pt. i. p. 713). He was author of: 1. 'The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke,' 1524; and also Lond. (Robert Redman), 1532, 16mo (Lowndes, Bibl Man. ed. Bohn, 543; Coates, Hist. of Reading, p. 322). 2. 'Commentaries upon Will. Lily's Construction of the eight parts of Speech,' 1540. He also wrote verses prefixed to the publications of others, and translated from Greek into Latin 'Marcus Eremita de Lege et Spiritu,' and from Latin into English 'Erasmus's Paraphrase of the Epistle to Titus,' 1549, with a dedication to John Hales, clerk of the hanaper (Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, ii. 30, folio). He had a son, Francis, D.D., of New College, Oxford.
[Authorities cited above.]
COX, RICHARD (1500–1581), bishop of Ely, one of the most active of the minor English reformers, was born at Whaddon in Buckinghamshire. After receiving some education at the Benedictine priory of St. Leonard Snelshall, near Whaddon, he went to Eton, and thence to King's College, Cambridge, in 1519, proceeding B.A. in 1523–4. He was invited by Wolsey to enter his new foundation of Christ Church in Oxford as junior canon soon afterwards, and was incorporated B.A. at Oxford 7 Dec. 1525, and was created M.A. 2 July 1526. Becoming known as a Lutheran, he was forced to leave the university, and removed to Eton, where he was head-master. He proceeded B.D. at Cambridge in 1535, and D.D. in 1537, and was made chaplain to the king, to Archbishop Cranmer, and to Gooderich, bishop of Ely. His name appears in several important transactions of the reign of Henry VIII. In 1540 he was on the commission which composed ‘The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian Man,’ the third great formulary of Henry (Lords' Journals, April), and his answers to the questions which were preliminarily propounded to the commissioners are extant among the rest (Burnet, Coll. iii. 21). He was also on the commission of clergy, of the same date, which pronounced the king's marriage with Anne of Cleves null and void (State Papers, i. 634). In the same year (24 Nov.) he was made archdeacon of Ely; on 3 June 1542 became prebendary of Lincoln; on 8 Jan. 1543–4 he became dean of the cathedral, Osney, and when the seat of the deanery was transferred to Oxford he was the first dean of Christ Church (21 May 1547). In 1542 he was on the commission which was nominated by convocation for making an authoritative version of the Bible, where he was one of those to whom the Old Testament was assigned (WILKINS, iii. 860). That project was quashed by the interference of the king. In 1546 he was one of the officials appointed to hear Dr. Crome publicly recant at Paul's Cross, and with the others he denounced the recantation as feigned and insufficient; and in the subsequent inquiry before the privy council ‘did notably use himself against Crome’ (State Papers, i. 843). On the accession of Edward VI his advancement was rapid. He was already tutor and almoner (since 7 July 1544) of the king. On 28 Sept. 1547 he became rector of Harrow, Middlesex, and on 23 April 1548 canon of Windsor. He was in high favour with Cranmer, insomuch that he was one of the only two doctors who were included with the bishops in giving answers to the questions on the mass that were issued by the primate about the beginning of the reign (Burnet, Coll. to Edw. VI, i. 25; Dixon, ii. 476). He was on the celebrated Windsor commission, which in 1548 compiled the first English communion, the first prayer-book in 1549, and probably the first English ordinal in 1550, and which seems to have been further employed in revising the first prayer-book, and making the alterations that are found in the second, or book of 1552 (Strype, Mem. iv. 20; Dixon, iii. 249). Cox ceased to be royal tutor at the beginning of 1550 (Orig. Lett. p. 82), but he retained his post of almoner, and was raised to the deanery of Westminster (22 Oct. 1549), vacant by the death of the unfortunate Benson. From 21 May 1547 till 14 Nov. 1552 he was chancellor of the university of Oxford. He was a great harbourer of the foreign divines, and seems to have had the main hand in introducing such men as Peter Martyr, Stumphius, and John ab Ulmis into the university. In 1549 he was one of the seven royal visitors or delegates who swept the schools and colleges with the most destructive zeal, confiscating and converting funds, altering statutes, destroying books and manuscripts with unsparing fury. The ‘mad work,’ as Wood calls it, that he made procured for the chancellor the reproachful nickname of the cancellor of the university (Wood, Hist. et Ant. p. 270; Fuller; Macray, Bodleian; Dixon, iii. 101, 108). On this occasion he presided as moderator at the great disputation of four days, which was held between Peter Martyr and the Oxford schoolmen, Tresham, Chedsey, and Morgan (Strype, Cranmer; Dixon, iii. 116). He was said to have frequently interposed to help Martyr (Sanders). Next year he was sent by the council into Essex to appease the people, who were excited by the resistance of Bishop Day of Chichester to the turning of altars into tables (Harman, Specimen, p. 113). In 1551 he was among the adverse witnesses
