be obtained’,^150 and that the church in Frankfurt now had the privilege
of worshiping God ‘in puritie off faithe’.^151 Hardly happy with the course
of events, the English congregations in both Zurich and Strasbourg
wrote replies. The church in Strasbourg informed the Frankfurt
congregation that they were going to send them a minister, or they might
have their pick of either of the two of a list contained in the letter: Ponet,
formerly bishop of Winchester, master Scory, John Bale, or Richard Cox.
In reply, the Frankfurt congregation called Edward VI’s former chaplain
John Knox, then at Geneva, who on several points and notorious
occasions was an avowed critic of the Book of Common Prayer; Thomas
Lever at Zurich; and James Haddon who was at Strasbourg, to come and
be their ministers.^152 Lever and Knox accepted.
Following the exchange of some correspondence, the Frankfurt
church, with Knox now as their minister, Haddon having declined, and
Lever not yet arrived, and seeing the need for some form of worship until
the other exile communities could meet with them, adopted the Genevan
service book as a temporary liturgy, ‘whiche then was alreadie printed in
Englishe and some copies there amonge them ... shoulde take place as an
order moste godly and fartheste off from superstition’.^153 Shortly after
the adoption of the Genevan order, Thomas Lever arrived from Zurich.
Lever, formerly master of St Johns College, Cambridge, had been a
supporter of Lady Jane Grey upon Edward’s death, and when he fled to
the continent, took a number of Oxford and Cambridge students with
him.^154 He arrived in Strasbourg sometime in February 1554, for he
wrote a letter from there dated 24 February.^155 Having been closely
associated with the court of Edward VI, Lever not surprisingly was
hardly satisfied with the Genevan order, and wished to implement a
JEWEL TILL 1558 41
(^150) Calvin’s notion of the three marks of the true church clearly present themselves here:
the preached Word, the sacraments duly administered, and of course, discipline.
(^151) A Brieff Discours off the Troubles Begonne at Franckford in Germany anno domini
1554 Abowte the Booke off off [sic] Common Prayer and Ceremonies and Continued by
the Englishe Men Theyre to the Ende off Q. Maries Raigne(Heidelberg: Schirat, 1574,
1575), Reprinted by Edward Arberas Vol I of ‘A Christian Library’, 1908, pp. VII–VIII.
None of the spellings are modernized. The authorship of this work, traditionally attributed
to William Wittingham, has been called into question by Patrick Collinson, ‘The
Authorship of A Brieff Discours off the Troubles Begonne at Franckford’,Journal of
Ecclesiastical History, IX (1958) 188–208, who attributes it to Thomas Wood, another
exile.
(^152) Brieff Discours, p. XIII.
(^153) Brieff Discours, p. XXVII.
(^154) Christina Garrett, The Marian Exiles(Cambridge, 1938), p. 219.
(^155) Hastings Robinson, ed. & trans. Original Letters relative to the English
Reformation, written during the Reigns of King Henry VIII., King Edward VI., and Queen
Mary: Chiefly from the Archives of Zurich, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1847), II, p. 514.