Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Foxe, Richard

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1045160Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 20 — Foxe, Richard1889Thomas Fowler

FOXE or FOX, RICHARD (1448?–1528), bishop of Winchester, lord privy seal to Henry VII and Henry VIII, and founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was born at Ropesley, near Grantham, Lincolnshire, about 1447 or 1448. In his examination touching the marriage of Henry VIII and Queen Catherine before Dr. Wolman on 5 and 6 April 1527 he speaks of himself as seventy-nine years old. The house in which he was born, part of which is still standing, seems to have been known as Pullock's Manor. His parents, Thomas and Helena Foxe, probably belonged to the class of respectable yeomen, for, though it became afterwards common to speak of his mean extraction, his earliest biographer, Thomas Greneway (president of Corpus Christi College 1562–8), describes him as ‘honesto apud suos loco natus.’ According to Wood, he was ‘trained up in grammar at Boston, till such time that he might prove capable of the university.’ According to another account, he received his school education at Winchester, but there is no early or documentary evidence of either statement. From Greneway onwards, his biographers agree that he was a student of Magdalen College, Oxford, though the careful antiquary, Fulman (1632–1688), adds ‘most probably;’ but the explicit statement of Greneway, writing in 1566, appears to derive striking confirmation from the large number of Magdalen men who were imported by Foxe into his new college of Corpus Christi. From Oxford he is said to have been driven by the plague to Cambridge, with which university he was subsequently connected as chancellor, and, at a still later period, as master of Pembroke. He did not linger in either seat of learning. ‘Long continuance in those places,’ says William Harrison in his ‘Description of England’ (2nd ed., 1586), ‘is either a sign of lack of friends or of learning, or of good and upright life, as Bishop Fox sometime noted, who thought it sacrilege for a man to tarry any longer at Oxford than he had a desire to profit.’ Impelled mainly, perhaps, by the love of learning (Greneway, and partly, perhaps, by the desire of adventure and advancement, Foxe repaired to Paris.

‘During his abode there,’ according to Fulman, Henry, earl of Richmond, was in Paris soliciting help from the French king, Charles VIII, ‘in his enterprise upon the English crown.’ He took Foxe, then a priest and doctor of the canon law, ‘into special favour and familiarity,’ and, upon his departure for Rouen, ‘made choice of Doctor Foxe to stay behind and pursue his negotiations in the French court, which he performed with such dexterity and success as gave great satisfaction to the earl.’

The first definite notice we have of Foxe is in a letter of Richard III, dated 22 Jan. 1484–5 (preserved in Stow, London and Westminster, sub. ‘Stepney,’ a reference due to Mr. Chisholm Batten), in which the king intervenes to prevent his institution to the vicarage of Stepney, on the ground that he is with the ‘great rebel, Henry ap Tuddor.’ The king's nominee, however, was never instituted, and Foxe (who is described in the register as L.B.) obtained possession of the living, 30 Oct. 1485.

After the victory of Bosworth Field (22 Aug. 1485) the Earl of Richmond, now Henry VII, constituted a council in which were included the two friends and fellow-fugitives, Morton, bishop of Ely, and Richard Foxe, ‘vigilant men and secret,’ says Bacon, ‘and such as kept watch with him almost upon all men else.’ On Foxe were conferred in rapid succession, besides various minor posts, the offices of principal secretary of state, lord privy seal, and bishop of Exeter. The temporalities of the see of Exeter were restored on 2 April 1487, and he at once appointed a suffragan bishop, evidently reserving himself for affairs of state. ‘In conferring orders,’ says Fulman, ‘and such like episcopal administrations, he made use of Thomas [Cornish, afterwards provost of Oriel and precentor of Wells], titular bishop of Tine, as his suffragan; himself, for the most part, as it seems, being detained by his public employments about the court.’ On 28 Nov. of this same year was signed at Edinburgh a treaty between Henry VII and James III, which had been negotiated, on the part of England, by Foxe and Sir Richard Edgcombe, controller of the king's household. This treaty provided for a truce and also for certain intermarriages, including that of the king of Scots to Queen Elizabeth, widow of Edward IV, but the negotiations were afterwards broken off, in consequence, it is said, of Henry's unwillingness to cede Berwick. In the summer of 1491 Foxe was honoured by being asked to baptise the king's second son, Prince Henry, afterwards Henry VIII. [In Foxe's examination before Wolman he is reported as having distinctly stated that he baptised (baptizavit) Prince Henry. This statement is fully confirmed by a document in the College of Arms, of which a copy may be found in the Ashmolean MSS. vol. mcxv. fol. 92. The statement of Harpsfield (Hist. Angl. Eccl.) and others that Foxe was godfather is founded, probably, on a perverted tradition of the baptism.] Shortly afterwards (by papal bull dated 8 Feb. 1491–2) he was translated to the see of Bath and Wells, the episcopal work being, as at Exeter, delegated to the titular bishop of Tine, who already combined the duties of suffragan of this diocese with those of the diocese of Exeter. In the treaty of Estaples (3 Nov. 1492), which terminated the siege of Boulogne and the war recently commenced with Charles VIII of France, Foxe is mentioned first of the English ambassadors, Giles, lord Daubeney, being second, and others following. In 1494 (the temporalities were restored on 8 Dec.). Foxe was translated to Durham, probably not merely for the sake of advancement, but because his diplomatic talents were likely to be useful to the king on the Scottish border. In this diocese he seems to have been resident, and he left a permanent memorial of himself in the alterations which he made in the banqueting hall of the castle. It may be noticed that the woodwork in these alterations, which bears the date of 1499, already exhibits Foxe's device of the pelican in her piety, with his usual motto, ‘Est Deo gracia.’ In April 1496 Foxe acted as first commissioner in settling the important treaty called ‘Intercursus Magnus’ (see Bacon, Henry VII) with Philip, archduke of Austria, regulating divers matters concerning commerce, fishing, and the treatment of rebels, as between England and Flanders. In the summer of 1497, during the troubles connected with Perkin Warbeck, James IV of Scotland invaded England, and besieged the castle of Norham. ‘But,’ says Bacon, ‘Foxe, bishop of Duresme, a wise man, and one that could see through the present to the future, doubting as much before, had caused his castle of Norham to be strongly fortified, and furnished with all kind of munition, and had manned it likewise with a very great number of tall soldiers more than for the proportion of the castle, reckoning rather upon a sharp assault than a long siege. And for the country, likewise, he had caused the people to withdraw their cattle and goods into fast places, that were not of easy approach; and sent in post to the Earl of Surrey (who was not far off in Yorkshire) to come in diligence to the succour. So as the Scottish king both failed of doing good upon the castle, and his men had but a catching harvest of their spoils. And when he understood that the Earl of Surrey was coming on with great forces, he returned back into Scotland.’ This fruitless siege was followed by certain negotiations with the king of Scots carried on by Foxe with the assistance of D'Ayala, the Spanish envoy of Ferdinand and Isabella, who had been interested by Henry in his affairs. The result was that, though James refused to surrender Perkin Warbeck to the king of England, he contrived to facilitate his withdrawal to Ireland, and in December 1497 a long truce was concluded between the two kingdoms. In the following year (probably in November 1498) the peace thus established was in great danger of being again broken through the rough treatment which some Scottish stragglers had received at the hands of the English soldiery quartered in Norham Castle. James was highly indignant at this outrage, but Foxe being appointed by Henry to mediate, and obtaining an interview with the Scottish king at Melrose Abbey, skilfully brought about a reconciliation. The Scottish king appears to have taken advantage of the occasion to propose, or rather revive (for as early as 1496 a commission to treat in this matter had been issued to Foxe and others), a project for a closer connexion between the two kingdoms by means of his own marriage with the Princess Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII. The offer was readily, if not greedily, accepted by Henry, though, on Foxe's advice, he determined to move in the matter slowly. It was not till 11 Sept. 1499 that the second, and more effective, commission was issued to Foxe, empowering him to arrange the preliminaries of this marriage with the Scottish court. The marriage itself, which resulted in the permanent union of the English and Scottish crowns under James VI, did not take place till August 1503. Another marriage, almost equally important in its consequences, that between Prince Arthur, the king's eldest son, and Catherine of Arragon, subsequently the divorced wife of Henry VIII, had been solemnised on 14 Nov. 1501. The ceremonial was regulated by Foxe, who, says Bacon, ‘was not only a grave counsellor for war or peace, but also a good surveyor of works, and a good master of ceremonies, and any thing else that was fit for the active part belonging to the service of court or state of a great king.’ Shortly before this event Foxe had been translated from Durham to Winchester, the temporalities of which see were restored to him on 17 Oct. 1501. It is probable that, besides his desire to reward Foxe still further (for Winchester is said to have been then the richest see in England), the king was anxious to have him nearer the court, especially as the differences with Scotland might now seem to have been permanently settled. In 1500 Foxe also held the dignity of chancellor of the university of Cambridge.

It is probably to 1504 that we may refer the story told of Foxe by Erasmus (Ecclesiastes, bk. ii. ed. Klein, ch. 150; cp. Holinshed, Chronicles), and communicated to him, as he says, by Sir Thomas More. Foxe had been appointed chief commissioner for the purpose of raising a loan from the clergy. Some came in splendid apparel and pleaded that their expenses left them nothing to spare; others came meanly clad, as evidence of their poverty. The bishop retorted on the first class that their dress showed their ability to pay; on the second that, if they dressed so meanly, they must be hoarding money, and therefore have something to spare for the king's service. A similar story is told of Morton, as having occurred at an earlier date, by Bacon (Hist. Henry VII), and the dilemma is usually known as Morton's fork or Morton's crutch. It is possible that it may be true of both prelates, but the authority ascribing it to Foxe appears to be the earlier of the two. It is curious that Bacon speaks only of ‘a tradition’ of Morton's dilemma, whereas Erasmus professes to have heard the story of Foxe directly from Sir Thomas More, while still a young man, and, therefore, a junior contemporary of Foxe.

The imputation cast on Morton and Foxe by Tyndale (The Practice of Prelates, Parker Soc. ed. p. 305), that they revealed to Henry VII ‘the confessions of as many lords as his grace lusted,’ is one which it is now impossible to examine, but it may be due merely to the ill-natured gossip of the enemies of these prelates, or of the catholic clergy generally. It is equally impossible, with the materials at our disposal, to estimate the justice of the aspersion put in the mouth of Whitford, Foxe's chaplain, while attempting to dissuade Sir Thomas More from following the bishop's counsel (Roper, Life of More, ad init.), that ‘my lord, to serve the king's turn, will not stick to agree to his own father's death.’

The year before the king's death (1508) Foxe with other commissioners succeeded in completing at Calais a treaty of marriage between the king's younger daughter, the Princess Mary, and Charles, prince of Castile and archduke of Austria, subsequently the emperor Charles V. Though the marriage itself never took place, the child-prince was betrothed, by proxy, to the child-princess at Richmond on 17 Dec. of this year (see Rymer, Fœdera, xiii. 236–9), and the immediate objects of the alliance were thus secured.

On 22 April 1509 Henry VII died. Foxe was one of his executors, Fisher, bishop of Rochester, whose preferment had been given to him solely on Foxe's recommendation, being another. It is said by Harpsfield that Henry had specially commended his son to Foxe's care, and it is certain that he was continued in all the places of trust which he had occupied in the previous reign. According to Archbishop Parker (De Antiquitate Britannicæ Ecclesiæ), Warham and Foxe, the two first named on the new king's council, took different sides on the first question of importance which was discussed within it. Warham was averse to, while Foxe advised the marriage with Catherine, who had remained in England ever since the death of her first husband, Prince Arthur. The marriage was solemnised almost immediately afterwards by the archbishop himself, and the new king and queen were crowned together at Westminster within a few weeks of the marriage. It is insinuated by Parker that Foxe's advice was dictated solely by reasons of state, Warham's by religious scruples. Foxe had been present, on 27 June 1505, when Henry, instigated, or at least not opposed, by his father (see Ranke, History of England, bk. ii. ch. 2), had solemnly protested, on the ground of his youth, against the validity of the engagement with Catherine; but this conduct does not necessarily prove inconsistency, as the object of Henry and his father may have been merely to keep the question open, and subsequent events may have persuaded Foxe of the desirability of the marriage, while he probably never doubted its legitimacy.

The king's coronation was speedily followed by the death of his grandmother, the ‘Lady Margaret,’ as she is usually called, countess of Richmond and Derby [see Beaufort, Margaret]. This pious lady named Foxe, in whom she appears to have reposed great confidence, together with Fisher and others, as one of her executors. He was thus concerned in what was probably the congenial employment of settling the incomplete foundation of St. John's College, Cambridge (that of Christ's had been completed before the Lady Margaret's death), though the principal merit of this work must be assigned to Fisher. In 1507 Foxe had been elected master of Pembroke College or Hall, in the same university, and continued to hold the office till 1519. Richard Parker (Leland, Collectanea, vol. v.), writing in 1622, describes him as a former fellow of Pembroke, and Doctor of Law of Paris.

According to Polydore Vergil, the chief authority in Henry's council soon fell into the hands of Foxe and Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey. And according to the same writer (in whom, however, as Lord Herbert of Cherbury remarks, ‘I have observed not a little malignity’), mutual jealousies and differences soon sprang up between these two powerful counsellors. One cause at least assigned for these differences seems highly probable, namely, the propensity of Surrey to squander the wealth which, under the previous reign, Foxe and his master had so diligently collected and so carefully husbanded.

The altercation between Warham and Foxe (1510–13) as to the prerogatives of the Archbishop of Canterbury with regard to the probate of wills and the administration of the estates of intestates, is narrated at length by Archbishop Parker in the work above cited, and is confirmed by documentary evidence. Foxe, supported by Bishops Fitzjames, Smith, and Oldham, appealed to Rome, but, as the cause was unduly spun out in the papal court, they finally procured its reference to the king, who decided the points mainly in their favour. In 1510 Foxe was employed, in common with Ruthall, bishop of Durham, and the Earl of Surrey, to conclude a treaty of peace with Louis XII of France. But this peace was not destined to last long, and the war with France, which broke out in 1513, brought another and a younger counsellor to the front. ‘Wolsey's vast influence with the king,’ says J. S. Brewer (Reign of Henry VIII), ‘dates from this event. Though holding no higher rank than that of almoner, it is clear that the management of the war, in all its multifarious details, has fallen into his hands. … Well may Fox say, “I pray God send us with speed, and soon deliver you out of your outrageous charge and labour, else ye shall have a cold stomach, little sleep, pale visage, and a thin belly, cum pari egestione.”’ Wolsey, Foxe, and Ruthall all attended the army which invaded France, the former with two hundred, the two latter with one hundred men each; but it does not follow that these ecclesiastics were present at any engagement. On 7 Aug. 1514 a treaty of peace and also a treaty of marriage between Louis XII and the Princess Mary were concluded at London, Foxe being one of the commissioners. At this time J. S. Brewer regards him as still powerful in the council, though his influence was inferior to that of Wolsey, of Surrey (now Duke of Norfolk), and of Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk. ‘Foxe was,’ says Giustinian, the Venetian ambassador, ‘a lord of extreme authority and goodness.’ But advancing years, combined probably with weariness of political life, with a certain disinclination to the foreign policy, favourable to the empire and antagonistic to France, which now prevailed, and, there can be no doubt from his extant letters, with genuine compunction for the prolonged neglect of his spiritual duties, made him anxious to retire from affairs of state. At the beginning of 1516 he resigned the custody of the privy seal, which was committed to Ruthall, and henceforth he seldom appeared at the council.

The traditional story of Wolsey's ingratitude to Foxe, of the growing alienation between them, and of Foxe being ultimately driven from the council board through the intrigues of Wolsey, ‘owes its parentage,’ as Brewer says, ‘to the spite of Polydore Vergil, whom Wolsey had committed to prison. The historian would have us believe that Wolsey paved the way for his own advancement by supplanting Fox, and driving him from the council. … The insinuation is at variance with the correspondence of the two ministers. We see in their letters not only the cordial friendship which existed between them, but also the rooted disinclination of Fox to a life of diplomacy. It is only with the strongest arguments that Wolsey can prevail on him to give his attendance at the court and occupy his seat at the council table. He was always anxious to get away. He felt it inconsistent with his duties as a bishop to be immersed in politics, and he laments it to Wolsey in terms the sincerity of which cannot be mistaken. … So far from driving Fox from the court, it is the utmost that Wolsey can do to bring him there, and when he succeeds it is evidently more out of compassion for Wolsey's incredible labours than his own inclination.’ In a letter to Wolsey, dated 23 April 1516 (Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII, ii. pt. i. 515), Foxe protests that he never had greater will to serve the king's father than the king himself, especially since Wolsey's great charge, ‘perceiving better, straighter, and speedier ways of justice, and more diligence and labour for the king's right, duties, and profits to be in you than ever I see in times past in any other, and that I myself had more ease in attendance upon you in the said matters than ever I had before.’ Had he not good impediment and the king's license to be occupied in his cure, to make satisfaction for twenty-eight years' negligence, he would be very blameable and unkind not to accept the invitation to court, considering Wolsey's goodness to him in times past. In a letter to Wolsey, written at a later date, 30 April 1522, Foxe speaks with still greater compunction of his former neglect of his spiritual duties, and with a still more fixed determination to take no further part in the affairs of state, to which Wolsey was endeavouring to recall his attention: ‘Truly, my singular good lord, since the king's grace licensed me to remain in my church and thereabouts upon my cure, wherein I have been almost by the space of thirty years so negligent, that of four several cathedral churches that I have successively had, there be two, scilicet, “Excestre and Wellys,” that I never see; and “innumerable sawles whereof I never see the bodyes;” and specially since by his licence I left the keeping of his privy seal, and most specially since my last departing from your good lordship and the council, I have determined, and, betwixt God and me, utterly renounced the meddling with worldly matters; specially concerning the war [with France] or anything to it appertaining (whereof for the many intolerable enormities that I have seen ensue by the said war in time past, I have no little remorse in my conscience), thinking that if I did continual penance for it all the days of my life, though I shall live twenty years longer than I may do, I could not yet make sufficient recompence therefor.’ The tone of this letter, though the bishop's determination is firm, is throughout most friendly to Wolsey. Foxe's aversion to the French war had, it is plain from the passage quoted, as well as from subsequent parts of the letter, something to do with his disinclination to quit his pastoral charge, even for ever so brief a period, for the secular business of the court. In fact, of the two parties into which the council and the country were divided, the French and the German party, Foxe, as comes out plainly in the despatches of Giustinian, favoured the former.

The closing years of Foxe's life were spent in the quiet discharge of his episcopal duties, in devotional exercises, and the acts of liberality and munificence through which his memory now mainly survives. He was not, however, without trouble in his diocese. Writing to Wolsey, 2 Jan. 1520–1, he expresses satisfaction at Wolsey's proposed reformation of the clergy, the day of which he had desired to see, as Simeon desired to see the Messiah. As for himself, though, within his own small jurisdiction, he had given nearly all his study to this work for nearly three years, yet, whenever he had to correct and punish, he found the clergy, and particularly (what he did not at first suspect) the monks, so depraved, so licentious and corrupt, that he despaired of any proper reformation till the work was undertaken on a more general scale, and with a stronger arm. Once more we hear of him in a public capacity in 1523. The enormous subsidy of that year was energetically opposed in convocation, according to Polydore Vergil, by Foxe and Fisher, though of course without success. The charge on Foxe himself amounted to 2,000l., on the Archbishop of Canterbury to 1,000l., on Wolsey to 4,000l. The largeness of the revenues of the great sees at this time is strikingly illustrated by the fact that Foxe's newly founded college of Corpus was rated only at 133l. 6s. 8d., and the two richest colleges in Oxford, Magdalen and New Colleges, only at 333l. 6s. 8d. each.

The story that shortly before his death Wolsey proposed to Foxe that he should retire from his bishopric on a pension, and that Foxe tartly replied that though he could no longer distinguish white from black, yet he could well discern the malice of an ungrateful man, and bade him attend closer to the king's business, leaving Winchester to the care of her bishop, rests solely on the authority of Archbishop Parker. It is inconsistent with what we know otherwise of Foxe's relations with Wolsey, and has an apocryphal flavour.

Foxe, who appears to have been totally blind for ten years before his death, died, probably at his castle of Wolvesey in Winchester, on 5 Oct. 1528. According to a document found in his coffin, from which this date is taken, he was buried on the very same day, the place of sepulture being the splendid Gothic chapel in Winchester Cathedral, which he had previously constructed. The ecclesiastical historian, Harpsfield, says that, being then a boy at Winchester School, he was present at the funeral. This devout and gentle prelate passed away at an opportune moment, when the troubles connected with the divorce were only in their initial stage. He was succeeded by Wolsey, who held the see of Winchester as perpetual Administrator.

The most permanent memorial of Foxe is his college of Corpus Christi at Oxford, the foundation and settlement of which attracted great attention at the time (1515–16). Its most distinctive characteristic was the recognition of the new learning, a public lecturer in Greek being one of its principal officers. The foundation of this lectureship appears to have been the first official recognition of the Greek language in either university. Innovations almost equally startling were his bringing over the distinguished humanist, Ludovicus Vives, from the south of Italy to be reader of Latin, and his provision that the reader in theology should, in his interpretations of scripture, follow the Greek and Latin fathers rather than the scholastic commentators. The reader in Latin was carefully to extirpate all ‘barbarism’ from ‘our bee-hive,’ the name by which Foxe was accustomed fondly to designate his college. Indeed, Corpus and the subsequent foundations of Christ Church at Oxford and Trinity at Cambridge were emphatically the colleges of the Renaissance. Among the early fellows was Reginald Pole (afterwards cardinal), who with several others was transferred from Magdalen to his new college by the founder himself. Erasmus, writing in 1519 to John Claymond [q. v.], the first president, who had previously been president of Magdalen (Ep. lib. iv.), speaks of the great interest which had been taken in Foxe's foundation by Wolsey, Campeggio, and Henry VIII himself, and predicts that the college will be ranked ‘inter præcipua decora Britanniæ,’ and that its ‘trilinguis bibliotheca’ will attract more scholars to Oxford than were formerly attracted to Rome. It had been Foxe's original intention to establish a house in Oxford, after the fashion of Durham and Canterbury Colleges, for the reception of young monks of St. Swithin's monastery at Winchester while pursuing academical studies; but he was persuaded by Bishop Oldham of Exeter (himself a great benefactor to the college) to change his foundation into the more common form of one for the secular clergy. ‘What, my lord,’ Oldham is represented as saying by John Hooker, alias Vowell, in Holinshed, ‘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 who by their learning shall do good in the church and commonwealth.’ The college (which it may be noted was founded out of the private revenues of Foxe and his friends, and not, as was the case with some other foundations, out of ecclesiastical spoils) still possesses the crosier, the gold chalice and patin, with many other relics of its founder. In addition to this notable foundation Foxe also built and endowed schools at Taunton and Grantham (the school of Sir Isaac Newton), besides making extensive additions and alterations in Winchester Cathedral, Farnham Castle, and the hospital of St. Cross. His alterations in Durham Castle and his fortifications at Norham have been already noticed. He was a benefactor also to the abbeys of Glastonbury and Netley, to Magdalen College, Oxford, and Pembroke College, Cambridge, and seems to have contributed largely to what we should now call the ‘restoration’ of St. Mary's Church, Oxford, as well as to the reduction of the floods in Oxford in the year of pestilence, 1517 (Wood, Annals, sub ann.). He is also said to have been concerned in the building of Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster, the architecture of which, though on a much larger scale, resembles that of his own chapel in Winchester Cathedral. Notwithstanding these numerous benefactions, his household appointments seem to have been on a magnificent scale. Harpsfield tells us that he had no less than 220 serving-men.

In 1499 a little book, entitled ‘Contemplacyon of Synners,’ was printed by Wynken de Worde, ‘compyled and fynyshed at the devoute and dylygent request of the ryght reverende fader in God the lorde Rycharde bysshop of Dureham,’ &c. It is possible that Foxe himself may have had a hand in this work. He also edited the ‘Processional,’ according to the use of Sarum, which was printed at Rouen, in 1508. At a later period he translated the Rule of St. Benedict for the benefit of the ‘devout, religious women’ of his diocese. The book was beautifully printed by Pynson on 22 Jan. 1516–17. From a letter to Wolsey, written on 18 Jan. 1527–28, it would appear that Foxe had at a subsequent time much trouble with some of his nuns.

There are several portraits of Foxe at Corpus Christi College, the principal of which is the one in the hall by ‘Joannes Corvus, Flandrus’ [see Corvus], which represents him as blind. Some of these portraits are independent, and apparently independent of them all are one at Lambeth Palace, and one, taken in 1522, at Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire. Among the engraved portraits are one by Vertue, 1723, and one by Faber, circa 1713; the former of the picture by Corvus, the latter of a picture, also in the possession of the college, representing the bishop while still having his sight.

[Greneway's MS. Life of Foxe, and Fulman MSS. vol. ix. in C. C. C. Library; Wood's Colleges and Halls of Oxford; Fowler's Hist. C.C. Coll., Oxford (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), 1893; Cooper's Athenæ Cantab., Holinshed's Chronicles; Polydore Vergil; Parker's Antiquitates Britannicæ; Harpsfield's Hist. Anglicana Ecclesiastica; Harrison's Description of England; Godwin, De Praesulibus Angliæ; Rymer's Fœdera; Bacon's Henry VII; Brewer's Henry VIII; Letters and Papers of the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII; Giustinian's Despatches; Ellis's Original Letters, 2nd ser.; Surtees's Hist. of Durham; William de Chambre in the Historiæ Dunelmensis Scriptores tres, published by the Surtees Soc.; Cassan's Lives of the Bishops of Winchester and of the Bishops of Bath and Wells; information from Mr. Chisholm Batten and the Rev. F. A. Gasquet, O.S.B.]

T. F.