CHAPTER ONE1 Oxford and exile, Jewel till
Jewel’s early years and Oxford till the death of Henry VIII
Though meager when compared to the last 13 years of his life, the sparse
evidence regarding Jewel before the accession of Elizabeth nonetheless
reveals an individual whose Protestant outlook has already developed
along lines peculiar to his life as an English bishop. The idiom he affected
in his apologetics, the methods he embraced, the positions he endorsed,
and the postures he assumed during Elizabeth’s reign, had already
obtained real clarity before Jewel had even set foot again in England
following his years in exile. The few literary remains, amplified by his
circle of friends, benefactors and teachers at Oxford and abroad, make
Jewel’s actions and associations over his last 13 years more easily
understood. The three together – the writings he produced, the actions
and pursuits he followed, and the associations he formed – present at
times an enigmatic person, but one whose life and thought nonetheless
follow a clear and consistent trajectory. The period from his arrival in
Oxford till his return to England from exile in 1559 spans almost 24
years, nearly half of Jewel’s life, informs the last 12 years of his life, and
gives his thought roots heretofore overlooked. These years, so sparsely
documented, nevertheless present an individual in which can already be
discerned the nascent idioms which would produce the Challenge
Sermon and the Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae.^1
The world of Jewel’s youth is a little better known than John Jewel’s
youth itself. Born in March 1522 at Buden or Bowden farm in the parish
Berrynarbor on the north coast of Devon, Jewel was one of ten children.
Baptized in the Berrynarbor parish church of St Peters, about a mile from
his home, all record of his baptism has been lost, torn from the parish
record book at an unknown point some years ago. If it had the sad fate
to have found its way to the cathedral in Exeter, then in almost all
likelihood it was lost in the Blitz. Both Bowden farm and St Peter’s
church still stand, the church dating back to Anglo-Saxon England, with
the arch of the western door dating to at least 1090, and many parts of
(^1) The most recent edition of Jewel’s Apologiais John Booty, ed., An Apology of the
Church of England(Ithaca, NY: for the Folger Shakespeare Library, 1963). The text is
essentially that of Ayre’s in Jewel, Works, Vol I pp. 49–108, but with a much better
apparatus. The Parker Society edition of the Challenge Sermon is still the standard text.
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