Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/180

Latimer he had erred not only in discretion but in doctrine. He was then taken back into favour at the king's request, on condition that he did not relapse again (, Concilia, iii. 746, 748;, Remains, p. 356). A few days later he visited, in Newgate, his admirer Bainham, then under sentence as a relapsed heretic, and urged him not to throw away his life without cause, as some at least of the articles he had maintained were doubtful; but he was obliged to leave him to his fate.

Notwithstanding his recantation, Latimer's prosecution had gained sympathy for him in the west, and on returning to his benefice he was invited to preach at Bristol on 9 March 1533. In this sermon he was reported to have revived his old heresies, and also to have declared that our Lady was a sinner. The mayor asked him to preach again at Easter; but the Bristol clergy took alarm, procured an inhibition against any one preaching without the bishop's license, and set up Drs. Hubbardine and Powell to answer Latimer's dangerous doctrines from the pulpit. The matter was reported in convocation, and a copy of Latimer's submission, signed by his own hand, was sent down to Bristol. Anne Boleyn had just been proclaimed queen, and the dean of Bristol had got into trouble for forbidding prayers for her. Latimer's friends, headed by John Hilsey [q.v.], prior of the Black Friars at Bristol, defended him, and Hubbardine and Powell were committed to the Tower, with some of the opposite party as well. A commission was at the same time issued to John Bartholomew, a local collector of customs, as a fit person to investigate the whole question, with the aid of five or six others selected by himself (Calendar Henry VIII, vol. vi. Nos. 796, 799, 873, vol. viii. No. 1001). And although on 4 Oct. following the Bishop of London issued an inhibition against Latimer preaching in his diocese, it was clear that the whole business advanced his favour at court.

Next spring (1534) he was appointed to preach before the king every Wednesday in Lent, and the most famous doctors of Oxford and Cambridge came to hear him. To give an appearance of fair play, Roland Philips, the renowned vicar of Croydon, had liberty to dispute with him, but he was hampered by a threat at least of the Tower. Sir Thomas More, when awaiting his examination at Lambeth, saw Latimer in the garden very merry, 'for he laughed,' says Sir Thomas, 'and took one or twain about the neck so handsomely that if they had been women I would have weened that he had been waxen wanton.' He was made a royal chaplain, and licenses to preach were granted at his request, always with the strict injunction that the preachers should say nothing prejudicial to the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn. He suggested to Cromwell that the commissioners did not push sufficiently the obnoxious oath to the succession (Remains, p. 367). Next year also, shortly before he was made a bishop, he was appointed one of nine commissioners to investigate the case of Thomas Patmer, a heretic.

Yet in February 1535 a strange report got abroad that he had 'turned over the leaf,' and in preaching before the king had defended the pope's authority, the worship of the Virgin and saints, and the use of pilgrimages. His promotion in the summer to the bishopric of Worcester is sufficient evidence against the story. The royal assent having been given to his election, 12 Aug., he went up to London from Bristol in the end of the month, and, after arranging (with some trouble) about his first-fruits and other matters, had his temporalities restored 4 Oct., and returned as bishop to his diocese, probably in November. In the interval he had even (though in Cromwell's name) given Cranmer a sharp reproof for 'looking upon the king's business through his fingers.' His advancement may have been due to Anne Boleyn's influence, to whom on 18 Aug. he gave a bond for 200l. (Cal. Henry VIII, vol. xi. No. 117); but we do not find in his writings any expression of regard for her.

Under Cromwell's visitation some insubordinate monks of the cathedral priory at Worcester had brought charges of treason against their aged prior. The man bore a high character, and his accusers very bad ones; but he had apparently transgressed some statutes and been too indulgent to certain brethren who thought Catherine of Arragon Henry VIII's true wife. A commission was sent down, and in the end he was compelled to resign. Even the king was inclined to continue him in office; but Latimer's advice being asked, he wrote that if 'that great crime' (whatever it may have been) was proved against him, it was enough to have spared his life; but in any case he was too old, and as Cranmer and Dr. Legh (a very bad authority) were agreed as to his incompetence, Latimer subscribed to their opinion.

In March 1536 Latimer was at Lambeth along with Cranmer and Dr. Nicholas Shaxton [q.v.] examining heretics, against one of whom a letter of the time states that he was the most extreme of the three. He also preached at Paul's Cross in his old vein, denouncing in homely language (not very intelligibly reported) the luxury of bishops, 