Richard Cox (Bishop)

Richard Cox

Richard Cox (* around 1500 in Whaddon , Kingdom of England , † July 22, 1581 in Ely , Kingdom of England) was an English clergyman, Dean of Westminster and Bishop of Ely . He was a major proponent of the Reformation in England.

Career

Derived from unexplained parenting Richard Cox was during the reign of King Henry VII. In the county of Buckinghamshire born and grew up there. He visited the Benedictine monastery of St Leonard Snelshall at Whaddon. He then went to Eton College and in 1519 to King's College ( University of Cambridge ), where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts between 1523 and 1524 . With the help of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey , he soon became one of the new canons of the new Christ Church in Oxford - an office he held until 1525 when he lost it on an accusation of heresy. On December 7, 1525, his Bachelor of Arts was recognized at Oxford. After he successfully passed his exams, received his Master of Arts on July 2, 1526 . In the following years he remained calm and sought the presence of prudent patrons such as Thomas Goodrich , the Bishop of Ely, and Thomas Cranmer , the Archbishop of Canterbury , who later favored his royal appointments as Archdeacon of Ely and chaplain to the King in 1540 . Between 1530 and 1534 he was in charge of Eton College. He graduated from the University of Cambridge with a Bachelor of Divinity in 1535 and a Doctor of Divinity in 1537 .

Cox sat on the commission that declared the marriage of Henry VIII and Anna von Kleve null and void in July 1540 . In 1543 he was one of the six commissioned theologians who created the relatively conservative confessional King's Book . The key messages of this book were: Faith is connected with deeds, the human will is free, and the essence of the bread and wine of the Eucharist "changed into the essence of the body and blood of our Savior Jesus Christ ." According to the English writer John Foxe was loyal to Cox to Henry VIII. In 1546, Cox asked Anne Askew to moderate her reformist view of the Eucharist. Ultimately she ended up at the stake as a heretic in July 1546 .

Between 1546 and 1553 he was Dean of Christ Church ( Oxford ), during this time in 1547 he was Chancellor in Oxford. Cox became Canon of Windsor in 1548 - an office he held until 1553. In 1549 he was appointed Dean of Westminster. He had an important role in the drafting of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer of 1549 and 1552. As Chancellor of the University of Oxford (1547–1553) he followed the work of continental theologians such as Peter Martyr Vermigli . In this context, he campaigned to remove all Roman Catholic traces from the books and manuscripts as well as the corresponding symbols from the university building. Because of his anti-Catholic views, he was imprisoned for a short time after the accession of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary I in 1553. He left England in 1554 to seek refuge on the European continent and ended up in Frankfurt am Main . Disagreements between his followers and those of religious reformers John Knox and William Whittingham , who were of an extremely Puritan faith, led to Knox's expulsion and a return to using the 1552 prayer book.

Cox returned to England after the death of Queen Mary I († 1558) and was then Bishop of Norwich for a short time in 1559 before becoming Bishop of Ely in the same year - an office he held until his resignation in 1580 held. As a bishop, he refused to serve as a clergyman in the royal chapel because of the Roman Catholic symbols that still exist there, such as crucifix and devotional candles. He gave up his office because of a dispute with courtiers who coveted bishopric property after Elizabeth I intervened in the conflict and ordered him to vacate his palace in Holborn in favor of her favorite Christopher Hatton .

Among his literary works are the English translations of the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle of Paul to the Romans in the Episcopal Bible of 1568.

literature

• Alexander Chalmers: The General biographical dictionary: containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation. J. Nichols, 1813, pp. 428-436 ( books.google.de ).
• Richard Cox. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. ( britannica.com ).
• Cox, Richard . In: John Venn , John Archibald Venn (eds.): Alumni Cantabrigienses . A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900. Part 1: From the earliest times to 1751 , volume 1 : Abbas-Cutts . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1922, pp. 408 ( venn.lib.cam.ac.uk Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• Ronald Jay Vander Molen: Richard Cox (1499–1581), Bishop of Ely: an intellectual biography of a Renaissance and Reformation administrator. Michigan State University, 1969.
• Aysha Pollnitz: Princely Education in Early Modern Britain. Cambridge University Press, May 19, 2015, ISBN 978-1-107-03952-0 ( books.google.de ).
• Verl F. Weight, Willie M. Cox: As a Tree Grows: A Genealogy of the Cox and Allied Families of Northwestern North Carolina. iUniverse, Inc., 2008, ISBN 978-1-4401-0189-2 , pp. 5-9 ( books.google.de ).

Web links

• Richard Cox on the genealogy.com website

Individual evidence

1. ^ Albert Frederick Pollard: Cox, Richard . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 7 : Constantine Pavlovich - Demidov . London 1910, p. 353 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).