Among Merton’s fellows during Jewel’s days at Oxford were Richard
Smith and William Tresham, both of whom would figure in Jewel’s later
life at the university. In 1542 Henry VIII appointed Smith the initial
Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, but under Edward VI,
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer deprived Smith of his post, believing his
conversion to the Protestant faith merely outward conformity.^9 His
position was given to the Protestant Italian émigré Peter Martyr
Vermigli, who would play such an important role in Jewel’s intellectual
and theological formation. Smith was the instigator of the disputation on
the Eucharist with Peter Martyr in 1549, with Jewel serving as Martyr’s
amanuensis for the affair.^10 With the accession of Mary in 1553, Smith
was restored to his chair as Regius Professor, and was one of the
disputants with Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer at their trials in Oxford,
and was also the preacher at Ridley and Latimer’s burning in Oxford in
1555.^11 Tresham, one of the first canons of Christ Church Cathedral, was
vice-chancellor of the university under Mary, and took Smith’s place
when the latter failed to turn up for the confrontation with Martyr.
Despite Merton’s conservative bent, it was there that Jewel first
encountered both humanism and Protestantism, though Jewel was
hardly the first at Merton to be so influenced. John Huick, future
physician to Henry VIII and a key member of Elizabeth’s government,
also became a Protestant while at Merton, sometime around 1530,
having just completed his BA. By 1535 he was a fellow of the adjacent
St Alban’s Hall, which regularly drew its principals from Merton. Huick
found himself expelled from St Alban’s in 1536 for his heresy (though
Huick confessed that it was his fellows at Merton who were infected,
with Pelagianism).^12 Though discharged as principal, Huick still retained
his fellowship at Merton, but left Oxford nonetheless for the less
conservative Cambridge in 1536, and received his MD in 1538. But it
was not from Huick that Jewel imbibed his heresy, but from a Merton
fellow who had begun his education under the auspices of Magdalen
College, John Parkhurst. Parkhurst entangled Jewel’s life at Oxford in
JEWEL TILL 1558 9
(^9) Smith preached a sermon on the errors of his ways and publicly burned his offending
publications on the same day. Apparently, ironically as it shall turn out for Jewel, this was
not enough.
(^10) Joseph McLelland, The Visible Words of God: A Study in the Theology of Peter
Martyr: 1500–1562(Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1957), pp. 18ff.
(^11) Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (New Haven, 1996), p. 582. The
spot where they were burned is marked by a cross in the middle of Broad Street, with an
engraved marker on the south wall of Balliol College, parallel to the marker in the street.
To the north of Mary Magdalen church, just around the corner from the marker, is a huge
memorial to all three bishops.
(^12) Jones,English Reformation, p. 17.