Foix resented the strictness of college discipline, and when on 30 Dec. the keys were refused him for the exit of a couple of guests after the closing of the gates, he burst into the provost's chamber sword in hand and required their instant surrender. This demand Day found it politic to comply with, contenting himself with making a formal complaint to Cecil of this conduct and of the dissolute behaviour of the ambassador's retinue, of whose misdeeds a long and revolting catalogue is given in the ‘State Papers.’ De Foix was ordered to change his quarters (Strype, Annals, i. ii. 94–7; State Papers, Foreign, Eliz. lxvii. 3; Lyte, 176–80). Fresh preferments testified to the continued goodwill of the court and Day's favour with the queen. In 1563 he was appointed canon of Windsor. In 1565 he was chosen one of the Lent preachers before the queen (Strype, Parker, iii. 135), and on 29 Aug. 1569 he was presented to the rectory of Lavenham, Suffolk, by the queen; in June 1572 he was appointed dean of the Chapel Royal, and in the same year he added to his other preferments the deanery of Windsor (Rymer, xv. 708), which he held with his provostship until he was advanced to the episcopate, retaining also to the same date the rich living of Hambleden, Buckinghamshire. He also in 1584 was elected registrar of the order of the Garter, having for several years fulfilled the duties of the office without formal admission. His minor preferments received their last addition by his collation on 2 Nov. 1587 to the chancellorship of St. Paul's Cathedral by the prerogative of Archbishop Whitgift. When convocation met in 1580, Day was ultimately chosen prolocutor (Heylyn, Hist. of Presbyt. bk. vii. ch. 21). In that same year he was one of the ‘able protestant divines’ appointed to dispute publicly with Edmund Campion [q. v.], the jesuit, in the chapel of the Tower shortly before his execution (Strype, Annals, ii. ii. 361), an office which in 1582 was extended to jesuits and Romish priests generally ({{sc|Strype}, Whitgift, i. 198). As dean of Windsor he prohibited the public catechising of children in some of the churches of which he was ordinary, an exercise of authority which met with the disapprobation of Burghley (Calendar of State Papers, 1 July 1584). He held the provostship of Eton for thirty-four years, his vice-provost at one time being his brother-in-law, William Wickham, who had married Mrs. Day's sister, Antonina, one of the five daughters of Bishop Barlow, his immediate predecessor in the see of Winchester. Day's freedom from ecclesiastical prejudice is shown by his frequently selecting laymen as headmasters of the school. The scholarship and discipline of the college maintained its high reputation during his rule, which seems to have united firmness and gravity with kindliness. Harington, who was a scholar at Eton in his time, calls him ‘our good old provost,’ and describes him as ‘a man of good nature, affable, and courteous, and at his table and in other conversation pleasant, yet always sufficiently containing his gravity’ (State of the Church, p. 69). The same writer adds ‘that he had a good and familiar fashion of preaching … apt to edify and easy to remember’ (ib.) A man who had filled so many high ecclesiastical dignities, and was ‘noted for learning and piety,’ was a natural candidate for the episcopate; but though repeatedly recommended for vacant sees his attainment of a bishopric was deferred to the closing months of his life. He had been recommended by Dr. Overton as his father-in-law's successor in the see of Chichester, as the best fitted to resist the encroachments of the Romish church, ‘since everywhere all was in a manner full of papists and popism’ (Strype, Parker, i. 537), and in 1570, on Grindal's elevation to the archbishopric of York, he had been named for London by Parker himself, who wrote of him to Cecil as ‘in all respects the meetest for that room’ (ib. i. 537, ii. 6), and his claims were again urged by Whitgift in 1584, when many sees were waiting for occupants (Strype, Whitgift, i. 327). The long-looked-for elevation came at last, and on the death of his brother-in-law, Wickham, after less than three months' tenure of the dignity, Day was appointed to the see of Winchester, being elected 3 Nov. 1595, and consecrated at Lambeth by Whitgift 25 Jan. 1596. Day's episcopate did not much exceed in length that of his predecessor. He died 20 Sept. of the same year, eight months after his consecration. He only assisted at one episcopal consecration, that of Thomas Bilson [q. v.], afterwards his successor, to the see of Worcester 13 June 1596. From his will, dated 11 Sept. 1596, we learn that by his wife, Elizabeth Barlow, who survived him, he left two sons, William and Richard, and four daughters, Susan Cox, Rachel Barker, Elizabeth, and a Mrs. Ridley, whose christian name is not specified.
Day's contributions to literature were of the scantiest. The following are enumerated in Cooper's ‘Athenæ Cantab.:’ 1. ‘Latin Verses in the University Collection on the Restitution of Bucer and Fagius,’ 1560. 2. ‘Conference with Campion.’ 3. ‘Sermons on 1 Cor. xvi. 12, 13, publicly preached in York Minster’ (in Cambr. Univ. Libr. MS.)
