to relaxation of ancient ecclesiastical authority, connections within the prohibited degrees had become painfully common, and of these, says Strype, ‘Cambridge was too guilty.’ Fulke was so strongly suspected of being concerned in one of these illegal unions that he deemed it prudent to resign his fellowship. His case was heard before Bishop Cox of Ely, as visitor of the college, by whom he was acquitted, and in 1569 was a second time restored to his fellowship (Strype, Parker, i. 556). He so completely regained his reputation, that during the same year, on the vacancy of the headship, Dr. Longworth having left the college, then distracted by cabals, for fear of expulsion, Fulke, to the great disgust of Archbishop Parker, narrowly missed being elected master. Longworth, who offered himself for re-election, and Fulke, though of the same theological school, were the heads of the rival college factions. The feud became so hot that the Bishop of Ely expelled Longworth, a hot-headed and intemperate man, while Fulke, to escape a like fate, retired quietly (ib. i. 555–6). To console him for his disappointment, Leicester, the great favourer of the puritan party, who had supported his candidature, appointed him his chaplain, and obtained for him the livings of Warley in Essex and Dennington in Suffolk (Rymer, Fœdera, xv. 728), both of which he held till his death. By Leicester's influence also he obtained the degree of D.D. by royal mandate, 19 May 1572, being about to proceed to France with Edward Clinton, earl of Lincoln [q. v.] (Strype, Annals, ii. i. 354–5). In the same year he was one of the friends who prevailed upon Cartwright to return from his banishment. He accompanied Cartwright in his visits to the puritans Field and Wilcox, then in prison for the publication of their ‘Admonition to Parliament,’ and urged them to persevere in the cause. On 10 May 1578 Leicester obtained for him the mastership of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, vacant by the promotion of Dr. John Young to the see of Rochester, which he held till the end of his uneasy polemical life in 1589. He is said to have held frequent meetings with Chaderton, Whitaker, and other puritan divines at Cambridge for the study of holy scripture (Clarke, Lives, p. 169). Fulke having no private means, and being burdened with a wife and family, found the stipend of the mastership insufficient, and got it augmented at the expense of the other members of the college. He is said by Bishop Wren to have been eager to increase the number of his college at the expense of its reputation. No fewer than twenty-six fellows were elected in his mastership. He at once enlarged the buildings of the college by the erection of the University Hostel, to which he only contributed 20l., leaving the main burden to be borne by the society. He also most inconsiderately bound his college by covenant with Queens' College to maintain six scholars, although the income was barely sufficient for three. On Chaderton's resignation in 1579 he was recommended to Lord Burghley by Dr. Still for the regius professorship of divinity, which was, however, more worthily conferred on Dr. Whitaker. In 1582 he unsuccessfully urged Cecil, then Lord Burghley, to set on foot a visitation of all the colleges in the university, by royal authority, with a view to the promotion of puritanism (State Papers, Dom. 10 Oct. 1582, p. 72). In 1580 he was appointed by the Bishop of Ely to hold a conference with Dr. Watson [q. v.], the deprived bishop of Lincoln, and Abbot Feckenham [q. v.], then imprisoned as papists in the bishop's castle of Wisbech, and in September 1581 was one of the divines deputed to hold a public disputation with his old schoolboy rival Campion in the Tower of London (Strype, Annals, ii. ii. 361). In the same year he served the office of vice-chancellor of his university. In 1582 he was one of the body of twenty-five theologians appointed by the council to hold disputations with Romish priests and jesuits on the points of controversy between the two churches (Strype, Whitgift, i. 198). The last ten years of his life were the period of his greatest literary activity. No year passed without the appearance of one or more books in defence of protestantism, and in confutation of the doctrines of the church of Rome. His language was unmeasured, and, even in that age, he was conspicuous for the virulence of his invectives against his opponents. His learning was, however, extensive and sound, and he was an able master of controversy. His style is clear and incisive, though deformed by the coarseness of the time. He gained high reputation among protestants by his writings against Cardinal Allen [q. v.], and other leaders of the counter-reformation in England. His defence of the English translation of the Bible against the attacks of Gregory Martin, the seminarist of Rheims, bears a high reputation for learning and ability. It has been republished by the Parker Society, as well as his ‘Discovery of the dangerous rock of the Papist Church, with the confutation of Stapleton and Martial.’ His last work was a completion of Cartwright's unfinished confutation of the Rhemish translation of the New Testament, which was published in the year of his death, 1589, with a dedication
