durable, more vehement: when humanism was falling into disrepute at
Oxford, it had only begun to flourish at Cambridge. In its wake came
Protestantism. Initially identified with the few who met at the White
Horse Inn, the group eventually expanded to take in some of the most
prestigious posts and influential positions in the university. Most notable
among these was Richard Cheke of St John’s College. It did not hurt that
the group was supported at court first by Thomas Cromwell and
subsequently by Henry VIII’s more permanent friends, Anthony Denny
and William Butts, the latter one of Henry VIII’s personal physicians.^178
Jewel’s initial contact with Cambridge Protestantism came through
Richard Cox when he served as vice-chancellor of Oxford; but then at
Strasbourg and then again at Zurich, he fell in with those who had
influenced and been influenced by Cambridge, and who in turn made up
the dominant group of those who would fill the higher posts of
Elizabeth’s church: John Aylmer, Edmund Grindal, Robert Horne,
Alexander Nowell, Edwin Sandys and James Pilkington, inter alios.^179
Yet while Jewel remained in exile his identity largely came from Peter
Martyr, whom he served as a secretary, not from his fellow English
religionists. Zurich also proved a hospitable city for the refugees, for
when Stephen Gardiner found out that London merchants had been
underwriting the expenses of the exiles, he had the flow of money
stopped. Under the prompting of Bullinger, the Senate of Zurich, along
with Christopher, the prince of Württemberg, came to the exiles’
financial aid.^180
At some point during his time at Zurich Jewel it seems traveled across
the Alps to Padua. Though Humphrey never mentions it, as travel to
Italy, Padua in particular, was undertaken by other students from
England, such a trip by Jewel seems plausible. The supposition is based
on the Epistola ad Scipionem, a work attributed to Jewel, addressed to
a gentleman of Venice whom the author met and resided with while a
student in Padua, and included in the Parker Society edition of Jewel’s
works.^181 The work first appeared in an appendix to a 1629 translation
of the history of the Council of Trent by Fr Paolo Sarpi.^182 Where the
JEWEL TILL 1558 47
(^178) Hudson,Cambridge Connection, pp. 40, 50–53.
(^179) These names are all listed by Humphrey, who was himself in residence at Zurich,
Vita Iuelli, pp. 87–88. Information about the relationships of these and others can be found
in Hudson, Cambridge Connection. Of interest also are two of the most prominent
individuals in Elizabeth’s early reign who were also from Cambridge, but not exiles,
Matthew Parker and William Cecil.
(^180) Humphrey, Vita Iuelli, p. 90.
(^181) Jewel,Epistola ad Scipionem, in Works, IV, pp. 1092–126.
(^182) Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623) was a Servite monk, a scientist and a native of Venice. He
frequently was in trouble with the Inquisition. See John L. Lievsay, Venetian Phoenix: