtain relief from it if he ventured to vindicate his right. In these circumstances he was reduced to great. distress, when he was taken into the house of sir Thomas Lucy, of Warwickshire, to be tutor to his children. He continued in sir Thomas's house till his pupils were grown up; during which time he married the daughter of a citizen of Coventry. Upon his removal from this

situation he resided for some time with his father-in-law, and afterwards with his wife's father. A few years before the death of Henry -VIII. he went to London, where, in consequence of not being able to obtain any employment, he was again reduced to extreme distress, and in danger of perishing through absolute want. He received relief, however, from a person unknown to him, who appears to have been affected with the picture of misery which he exhibited when sitting one day in St. Paul's cathedral; and soon afterwards he was so fortunate as to be taken into the duchess of Richmond's family, to educate the children of her brother, the famous Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, who were intrusted to her care when their father was sent by the tyrannical Henry VIII. to the Tower. In this family he continued to live at Ryegate, in Surrey, during the remainder of Henry's reign, the whole of that of Edward VI., and part of that of queen Mary, being protected in the latter period by the duke of Norfolk, who had been one of his pupils. Anthony Wood says that he was restored to his fellowship in Magdalen college, under the reign of Edward VI.; and he is reported to have been the first person who preached the doctrine of the Reformers at Ryegate. While the persecution against the Protestants was raging under the reign of Mary, Gardiner bishop of Winchester was devising means for seizing Fox in his asylum; which rendered it necessary to provide for his safety by sending him abroad. After many difficulties, in which he narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the bishop's emissaries, who had warrants for apprehending him, he arrived with his wife, and some other fugitives on account of their religion, at New port in Flanders; whence they went to Ant werp, and Strasburgh, and afterwards to Basil. At Basil Mr. Fox gained a subsistence by correcting the press for Oporinus, a celebrated printer; and it was there that. he formed the first plan of his " Acts and Monuments of the Church." He had before published at Strasburgh, in 1554, "Commentarii rerum in Ecclesia gestarum, maximarumque per totam Eu ropam persecutionum a Wiclevi Temporibus ad hanc usque Ætatem Descriptarum." octavo, in one book; to which he added five more books, which were all printed together at Basil in 1559, in folio. During his residence in Germany, likewise, Mr. Fox had united himself with those English exiles who, instead of the order of church government and discipline appointed by king Edward's Service-book, had adopted the constitution followed by the French reformed churches, and that of Geneva. When by

queen Elizabeth's accession to the throne the protestant religion was restored in England, Mr. Fox returned to his native country, where he was received in the most kind and friendly manner by his former pupil the duke of Norfolk, who maintained him at his house as long as he lived, and at his death settled a pension upon him, which was confirmed by that nobleman's successor, the earl of Suffolk. Mr. secretary Cecil, likewise, obtained for him, of the queen, a prebend in the church of Salisbury, of which Mr. Fox would have declined the acceptance. He had also many other great and powerful friends, as the prelates Grindal, Pilkington, and Aylmer; sir Francis Walsingham, sir Francis Drake, sir Thomas Gresham, &c.. who would have raised him to very considerable preferments; yet he declined them, because he could not conscientiously subscribe to the articles enforced by the ecclesiastical commissioners, and disapproved of some of the ceremonies of the church. He was summoned,, however, by archbishop Parker, to subscribe,, that, according to the account given by Dr.. Fuller," the general reputation of his piety might give the greater countenance to conformity." Upon this occasion, he took the Greek Testament out of his pocket, and said, "To this will I subscribe, :" and when required to subscribe to the canons, he refused, saying, "I have nothing in the church save a prebend at Salisbury, and much good may it do you, if you will take it away from me." Such respect, however, did the bishops, who were most of them his fellow-exiles, entertain for his age, parts, and labours, that they did not urge him any farther, and he was suffered to retain his prebend till his death. But though Mr. Fox. could not conform to the ceremonies of the church,, he behaved with great prudence and moderation, and disapproved of the warmth of some of the more zealous puritans. In the year 1564 he: addressed a Latin panegyric to the queen, upon the indulgence which she shewed to some divines who scrupled a strict conformity and yet were suffered to hold their dignities in the church. In the subsequent periods of her reign, however, her majesty was pleased to depart from this delicacy in the treatment of tender. consciences; to withdraw her protection from any of her subjects. who directly or indirectly countenanced the alteration of any thing esta blished in the church; and to require an absolute obedience to the ecclesiastical laws, under the penalty of severe punishment to any who should venture to infringe them. In the year 1575, a cruel persecution cómmenced against some of the German anabaptists, who refused!

to join with the Dutch or English churches; and who deviated from the established creed not only with respect to the subjects and mode of baptism, but in the ideas which they entertained concerning the person of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity. Out of a number of them who were apprehended in a private house where they had assembled for worship, and afterwards tried for heresy, eleven, who refused to abjure their principles, were condemned to be burnt; of whom nine were banished, and two sentenced to the flames. On behalf of these men Mr. Fox wrote a Latin letter to the queen, in which, notwithstanding that his ideas of christian toleration were narnow and contracted, he exposed, with much force and pathos, the cruelty and iniquity of punishing with death persons guilty of error or obstinacy in judgment, and shewed how inconsistent such conduct was with the spirit and precepts of the Gospel. His intercession, however, was without effect; for though the queen is said constantly to have called Mr. Fox her father, yet she refused to listen to his prayer for these men unless they recanted; and upon their refusal, to the indelible disgrace of the reign of Elizabeth, they suffered the extremity of the fire, in Smithfield. Mr. Fox, as we have seen, could accept of no preferment in the church but his prebend of Salisbury, which he was permitted to hold without submitting to terms of conformity, of which he disapproved. He was, nevertheless, a frequent and zealous preacher, and embraced every opportunity of promoting, to the best of his abilities, the real interests of religion. Of his extensive acquaintance with theological learning and ecclesiastical antiquities, we have already made mention. His piety and zeal for religion were ardent and animated; his moral conduct strictly regular and unblamable; and he was also modest, humble, obliging, and remarkable for his humanity and kindness to the poor, to the utmost extent of his abilities. Such a character could not but be held in much estimation by all who knew him, and sincerely lamented after his death, which took place in 1587, in the seventieth year of his age. Besides the pieces already mentioned, he was the author of, "De Censura, seu Excommunicatione Ecclesiastica, Interpellatio ad Archiepiscopum Cantuarensem," octavo, 1551; "Tables of Grammar," 1552, which, according to Wood, were recommended by eight lords of the privy council, but soon laid aside on account of their being much more too short, than king Henry VIIIth's grammar was too long; "Articuli sive Aphorismi aliquot

Joannis Wicklevi, sparsim aut ex variis illiue Opusculis excerpti per adversarios Papicolas ac Concilio Constantiensi exhibiti ;" "Collectanea quædam ex Reginaldi Pococki episcopi Cicestriensis opusculis exustis conservata, & ex antiquo Psegmate transcripta ;" "Opistographia ad Oxonienses," which as well as the two preceding articles were printed at Strasburgh in 1554, together with the author's "Commentarii rerum, &c.;" "Locorum communium logicalium Tituli & Ordinationes 150, ad Seriem prædicamentorum decem descripti, &c.," quarto, 1557; "Eicasmi seu Meditationes in Apolypsin S. Johannis Apostoli & Evangelistæ," folio, 1587; "Papa confutatus, vel sacra & apostolica Ecclesia Papam confutans;" "Certain Notes of Election, added to Beza's Treatise on Predestination," octavo, 1581; "The Four Evangelists, in the old Saxon Tongue, with the English Version added to it," quarto, 1571; and several Controversial Pieces, Sermons, &c. which are enumerated in the first of our subjoined authorities. But the author's capital work is his laborious "History of the Acts and Monuments of the Church," commonly called "Fox's Book of Martyrs." He first applied himself to this undertaking while he was at Basil; but wrote it chiefly after his return to his native country, where he had access to more authorities, and the testimony of many living witnesses. For eleven years was it kept in hand, during which the author, to use the language of archbishop Whitgift, "very diligently and faithfully laboured in this matter, and searched out the truth of it as learnedly as any man has done." By the advice of Dr. Grindal, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, Mr. Fox published at first, in separate pieces, at Basil, the histories of particular English bishops and divines, soon after their respective sufferings and martyrdoms. And when materials were afterwards obtained for a more complete history of the martyrs, their persecutions and sufferings, the former were incorporated in it, with such additional information as subsequent enquiries had furnished him with. It was published at London, in 1563, in one thick volume folio, with the title, "Actes and Monuments of these latter perillous Days touching Matters of the Churche, wherein are comprehended and described the great Persecutions and horrible Troubles that have been wrought and practised by the Romish Prelates, speciallye in this Realme of England and Scotland, from the Yeare of our Lord a Thousand unto the Time now present, &c." In 1583 a fourth edition of it was published at London, in two volumes

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