234 THOMAS HARDING April Romanists under Mary and Elizabeth.^ Moreover, Harding was just then engaged in theological studies ; in July 1552 he was admitted to the degree of bachelor,^ and two years later, on 13 July 1554, to that of doctor of divinity,^ This may account for his change in religious belief, which did not pass unnoticed. It is recorded that Lady Jane Grey, whose education had been entrusted partly to him, wrote from her prison to upbraid him.* He must have come to the notice of the Lord Chancellor, Bishop Gardiner, who attached him to his service as chaplain, bestowed on him a prebend in his cathedral of Winchester, and appointed him, on 17 July 1555, treasurer of the church of Salisbury. Besides these ecclesiastical preferments, Gardiner gave him personal esteem and intimate friendship, and chose him for one of the executors of his will.* At the accession of Elizabeth, refusing to recognize the queen's spiritual supremacy, he forfeited his office and benefice : as early as January 1559 Thomas Lancaster was appointed in his place as treasurer of Salisbury.^ The new settlement of the church, which w&s practically forced on England and her parliament in the first months of Elizabeth's reign, and the conduct of religious affairs by Cecil and Bacon, made life almost impossible to men like Harding, who under Mary's reign had devoted their best efforts to a counter-reformation, and had tried to rouse the mass of the people from the indifference to dogmatic questions into which they had been awed by the despotic Henry VIII or the ministers of Edward VI, He came over to the Spanish Netherlands with several other Oxford and Cambridge scholars, and was mentioned as residing in Flanders in May 1561 by Dr. Saunders in his Report to Cardinal MoroniP It is not known where he spent the first years of his exile ; but he soon settled for good in Lou vain, which in the sixties of that century had become the catholic Oxford, whence proceeded all the assaults on the newly constituted Anglican
- There were John Boxall, a future dean of Winchester, who became a master of
arts in 1548 ; Nicolas Saunders, bachelor of civil law in 1551 ; John Harpes6eld, bachelor of divinity in 1551 ; John Rastell, bachelor of arts in 1552 ; Griflfith Williams, bachelor of laws in 1552 ; Nicolas Harpesfield, doctor of civil law in 1553 ; John Martiall, bachelor of civil law in 1556 ; Thomas Stapleton, bachelor of arts in 1556 ; John Fowler, John Hannington, and John Plankeney, bachelors of arts in 1556 ; Owen Lewis, bachelor of civil law in 1558. » Wood, i. 706. » Ihid. p. 710.
- After 1542 Harding is recorded to have been chaplain to the household of Henry
Grey, marquis of Dorchester, afterwards duke of Suffolk, the great patron of protea- tants. Jane's letters to Harding and to her sister were sent to Bullinger (Zurich LeUers (Parker Society Publications), iii. 1847, 304, 306). • ' Mr. Harding my Chaplayn ' : will of Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, 1555, in Nichols and Bruce, Wilts from Doctors' Commons ; Wills of Eminent Persons, 1495-1695, Camden Soc. (1863), p. 46. • Wood, L 138. ' P. Guilday, ' The English Catholic Refugees at Louvain 1559-75 ', in Milangta Charles Moeller (Louvain, 1914), ii. 179.
