Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/248

 Strype records that while still a scholar of the college he made application to his brother for ‘a little money to buy him some books and other necessaries he stood in need of at that time. The request was sharply refused on the ground that he held it not fit to relieve those that were not of the true church’ (, Cranmer, bk. ii. ch. xx. p. 232). A tacit acquiescence in the dominant faith appears to have enabled him to retain his fellowship during Queen Mary's reign, and on the visitation of the university under Cardinal Pole's authority in 1556–7, his brother having died in the previous August, on the eve of the Epiphany, 5 Jan., he appears to have entertained ‘all the thirteen seniors’ at dinner in his chamber at King's College, and to have filled the part of ‘Christmas king’ (, Original Documents, p. 197). The next year he served the office of proctor, and the following year seems to have resigned his fellowship. His theological bias would be a necessary bar to his taking holy orders till the change of religion consequent on the accession of Elizabeth. He was ordained deacon by Grindal, then bishop of London, four months after the commencement of the new reign, 24 March 1559, and priest by Davies, bishop of St. Asaph, acting for Grindal, in 1560 (, Grindal, pp. 55, 58). Day's fortunes were now in the ascendant, and preferments were rapidly heaped upon him. In the same year he was made fellow of Eton, and was appointed by royal letters patent, dated 6 Oct. 1560, to the prebend of Ampleforth in York Minster, and a few months later, 1 Jan. 1561, received the archdeaconry of Nottingham (, xv. 563). At the close of the following year he was nominated by the queen to the provostship of Eton, vacant by the death of Dr. Bill [q. v.], who had held the office, together with the deanery of Westminster. Provost Bill had died 15 July 1561. A week later the fellows who generally favoured the old religion ‘boldly disregarding the queen's prerogative,’ elected Richard Bruerne [q. v.] to the provostship, although he had been compelled to resign his professorship at Oxford on the charge of gross immorality, and his sympathies were known to be largely in favour of Romish doctrines. He was forced to resign, and Parker sent in to the queen three names, including that of Nowell, for the vacant post. Cecil desired a wider field of choice, and applied to Grindal, who furnished him with no less than fourteen names, designating as specially worthy of the office four married men, of whom again Nowell was one, and five celibates, including Cheyney, afterwards bishop of Gloucester [q. v.], Calfhill [q. v.], and Day himself. The queen's choice fell on Day, who was elected by the fellows 18 Oct. 1561, and formally admitted 5 Jan. 1562. If his celibacy had influenced the royal choice, Day lost little time in depriving himself of this merit by his marriage with Elizabeth, one of the five daughters of Bishop Barlow of Chichester [q. v.], all of whom had bishops for their husbands. In 1562 he took the degree of B.D., and in January of the following year he preached the Latin sermon at the opening of convocation on 1 Pet. v. 2 ‘in a fine style.’ The occasion was a very important one. It was the first convocation held since the accession of the queen had restored the reformed religion to its former place. Day at once ranged himself on the side of the puritan and Calvinistic minority, giving a decided support to the violent and revolutionary measures proposed, which, if carried into effect, would have destroyed the claims of the church of England to be regarded as a portion of the catholic church. In company with Nowell, Sampson, and other ultra-protestants, Day signed the memorial for the abolition of saints' days and holidays, and the prohibition of the sign of the cross in baptism, the chanting of the psalms and the employment of organs, the wearing of the cope and surplice, and every other distinctly ministerial habit; while kneeling at the holy communion was left optional with the worshipper, and nearly every primitive custom of the church was discarded (, Parker, i. 240; Annals,  i. 472, 500–4). He was also among those who signed the ‘Petition for Discipline,’ which proposed the removal of the questions and answers in the baptismal service, and demanded that all communicants should at the time of communion express their ‘detestation and renunciation of the idolatrous mass’ (ib. 508–12). Day's puritanical spirit was displayed during the first year of his provostship in the destruction of all traces of the unreformed faith in the chapel of Eton College. He broke down the images and plastered up the niches in which they had stood, pulled down a tabernacle in the body of the church, whitewashed the pictured walls, and demolished the rood-screen, the size and magnificence of which may be gathered from the fact that its destruction occupied three weeks. He is charged also with having alienated or surrendered some of the college plate, and reduced the number of chaplains from six to four (Audit Book of Eton College, 1569–70;, Hist. of Eton College, p. 174). In 1563 Day got into trouble with De Foix, the French ambassador, who, being placed under some show of restraint in retaliation for the French king's similar treatment of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, had had rooms assigned to him in Eton College. De