of his grey hairs and empty head.^146 [Smith] now keeps a victualling
house and gains his living by a hired tavern, despised by our friends
and his own.^147Jewel’s words, not so much about the three bishops as about their
accusers, jailors and executioners, frames one of several contexts in
Jewel’s later writings, a context that originated in his experience and
apprehension of the Marian years: Mary’s reign, and with it the activities
of her cousin, Reginald Cardinal Pole, represented not only the nadir of
Protestant fortunes, but the imposition of immorality and ignorance
parading as true religion: ‘O Mary and Marian times! How much more
tenderly and moderately is truth now defended, than lies were defended
long since! Our adversaries acted always hastily, without precedent,
without justice, without law.’^148 Jewel’s life in England now imperiled, he
takes flight, probably sometime in late 1554, before Cranmer, Ridley and
Latimer met their fate. Jewel was aided in his flight by Sir Nicholas
Throckmorton, a known Protestant, but one of the men who had rallied
to Mary’s cause at Edward VI’s death. Jewel went first to Strasbourg,
where was the largest and probably also the most influential of several
exile groups to flee England. Jewel did not stay there long, for by
13 March he was with the group that accompanied Richard Cox to
Frankfurt.
The Frankfurt congregation had joined themselves to the French
Church there, which had itself come to Frankfurt from London upon
Mary’s accession. The syndics of Frankfurt had granted the English
congregation only a modicum of autonomy, allowing them to use only
those forms commensurate with those used by the French congregation.
Thus prompted, the English congregation assumed a form which had
only been used by the Stranger Churches in England, one more in line
with Geneva.^149 The leaders of the English congregation then wrote to the
other exile communities, inviting them to join them in worship ‘wherein
they might heare God’s worde truly preached, the sacraments rightly
ministred, and discipline used which in their owne countrie coulde never
40 JOHN JEWEL AND THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHURCH
(^146) Smith, the day following a lecture on justification given before Hugh Latimer,
recanted his assertions, blaming his youth for the non-traditional content of his lecture,
while taking off his cap to reveal his grey hair, cf. McClelland, Visible Words, p. 20, n. 44.
(^147) Jewel to Martyr, 1 June 1560, Works, IV, p. 1237. Where Jewel got this information
from is not known, since none of it is true. Smith fled England for Louvain in 1558.
(^148) ‘O Maria et Mariana tempora! Quanto nunc mollius et remissius veritas
propugnatur, quam pridem defendebantur mendacia! Adversarii nostri omnia praecipites,
sine exemplo, sine jure illo, sine lege.’ Jewel, Works, Letter to Martyr, 14 April 1559, p.
1204.
(^149) Edward VI had granted John à Lasco the privilege of ordering the London Stranger
Church along Genevan lines.
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