temporary liturgy. It is this development that incited Knox and
Wittingham to draw up a version of services of the Book of Common
Prayer, in Latin, and send them to Geneva for Calvin’s judgment.^156
Given how Knox and Wittingham framed the letter, casting the services
in a most unfavorable light, Calvin’s appraisal that the book contained
‘manye tollerable foolishe thinges by theis wordes I meane that there was
not that puritie whiche was to be desired’,^157 seems expected. With this
reply, Knox, Wittingham and Gilby imposed the Genevan book on the
Frankfurt congregation, although not without resistance. Eventually, on
6 February 1555, another trial liturgy was established to be used until
the last of April, with the whole matter set before the tribunal of several
continental Protestant theologians, namely, Musculus, Calvin, Martyr,
Bullinger and Viret. The author of The Brieff Discoursthen notes
To that all gave their consentes. This daie was joyful. Thanckes were
given to God, brotherly reconciliation followed, great famliaritie
used, the former grudges seemed to be forgotten ... And this
frinshipp continued till the 13 of March folowinge at which tyme D.
Coxe and others with him came to Frankford.^158
Cox and his followers had come to Frankfurt from Strasbourg and
their intentions were quite clear. In the revised litany the congregational
response to the versicles had been omitted, but Cox and those with him
decided to fill in the lacunae by saying the responses at the appropriate
time. When, admonished by the congregation’s Seniors, Cox and those
with him replied ‘that they woulde do as they had donne in England, and
that they would have the face off an English churche’.^159 Many in the
congregation were loathe to admit the new party into the church, and
hoped that the matter of the service’s order would first be resolved.
Besides that, there were with the newcomers certain individuals ‘greatly
suspected that they had byn (some off them) at masse in Englande, and
others had subscribed to wicked articles as one of them shortly after even
in the pulpit sorrowfully confessed’. The most eminent of these
Nicodemists, the penitent in the pulpit, was Jewel.^160 Humphrey records
that Richard Chambers – apparently the same Chambers who had
supported the impoverished Protestant students at Oxford – urged Jewel
42 JOHN JEWEL AND THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHURCH
(^156) The substance of the letter, in English, is in Brieff Discours, pp. XXVIII–XXXIII.
(^157) Brieff Discours, p. 35. For the entire Calvin letter, pp. 34–36. For a more current
translation from the Latin, cf., Selected Works of John Calvin, Tracts and Letters, Vol VI,
1554–58. trans Marcus Robert Gilchrist (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1982.
Original translation, 1858), pp. 117–19.
(^158) Ibid., p. XXXVIII.
(^159) Ibid., p. XXXVIII
(^160) Ibid., p. XXXIX. Jewel’s name is not given in the text, but it is in the marginalia that
was part of the original 1574 edition of the book.
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