faced any reprisals, and it is difficult to think that Jewel was singled out
in this regard. Edmund Guest, who played a far more prominent part in
Edward’s reformation, as well as Matthew Parker, both remained in
England, and largely untroubled in their lives. Barlow and Scory, both
bishops, though deprived, were as well, once having subscribed, left free;
so free in fact that they both fled England. This would seem a bald piece
of hagiography on Humphrey’s part.
Humphrey never mentions Jewel’s relationship with Cranmer or
Ridley, or even Latimer (he does mention Cranmer’s condemnation in
relation to Jewel’s subscription), though Latimer’s servant Bernherus,
however, knew Jewel, so there is little doubt but that Latimer must have
also. As already noted, Jewel had served as the notary for Ridley and
Cranmer’s Oxford disputations, and it was perhaps this that triggered his
forced subscription, and that upon the threat of severe penalty for
non-compliance.^141 Years later Jewel himself would reflect on the events
and persons surrounding the Oxford martyrs, and especially their
accusers.
Your friend [Richard] Smith ... has been taken in adultery, and on
that account ... was ordered to retire from the theological chair.^142
Bruerne, too, has been compelled for a similar offence, only far more
flagitious, to relinquish his professorship of Hebrew. I write nothing
about Marshal for fear of defiling my paper.^143 You have before
heard respecting Weston.^144 But why, say you, do you make mention
of such persons? Simply, that you may learn by what kind of judges
it was fitting that Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer should be
condemned.^145Jewel would take up the discussion of Richard Smith again a year later,
with a rather biting invective, though where he got his information from
is uncertain, and as it was generally known that Smith had fled England
for Louvain in 1558, the recriminations are virtually slanderous, though
perhaps not by sixteenth-century standards:
Smith is gone to Wales where ... he has taken a wife, with the view
I suppose, of refuting all your arguments. However this is, he boastsJEWEL TILL 1558 39
(^141) Humphrey, Vita Iuelli, p. 84.
(^142) Smith had preached the sermon that accompanied the executions of Latimer and
Ridley. MacCulloch, Cranmer, p. 582.
(^143) The same Richard Marshall who had gotten Jewel’s recantation, was dean of Christ
Church, and now Vice-Chancellor of the university, was Cranmer’s jailor for the two
months of December and January, 1555–56. MacCulloch, Cranmer, pp. 585–87. He also
is the man who ordered the body of Martyr’s wife dug up and thrown onto a refuse pile.
(^144) Hugh Weston was the prolocutor of the House of Commons, and a member of
Convocation, wherein he had withstood the 42 articles. He headed the delegation from
convocation against Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley. MacCulloch, Cranmer, pp. 562–68.
(^145) Jewel,Works, Letter to Martyr, 20 March 1559, Ayre’s translation, p. 1201.