Cologne. He ended up back in Exeter, where he resumed his
acquaintance with Jewel upon the bishop’s visitation of the city in 1559.
About 1565 he commended his nephew Richard to Jewel’s attention, and
Jewel arranged for the young Hooker and his schoolmaster to appear
before him in Salisbury at Easter. Jewel rewarded the teacher for having
done so well with his ward, ordered a pension for Hooker’s parents, and
eventually sent him off to Corpus Christi with his blessings and largess.
(Walton is confused with his dates, for while noting that Jewel sent
Hooker to Corpus Christi when the boy was 15, he gives a date of 1567;
Hooker began at Corpus Christi in 1569). Among Hooker’s fellow
students at Corpus Christi were Lancelot Andrewes and Edmund
Spenser. Sometime very soon after this, probably 1571, Hooker returned
home to visit his mother, as the story goes, after he had recuperated from
an illness that lasted two months. Being destitute as students were,
Hooker and a companion walked to Exeter, and stopped in Salisbury to
see the bishop. Jewel fêted them and then sent them on their way. But
once having dismissed the boys, Jewel realized that he had given them
nothing for their journey, and so sent one of his charges to bring the two
back. Upon their return he gave Hooker ten groats for his journey to
Exeter, ten groats for his mother, the loan of his horse for the journey to
and from Exeter, and his walking staff that he had possessed at least
since his days in exile. Upon the return of the horse, the bishop said, he
would give him ten more groats for his life in Oxford. But Hooker never
had the opportunity, for Jewel died before he saw him again. The
particulars of Walton’s story, most elements of which appear more than
plausible, though some of them with the ring of the apocryphal, such as
the passing on of the staff, nonetheless comports with what we know
from Jewel in the story of Folkerzheimer, and are also commensurate
with the charity and liberality shown Jewel on numerous occasions
during his own days as a student and an exile.
While undoubtedly a good host, liberal with his money, devoted to his
diocese, an able administrator, and concerned about his cathedral fabric,
Jewel will always be remembered as Elizabeth’s apologist, the scholar
among her episcopal bench, and, whether true or no, esteemed by many
as one of the founders of that protean institution, Anglicanism.
Jewel as a scholar
Jewel’s literary output, often evidence of more ardor than imagination,
was the product of a disciplined cleric. Humphrey testifies that even in
his days at Oxford he was an early riser, someone who spent his whole
time in study. As seen in Folkerzheimer, Jewel had little time for