Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/158

 under James VI, did not take place till August 1503. Another marriage, almost equally important in its consequences, that between Prince Arthur, the king's eldest son, and Catherine of Arragon, subsequently the divorced wife of Henry VIII, had been solemnised on 14 Nov. 1501. The ceremonial was regulated by Foxe, who, says Bacon, ‘was not only a grave counsellor for war or peace, but also a good surveyor of works, and a good master of ceremonies, and any thing else that was fit for the active part belonging to the service of court or state of a great king.’ Shortly before this event Foxe had been translated from Durham to Winchester, the temporalities of which see were restored to him on 17 Oct. 1501. It is probable that, besides his desire to reward Foxe still further (for Winchester is said to have been then the richest see in England), the king was anxious to have him nearer the court, especially as the differences with Scotland might now seem to have been permanently settled. In 1500 Foxe also held the dignity of chancellor of the university of Cambridge.

It is probably to 1504 that we may refer the story told of Foxe by Erasmus (Ecclesiastes, bk. ii. ed. Klein, ch. 150; cp., Chronicles), and communicated to him, as he says, by Sir Thomas More. Foxe had been appointed chief commissioner for the purpose of raising a loan from the clergy. Some came in splendid apparel and pleaded that their expenses left them nothing to spare; others came meanly clad, as evidence of their poverty. The bishop retorted on the first class that their dress showed their ability to pay; on the second that, if they dressed so meanly, they must be hoarding money, and therefore have something to spare for the king's service. A similar story is told of Morton, as having occurred at an earlier date, by Bacon (Hist. Henry VII), and the dilemma is usually known as Morton's fork or Morton's crutch. It is possible that it may be true of both prelates, but the authority ascribing it to Foxe appears to be the earlier of the two. It is curious that Bacon speaks only of ‘a tradition’ of Morton's dilemma, whereas Erasmus professes to have heard the story of Foxe directly from Sir Thomas More, while still a young man, and, therefore, a junior contemporary of Foxe.

The imputation cast on Morton and Foxe by Tyndale (The Practice of Prelates, Parker Soc. ed. p. 305), that they revealed to Henry VII ‘the confessions of as many lords as his grace lusted,’ is one which it is now impossible to examine, but it may be due merely to the ill-natured gossip of the enemies of these prelates, or of the catholic clergy generally. It is equally impossible, with the materials at our disposal, to estimate the justice of the aspersion put in the mouth of Whitford, Foxe's chaplain, while attempting to dissuade Sir Thomas More from following the bishop's counsel (, Life of More, ad init.), that ‘my lord, to serve the king's turn, will not stick to agree to his own father's death.’

The year before the king's death (1508) Foxe with other commissioners succeeded in completing at Calais a treaty of marriage between the king's younger daughter, the Princess Mary, and Charles, prince of Castile and archduke of Austria, subsequently the emperor Charles V. Though the marriage itself never took place, the child-prince was betrothed, by proxy, to the child-princess at Richmond on 17 Dec. of this year (see, Fœdera, xiii. 236–9), and the immediate objects of the alliance were thus secured.

On 22 April 1509 Henry VII died. Foxe was one of his executors, Fisher, bishop of Rochester, whose preferment had been given to him solely on Foxe's recommendation, being another. It is said by Harpsfield that Henry had specially commended his son to Foxe's care, and it is certain that he was continued in all the places of trust which he had occupied in the previous reign. According to Archbishop Parker (De Antiquitate Britannicæ Ecclesiæ), Warham and Foxe, the two first named on the new king's council, took different sides on the first question of importance which was discussed within it. Warham was averse to, while Foxe advised the marriage with Catherine, who had remained in England ever since the death of her first husband, Prince Arthur. The marriage was solemnised almost immediately afterwards by the archbishop himself, and the new king and queen were crowned together at Westminster within a few weeks of the marriage. It is insinuated by Parker that Foxe's advice was dictated solely by reasons of state, Warham's by religious scruples. Foxe had been present, on 27 June 1505, when Henry, instigated, or at least not opposed, by his father (see, History of England, bk. ii. ch. 2), had solemnly protested, on the ground of his youth, against the validity of the engagement with Catherine; but this conduct does not necessarily prove inconsistency, as the object of Henry and his father may have been merely to keep the question open, and subsequent events may have persuaded Foxe of the desirability of the marriage, while he probably never doubted its legitimacy.

The king's coronation was speedily followed by the death of his grandmother, the