founded by Henry VIII., was dissolved and the jurisdiction reannexed to London; Thirlby, his conservative views being inconvenient so near the Court, was removed to Norwich; and under such auspices, the excellent Hooper and his Genevan friends, to whom, accurate doctrine was the alpha and omega, the one thing essential, began to see the Gospel more triumphant in England than in any corner of the world except Zurich. Warwick seemed to them a most brave and faithful soldier of Christ,[1] 'a most holy and fearless instrument of the word of God.'[2] John ab Ulmis, a refugee, assured Bullinger that the Earl of Warwick and Lord Dorset 'were the most shining lights of the Church of England;' 'they were, and were considered, the terrour and thunderbolt of the Roman bishops; and they alone had exerted themselves in the Reformation of the Church more than all the rest of the council.'[3] To such men as these it was enough that a certain speculative system which they called the Gospel should be patronized and
- ↑ Hooper to Bullinger, March 27. 1550: Epistolæ Tigurinæ.
- ↑ Same to the Same, June 29: Ibid.
- ↑ John ab Ulmis to Bullinger, March 25, 1550: Epistolæ Tigurinæ. Warwick is generally said to have been the originator and contriver of Somerset's deposition. John ab Ulmis says, on the other hand, 'These men'—Warwick and Dorset—'exerted their influence and good offices on behalf of the King's uncle who had been plotted against, and restored him from danger of life out of darkness to light.'
Machyn says (Diary, p. 8), 'The new Bishop of Winchester was divorced from the butcher's wife with shame enough.' The Grey Friars' Chronicle (p. 70) more explicitly says, 'The 27th day of July, the Bishop of Winchester that then was, was divorced from his wife in Paul's, the which was a butcher's wife in Nottingham, and gave her husband a certain money a year during his life, as it was judged by the law.'
