though he is not in Le Neve's list. He may be the Dr. Lee who held the prebend of Wetwang in the cathedral of York (Letters and Papers Henry VIII, vi. 735). He had a small prebend at Ripon (ib. 6 Oct. 1533).
Lee first appears in public life in 1528, under the patronage of Wolsey, to whom he no doubt owed his many preferments. As Wolsey's commissary with Stephen Gardiner, and accompanied by Thomas Cromwell, he suppressed in September 1528 Felixstowe and other monasteries appropriated to Cardinal's College, Ipswich, which he visited 'for the induction of certain priests, clerks, and children' (ib.) On 1 April 1529 Lee suppressed the priory of Mountjoy, Norfolk, for Wolsey, with Cromwell as witness; took the fealty of the new abbot of SS. Peter and Paul, Shrewsbury, on 30 July; and was summoned personaliter to convocation in November (ib.) He visited Wolsey in 1530, and at his desire wrote to his 'loving friend,' Cromwell, for news of his 'good speed concerning the cardinal's pardon' (ib. iv. 6212). After Wolsey's death he shared in the rise of Cromwell, who placed his son Gregory under Lee's care (ib. v. 479; Ellis, Letters, 3rd ser. i. 338), and became a chief agent of the king and his minister both in their dealings with the monks and the clergy and in the divorce proceedings. He was rewarded with the posts of royal chaplain and master in chancery, and (19 Aug. 1532) the living of St. Sepulchre's, Newgate, London. The last preferment he resigned on 18 Dec. of the same year.
From 1531 to 1534 Lee was constantly employed in the king's service. He was at York at the end of April 1531. On 17 June he visited Athelney, Somerset, and on 5 July Malmesbury, 'signifying the king's pleasure in the election of new abbots' (Letters and Papers Henry VIII). On 24 Feb. 1532 he and Dr. Oliver received the surrender of the Austin Priory of the Holy Trinity, London, in July he visited the priory of Montacute, Somerset, and the abbey of Michelney, Somerset, to direct the election of a new prior and abbot (ib.) It has often been asserted that the crowning service by which Lee earned his bishopric was the celebration of the secret marriage between Henry and Anne Boleyn 'on or about the 25 Jan. 1538.' This rests on the somewhat circumstantial narrative of the catholic Nicholas Harpsfield [q. v.], in his treatise on the 'Pretended Divorce of Henry VIII' (Camden Soc. ed. pp. 234–5). Harpsfield reports an alleged conversation, in which the king only allayed Lee's fears and scruples by asserting his possession of a license from the pope. Burnet accepted the fact of his officiating, but rejected the story of his scruples, 'since he did afterwards turn over to the popish party' (Hist. of Reformation, vol. i. pt. i. p. 255, pt. ii. p. 430, Oxford edit. 1829). Rumour at the time pointed not to Lee, but to Cranmer, as the officiating minister. Cranmer, however, denied the allegation (Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. pt. i. p. 609: cf. Letters and Papers, vi. 333). During April 1538 Lee's services were in constant request in the critical stage of the divorce proceedings; documents were drafted and transcribed under his superintendence, and he had meetings with Cranmer. On 21 April he requested Cromwell to assure the king that he 'shall not be found oblivious in his great matter.' The convocation of Canterbury having recognised the illegality of the king's first marriage, Lee was despatched on 24 April to secure a similar declaration from the convocation of York, where more resistance was expected. Arriving at York on 29 April, he went next day to Auckland, where he found the Bishop of Durham 'not tractable,' and after a more successful visit to the Abbot of Fountains returned to York, where convocation on 14 May, wrote Edward Leighton, 'answered the king's questions with as much towardness as ever I saw in my life, thanks to the labours of Dr. Lee' (ib. vi. 398–400, 437, 451, 491). He was at Tuxford in Nottinghamshire, on his way back on 16 May, at Stamford on the 17th, and reached London on the 20th (ib. pp. 493,494).
From the middle of June to the middle of July he went to and fro between Malmesbury and Burton-on-Trent, at both of which places there were troubles about monastic elections. In August he was at Ashdon and at Bromehill in Norfolk, where he and Gregory Cromwell 'killed a great buck,' and he sent partridges to Thomas Cromwell (ib.) Lee was granted custody of the temporalities of the see of Coventry and Lichfield, or Chester as it was colloquially called, for which he had been designated as early as December 1532, on 18 Dec 1533, was elected bishop on 10 Jan. 1534, and was consecrated by Cranmer at Croydon 19 April (Fœdera, xiv. 481, 485, 486, 528, original ed.; Le Neve; Kennett). He and two other bishops were the first to take the new oath on consecration, recognising the king as supreme head of the church of England, &c. (Burnet, vol. iii. pt. ii. p. 268). No confirmation of their appointment was obtained from the pope. One of Cromwell's correspondents welcomed Lee's appointment, 'for I shall reckon you bishop there yourself;' another, Vaughan, one of his agents abroad, wrote on 1 Nov. 1533: 'You have lately holpen an earthly beast, a mole and an enemy to all godly learning, into the
