A premature expression of Lutheran views is said to have caused his departure from Oxford and even his imprisonment, but the records are silent on these sufferings which do not harmonise with his appointment as Master of the Royal Foundation at Eton.
In 1533 he appears as the author of an ode on the coronation of
Regent Arran that it was not exclusively his own doing. Moreover, he was present at the examination of Barnes, subscribed the divorce of Anne of Cleves
, and in that year of reaction became Archdeacon and Prebendary of Ely and Canon of Westminster.
Prince Edward
to Cox, 1546
He was employed on other royal business in 1541, was nominated to the projected
Oseney (afterwards Christ Church) Oxford, and in July was made Almoner to Prince Edward, in whose education he took an active part. He was present at Dr Crome's
recantation in 1546, denounced it as insincere and insufficient, and severely handled him before the Privy Council.
Under Edward VI
After
Pietro Martire Vermigli
, and was a moving spirit of the two commissions which sought with some success to eradicate everything savouring of popery from the books, manuscripts, ornaments and endowments of the university, and earned Cox the sobriquet of its 'Canceller' rather than its Chancellor.
He received other rewards, a canonry of Windsor (1548), the rectory of Harrow (1547) and the deanery of Westminster (1549).
Marian exile
Cox lost his preferments on
Edwin Sandys, to Antwerp. In March 1555 he made his way to Frankfurt
.
Cox played a major part in what later became known as the
Emperor Charles V
. The latter proved more effective as a charge: Knox and his followers were expelled, and the Prayer Book of 1552 was restored.
Under Elizabeth I
In 1559 Cox returned to England, and was elected Bishop of Norwich, but the Queen changed her mind and Cox's destination to Ely, where he remained for twenty-one years. He was an honest, but narrow-minded ecclesiastic, who held what views he did hold intolerantly, and was always wanting more power to constrain those who differed from him (see his letter in Hatfield MSS. i. 308). While he refused to minister in the Queen's Chapel because of the crucifix and lights there, and was a bitter enemy of the Roman Catholics, he had little more patience with the Puritans. He was grasping, or at least tenacious of his rights in money matters, and was often brought into conflict with courtiers who coveted episcopal lands.
The
Queen herself intervened, when he refused to grant Ely House to her favourite, Sir Christopher Hatton
; but the well-known letter beginning "Proud Prelate" and threatening to unfrock him seems to be an impudent forgery which first saw the light in the Annual Register for 1761. It hardly, however, misrepresents the Queen's meaning, and Cox was forced to give way. These and other trials led him to resign his see in 1580, and it is significant that it remained vacant for nineteen years.
Death, legacy, reputation
Cox died in July 1581; a monument erected to his memory twenty years later in Ely cathedral was defaced, owing, it was said, to his evil repute.
