V. grants King, was an hundred mark rent for twenty-one years, by SECT. vost of George Day, a learned man, Bishop of Chichester, was Made ProProvost of King's college in Cambridge; which provost-King's; ship he had held in commendam from King Henry VIII. to this time: but was deprived of his bishopric in the year 1548, for his disobedience to the King's proceedings, in refusing to take down the Popish altars in his diocese. It was also thought convenient to displace him from his provostship. Then all the talk was, that Cheke should be made Provost of King's. And in St. John's college there was great and glad expectation and desire that it might be so. For thus I find a one of the chief of that house expressed his mind in this matter to the Lord Protector's Master of Requests; ❝b It is the common wish among us "here at Cambridge, that at length, yea, very shortly, we 66 may see John Cheke Provost of King's college. That "Bishop [i. e. the Bishop of Chichester, the present Pro"vost] does not promote studies; I wish he hindered them "not. And this I do not speak for any one's favour, but " for the benefit of the whole University. There are many "things that make us of this judgment, and many more your own prudence sees. Thus we friends talk among ❝ourselves, perhaps not so very wisely, yet warily, and at "least very affectionately. Think, Sir, as you please of "this affair, yet further it as much as you can." Nor was 66 a Ascham. b Commune votum est apud nos, &c. Asch. ad Cicell. int. Epist. MSS. iii. 35. CHAP. it long after that this preferment, according to these his II. friend's good wishes, fell upon him. For the King, his Ann. 1548, loving scholar, in that year granted him a mandamus, diBy the rected to the college, (upon Day's resignation,) to elect him King'sman- their Provost. A place which suited best with his stu et seq. damus. The King grants him lands. dious mind, that ever laboured for retirement, and affected contemplation. It is true, the statutes of that college were against him. And therefore the mandamus ran to dispense with three qualifications required in a Provost of this college, viz. to be a Doctor, a Priest, and of the foundation. Which they would scarcely have complied with, (as they have since refused such dispensations, being against their statutes,) had it not happened at that time, when the University wanted some notable reformers, and in respect of the extraordinary person recommended to them, so eminent for his virtue and his learning, and with some regard also to his greatness at Court. So at length he was chosen by the Vice-Provost and Fellows; who wrote letters both to the King and him. This place he held about five years, till the beginning of Queen Mary, when being found tardy, he was glad for his safety to resign, though the instrument ran ex mero motu, according to the common form. The King expressed also his gratitude to him, by bestowing considerable lands and lordships upon him; namely, out of such as fell to the Crown by the dissolution of religious houses, colleges, and chantries. For in the third year of his reign Cheke obtained of him, (as it is expressed in the patent,) propter industriam in instituenda adolescentia Domini Regis; i. e. " for his industry in instructing the King's youth," the house and site of the late priory of Spalding in the county of Lincoln, the manor of Hunden in the same county, and divers other lands and tenements in the counties of Lincoln and Suffolk, to the value of 1187. 11d. q. and no rent reserved. And the year before he obtained another estate of the King; wherein he and Walter Moyle were joint purchasers; and no In respect of Popery. V. et seq. Dean of question a good pennyworth. The sum to be paid was SECT. 9581. 3s. 5d. ob. a sign that Cheke had by this time got money in his purse. It was the college of St. John Baptist Ann. 1548, de Stoke juxta Clare in Suffolk; and likewise, all the messuages, tenements, cottages, cellars, solars, chambers, stables, &c. with the appurtenances belonging to the college of Corpus Christi, in the parish of St. Laurence Poultney, London, lately dissolved; together with divers other lands and tenements in the counties of Suffolk, Devon, Kent, and in London. The Head of the foresaid college, who was styled the Dean of it, was Dr. Matthew Parker, after- Dr. Parker wards Archbishop of Canterbury. He indeed by founding Stoke. a free school in it for education of children, and by good statutes making it an useful foundation, deserved still to have enjoyed it. But by the act of Parliament in the first of the King, it fell under the same fate with the rest of the colleges superstitiously founded. So when Parker could not obtain the continuance of it, (which he endeavoured,) he gave Cheke (to whom it was granted) such friendly counsel and advice concerning the state of it, and for the better improvement of it, that he professed his great obligations to him in a letter, promising to take care that he should be the first to whom a pension should be appointed, as soon as the commission came out for stating the pensions; and so rewarded, that, as he trusted, no pensioner better: writing thus to him; "Mr. Doctor, Dr. Parker, "After most hearty commendation, I am as diligent in Cheke to "your behalf as I would be in my own; and labour as MSS.C.C. 66 sore, that you may think yourself to have found some c.C. "kind of friendship at my hand, as indeed I think I have "received at yours. When the commission is once come "out, you and yours shall be the first to whom pensions "shall be appointed: and for your part, I trust so or❝dered, that no pensionary better. The time is not now "long, within this sevennight or more, it is thought you "shall be despatched; wherefore you need not much now CHAP. "to accumber yourself with any unquietness or delay; "thinking that ratably you shall be despatched the best II. Cheke's Int. MSS. 7th of June, from "Your assured, "JOHN CHEKE." He promised Dr. Parker also to take his opportunity with the King effectually to recommend him for some preferment, when it should fall. But Parker remaining two years after in statu quo prius, upon another occasion of writing to him to Cambridge, Cheke voluntarily took notice, that he had not yet done for him as he would; yet assuring him, "that he did not forget his friendship gratitude.shewed him aforetime, and was sorry no occasion "served him to shew his good will. But bid him assure τε himself, that as it lay long, and took deep root in him, "so should the time come, he trusted, wherein he should "understand the fruit thereof, the better to endure, and "surelier to take place. Which might as well shortly be, "as be deferred. But good occasion, he said, was all.” So that we may hence conclude Cheke had a great hand in the places and dignities that afterwards were obtained by the said Dr. Parker. C.C.C.C. CHAP. III. From Cheke's retirement to Cambridge, to his receiving the honour of knighthood. SECT. I. Goes to Cambridge. Visits the University by commission from the King. Resides there, Writes a book against the rebels. tires to IN May this year 1549, I find Cheke gotten to the be- Anno 1549. loved place of his nativity and education; and, as it seems, Cheke resettling himself in his provostship lately granted him. Cambridge. Whither it appears he was now gladly withdrawn from the Court, and all its gay but ticklish splendours, and the frowns as well as the flatteries of it: the former whereof he had lately experienced. Here he is now busy, in order to his residence, fitting up his chamber and study; and sends to his friend Peter Osborn, at London, to convey down to him thirty yards of painted buckram, to lay between his books and the boards in his study, which he had trimmed up; a ream of paper, a perfume pan, and some other furniture. And to shew that he was now under some cloud at Court, and how glad of this his present recess he was, these words fell from him in a letter to his above mentioned friend; "That he now felt the calm of 66 quietness, having been tossed afore with storms, and 66 having felt ambition's bitter gall, poisoned with hope of "hap. That he could therefore be merry on the bank"side, without endangering himself on the sea. Your "sight," added he, "is full of gay things abroad, which I "desire not, as things sufficiently known and valued. Oh! "what pleasure is it to lack pleasures, and how honour"able to flee from honour's throes!" Our philosopher esteemed this the truest pleasure and the best honour, and much beyond that of a Court. And there being a visita |