Educated at
Merton College, Oxford, and taking his
MA degree in 1530, he became
Registrar of the University of Oxford in 1532 then (by royal appointment) its first Regius Professor of
divinity in 1536. Taking his doctorate in divinity on 10 July 1536, he was subsequently made master of
Whittington College, London, rector of
St Dunstan-in-the-East and then
Cuxham, Oxfordshire, principal of
St Alban's Hall, Oxford, and divinity reader at
Magdalen College. Some (possibly unreliable) accounts have him renouncing Catholicism and the authority of the Pope at Oxford and (on 15 May 1547) at
St Paul's Cross on the accession of the Protestant
Edward VI. However, even if the accounts are reliable, soon afterwards he became a Catholic again and was thus replaced in his professorship with
Peter Martyr. He and Martyr were to hold a public disputation in 1549, but fled to
Leuven before it could be held. On release he left to become professor of divinity at
Louvain, returning on the accession of
Mary to become canon of
Christ Church and royal chaplain and take a major part in proceedings against
Thomas Cranmer,
Nicholas Ridley, and
Hugh Latimer. Regaining most of his benefices, he lost them all again when
Elizabeth succeeded Mary, and was briefly imprisoned in the house of Archbishop
Matthew Parker. On release, he again fled to the continent, this time to
Douai, where Mary's widower
Philip II of Spain appointed him dean of St. Peter's church and then (on Philip II's inauguration of
University of Douai on 5 October 1562) the university's chancellor and professor of theology. ==Works==