that he would have authority to preach by papal bull. Afterwards he was apparently advanced to the degree of D.D. He became one of the thirteen monks of the Bridgettine or Brigittine Monastery of Sion, who had a wing of the building to themselves, the inmates of the rest being nuns. He was one of the foremost scholars of the day. Cardinal Pole, who knew him familiarly, says that not only was he a man of most holy life, but he was the only English monk well versed in the three principal languages (Latin, Greek, and Hebrew), ‘quibus omnis liberalis doctrina continetur.’ A foreigner who had conversed with him in England writes of him as a man with the countenance and spirit of an angel (Guil. Covrini Nucerini Epistola, in More's Latin works, p. 349, Frankfort, 1689).
In April 1535 he was accused of having said a year before that Catherine of Arragon was the true queen, notwithstanding the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn, and of having talked with a neighbour of the scandals about Anne and her sister Mary. At this time he seems to have been ‘the father of Sion’—that is to say, superior of the monks there. He was examined about the same time as his fellow-martyrs, the Carthusians, before Thomas Cromwell at the Rolls, as to whether he would accept the royal supremacy over the church; and, on his refusal to do so, he was committed to the Tower. On 28 April he was put on his trial before a special commission at Westminster, along with Prior Houghton and the three Carthusian priors, and pleaded not guilty. He was asked by Lord-chancellor Audeley why he persisted in an opinion condemned by the judgment of so many lords and bishops and of the whole realm in parliament. He replied in an impressive speech that he had intended to keep silence, like our Lord; but, in discharge of his own conscience and those of others, he would say that he had all the rest of Christendom in favour of his view, besides the testimony of general councils and fathers of the church; and he was sure that the greater part of England at heart agreed with him. He was ordered to say no more. ‘Well then,’ he replied, ‘judge me according to your law.’ A jury was summoned next day to try him and the Carthusians, and they were urged in vain to recant. The jury, however, could not agree to condemn them, as their denial of the king's supremacy had not been malicious, and the word ‘maliciously’ was in the statutory definition of the crime. But the judges expressly told them that that word in the statute was superfluous, and whoever denied the supremacy did so maliciously. Still the jury declined to find them guilty till Cromwell threatened that, if they did not convict, they would be in danger themselves. A verdict of guilty was then brought in, and sentence pronounced. Reynolds begged the judges to obtain for him two or three days to prepare for death; this, they told him, rested entirely with the king. He obtained his desire. On 4 May, in company with the three Carthusians and John Hale, he was dragged through the Tower to Tyburn, where they were all executed with special barbarity and—what was unprecedented—in their ecclesiastical habits, without having been degraded.
[Vie du bienheureux Martyr Jean Fisher, ed. Van Ortroy; Cal. Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, vol. viii.; Maurice Chauncey's Historia aliquot Martyrum, ed. 1888; R. Pole de Unitate, f. 103 b, 1st ed.; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr.; Dep.-Keeper of Public Records, 3rd Rep. App. ii. pp. 237–9; Aungier's Hist. of Syon Monastery.]
REYNOLDS or RAINOLDE, RICHARD (d. 1606), divine and chronicler, of an Essex family, was admitted sizar of St. John's College, Cambridge, 10 Nov. 1546, and scholar on the Lady Margaret foundation, 11 Nov. 1547. He afterwards moved to Trinity College, and commenced M.A. in 1553. He seems to have studied medicine, and on 14 March 1567 received permission to proceed M.D.; but instead of being admitted he went with testimonial letters from the university to Russia. On his return he took holy orders, and was presented by the queen to the rectory of Stapleford-Abbots, Essex, 7 Aug. 1568. Subsequently, on 24 May 1569, he became, in addition, rector of Lambourne in the same county, and practised physic.
In 1571 he was examined by the College of Physicians and declared to be ignorant and unlearned. He voluntarily confessed that he had practised physic for two years, and the college ordered his imprisonment until he paid a fine of 20l.
From 2 May 1578 till 1584 Reynolds increased his preferments by holding the vicarage of West Thurrock, Essex. A summons to appear before Bishop Aylmer in St. Paul's Cathedral, 25 Aug. 1579, to answer some charge of irregularity, was delivered to him there; but he assaulted the process-server, and was committed to the Marshalsea prison. He petitioned the privy council for pardon later in the same year.
He held the other two Essex livings until his death, which took place shortly before 20 Dec. 1606.
He was author of: 1. ‘A Booke called
