299 about 1543, he confesses to a " natural -viciosity of over much shamefacedness "; and this constitutional defect would seem, at this time, to have been aggravated by a state of health which made it necessary for him to obtain the permission of the university, when preaching in St Mary s, Cambridge, to do so with his head covered. In the year 1538 he was created D.D. Although his in different health and love of study alike inclined him to a retired life, his seclusion was frequently broken in upon by honours and preferment which came unsought. He was selected by Thomas Cromwell to preach at Paul s Cross, on account of " his learning in holy letters and uncorrupt judgment in the same." He was appointed one of the king s chaplains, and in the year 1541 was made a canon of Ely. In 1542 his own college of Stoke presented him to an Essex living. About this time it began to be rumoured that, the dissolution of Stoke College could not be averted, and the arguments for Parker s return to his university, in whose welfare his interest had continued undiminished, were such as he could no longer resist. The mastership of Corpus having fallen vacant, he consented to be elected to the post, at that time scarcely of the annual value of <10 ; to this, however, the society shortly after added the rectory of Landbeach. In January 1545 he was elected to the vice-chancellorship of the university by a large majority. The colleges of both universities were at this period in continual fear of being, sooner or later, handed over, as the monasteries had been, to the greed of the despoiler. It was accordingly resolved, in order to anticipate a commission consisting of unscrupulous courtiers and lawyers, that the university should obtain the royal authority for a commission composed of those who were intimately acquainted with the real state of affairs, and, through the good offices of Catherine Parr, Parker, along with two other heads of colleges, was selected for the task. When their survey had been completed, they repaired to Hampton Court, and laid their statement before the king. Henry, on reading the report, expressed his emphatic admiration at the economical management of the colleges, and dismissed the commission with assurances which completely baffled the expectations of the courtiers. The fate which was averted from Cambridge fell, however, upon Stoke College. Its estate was confiscated, but subject to a charge of .40 per annum as compensation. The purchaser was Sir John Cheke, Parker s personal friend, by whom the money was regularly paid to the former dean. Parker now entered upon the married state, and espoused a Norfolk lady named Margaret Harleston. His choice appears to have been singularly fortunate. His wife proved a true helpmate, and was distinguished for the graceful hospi tality she extended to the poor clergy whom Parker was in the habit of inviting to the college lodge at Cambridge. In the measures which marked the further progress of the Reformation during Edward s reign Parker seems to have cordially co-operated. But he had no sympathy with the bigotry which now began to characterize the contend ing sects of Protestantism abroad ; and when Martin Bucer was fain, to quit Strasburg, after the failure of his efforts to mediate between the Lutherans and the Zwinglians, the master of Corpus extended to that eminent theologian a cordial welcome to England. During the short time that the latter filled the post of regius professor of divinity at Cambridge, he found in Parker a firm friend, and it was by Parker that his funeral sermon was preached. Parker s services to his party were not unrecognized. He was occasionally appointed to preach before the young king, and was promoted to the deanery of Lincoln and to the prebend of Corringham in that cathedral. On the occasion of Kett s rebellion in Norfolk, happening to be in Norwich, he visited the rebels camp and ventured to preach submission to the constituted authorities. When Queen Mary ascended the throne, most of the college heads at Cambridge were deprived of office, and Parker only forestalled a like fate by resignation. The fact of his being a married man alone sufficed to entail the loss of all his ecclesiastical preferments. He did not, however, like many of the leaders of his party, fly from the country, but lived in strict retirement, his place of resid ence being a secret which appears to have died with him. This feature in his career is deserving of note, as offering an important point of contrast to the experiences of those other eminent churchmen who, known as the Marian exiles, returned to England after a long sojourn at the chief centres of the Reformed party on the Continent, strongly
- prejudiced in favour of Calviuistic doctrine, and bigotedly
intolerant of everything approaching to the Roman discipline and ritual. Parker, like Whitgift, stayed in England, and was thus probably better able afterwards to maintain a fairly impartial position in relation to contend ing religious parties. He himself speaks of these years of his life, passed as they were in solitude among his books and in meditation, but cheered by the possession of a clear conscience, as productive of far more solid enjoyment than he afterwards found in the varied duties and anxieties of the episcopal office. A fall from horseback, when he was on one occasion compelled to flee by night from Mary s emissaries, resulted in a permanent injury (his language appears to imply a rupture) which still further disinclined him to active and laborious public duties ; and upon Elizabeth s accession he evinced little readiness to avail himself of prospects of preferment held out by Sir Nicholas Bacon, the lord keeper. He believed himself to be summoned by duty to return to his former sphere of labour at Cambridge, at that time, like Oxford, in a singularly depressed and unsatis factory condition. " Of all places in England, " he writes to Bacon, " I would wish to bestow most of my time in the university, the state whereof is miserable at this present." His services were needed, however, for a wider sphere of action; and in December 1558 he was summoned by royal command to London, where it was intimated to him that he was to be appointed to the primacy. His election to the office took place on the first of the following August, and his consecration on the 17th December, in the chapel at Lambeth Palace. He was consecrated by Bishop Barlow, formerly bishop of Bath and Wells, bishop- elect of Chichester; John Scory, formerly bishop of Chichester, bishop-elect of Hereford ; Miles Coverdale, late bishop of Exeter ; and John Hodgkin, suffragan bishop of Bedford. The delay which took place in his consecration arose from the fact that the three bishops named in the original warrant (Tonstal, Bourne, and Poole) refused to act, and a second warrant was consequently found necessary. In the following century the Romanist party sought, by circulating the "Nag s Head fable," to throw discredit on Parker s consecration by representing that he, together with certain other bishops, was simply ordained, and that too in an irreverent and uncanonical fashion, at a tavern in Fleet Street. The evidence which contravenes this story (-see Pocock s edition of Burnet s History of the Reformation, vol. v.) is, however, singularly full and satisfactory. During the fifteen years of his primacy, Parker s best energies were devoted to defining more accurately the discipline and belief of the newly constituted Church of England, and to bringing about a general conformity. The Thirty-Nine Articles were passed by convocation under his presidency in 15G2. In the y6ar 1566 he issued his celebrated "Advertisements," "for the clue order in the
