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GEORGE BULLOCK NINTH MASTER,

ADMITTED MAY 12TH AN. 1554.

DR WATSON having resigned about the beginning of May, George Bullock B.D. was elected by a very unanimous consent, as is expressed in the instrument of his admission; and indeed Dr Watson having made so great 5 a purge of fellows, it was not strange that the remaining members should be all of a mind: though either all the fellowships were not voided under him, or they were not all filled up, for in the two first great elections under him and Bullock there were two and thirty fellows chosen, 10 being about two parts of the three of the whole number.

Mr Bullock was admitted master' May 12th, 1554, by the same vice-chancellor, viz. Dr John Young; and because this Dr Young, or Yonge (for so he writes himself), who was so great an ornament to the college and univer15 sity, has been doubted of or mistaken for another man, I will set that matter right in few words.

He was originally of St John's college, where he was admitted fellow an. 15362, was removed to Trinity upon the foundation of that house, was there in king Edward's 20 time, when he so learnedly opposed Martin Bucer, and was the most acute and able adversary that learned man ever met with in the university: the account of his disputations, even as they are printed in Bucer's works', give a sufficient specimen of his abilities. Upon queen Mary's 15 coming to the crown and upon Dr Sandes' recess or eject

1 Ex instrumento originali inter archiva.

Ex archivis.

3 Bucer, Scripta Anglic. [732, 797, 805.

ment, he was immediately chose vice-chancellor (though then a private fellow) for his activity and great services he had done the popish party in his disputations, and was master of Pembroke hall when Mr Bullock was admitted master of this house. Bishop Wren' seems to have mis- 5 taken the time both of his being master and vice-chancellor, as others have done that have said anything of the man. I could give a much larger account of him, were it not too large a digression.

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As to Mr Bullock, little was done in his time by his 10 ordinary power; Gardiner, who was chancellor, interposed too much, the frequency of mandates was complained of in this reign, with the decay of learning, and the men of power were so much guided and influenced by a blind religion, that the ends of learning were less regarded. 15 After Gardiner's death cardinal Pole being chosen chancellor (which choice he accepted after four months' deliberation3 April 1, 1556), though he were of a disposition very different from that of Gardiner, yet being under the jealousies of the pope, this did oblige him to pursue Gardiner's 20 methods and to use some severities very disagreeable to the sweetness of his temper. He had accepted of this preferment with great unwillingness; being importuned to it, he could use severities with a better grace, and they that chose him had less reason to complain.

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But though he were chancellor, yet he acted with a higher power and under a higher character. He appointed a visitation by his legatine authority January 1556-7, wherein men of noted severity being appointed delegates, there was no lenity to be expected from them, though I do 30 not meet with any great severities in St John's college, the visitation having been chiefly general; and two of the visitors, Watson and Christopherson, having been mem

1 De custod. Pembroch.

2 Pits places his death under the year 1579. He survived that year, for he was with the other prisoners at Wisbech an. 1580, in which confinement he died.

One John Yonge was buried in

St Mary's parish an. 1582, Oct. 20. v. Regr.

3 Lit. MS. card. Pole acad. Cant. in custod. D. Gale.

4 Bucer, Scripta Anglic. [915.] MS. coll. Corp. Chr.

5 The master was likewise em

bers of the society, it may be presumed to have met with all reasonable favour.

It was not for the honour of the master of the college (though possibly for the advantage of the society) that in 5 that most ridiculous, if not inhuman part of the visitation, where Bucer's body was to be tried and condemned and burnt for heresy, he appeared as an evidence against the body. For though having been in office, viz. proctor1 an. 1550, when Bucer acted as professor here at Cambridge, 10 he was a very proper person to depose to such heresies as were committed in the chair, yet that ought to have put him in mind of the lenity of the former reign, when he and his associates were not only tolerated in the university, but were likewise suffered to act in posts of trust and honour. 15 An account of this visitation having been printed in Bucer's works, and there being a MS. English account of it in Benet college library, as it was taken by John Meres, (from whence the Latin account has been partly borrowed), I need say the less of this matter.

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As this visitation was held by the pope's or cardinal's authority, so there was another visitation by that of the bishop of Ely, which though it happened two years before, yet I mention it here, as having been of a more private nature and less solemn, and seems to have had no other intention than to assert the bishop's authority according to the foundress' statutes and the original institution, upon which foot this visitation was held, and was the last that was ever held upon this foot.

The truth of it is, this master's government was almost 30 under continual visitations (for that of the cardinal was continued by adjournments), and after he had spent four or five years in unquiet times under great uneasiness, he was at last obliged to quit his mastership by a visitation under queen Elizabeth of a different nature from them both. To 35 add affliction to his sufferings, the January' before I find him languishing under a fit of sickness, when a grace

ployed in this visitation, for the cardinal's citation was brought down by Mr Bullock.

1 Regr. acad.

2 Script. Anglic. [915 seq.]

3 Regr. coll.

4 Jan. 20. Regr. acad.

passed the house to dispense with his exercise as doctor till the next year. The ejected fellows begun to return upon him, which much disquieted him; however he kept his ground till the visitation, and after his ejectment he with the fellows that suffered with him were civilly enter- 5 tained' by the college, a respect that had not been shewn by these men, when it was in their power to shew such favours as they had now occasion for.

It is probable he and Young and some others might have been won, had it been endeavoured, but either the 10 severities under the last reign had set the government against them, or their conduct under king Edward had made them be thought less worth the gaining. It is a hard account Dr Bullock's successor2 gives of these men in king Henry's and king Edward's time-all the time of 15 blessed kinge Edwarde they taught, they preached, they subscribed, they sware and beleued all thys, that they now deny. As oft as they had anye liuinge in anye College of the vniversities, as oft as they tooke degree in the scholes, as oft as they tooke any benefice, and whan they were made 20 Priests or Byshoppes, so ofte they sweare and forsweare all that nowe they denye. And indeed, had they come in upon these principles, they were not worth the having. But I have a better opinion of some of them than bishop Pilkington's charity will allow them, who, having been exasperated 25 by his sufferings or whetted with zeal, instead of fair treatment can hardly afford them decent language, as any one will allow that reads his book.

From Cambridge Dr Bullock crossed the seas, and after some removes at last fixed at Antwerp, where he 30 composed a large concordance printed at Antwerp an. 1572, and where after twenty years spent in devotion and study he died about the year 1580, and was buried in the monastery of St Michael there; having left behin him amongst his own party the character of a pious and 35 learned man; a character which I find no reason to contra

1 Liber thesaur.

2 Bishop Pilkington of the causes of burning Paul's church, &c. Lond. an. 163. 8vo. [fol. H. iiii. v°.]

3 By Plantin, and dedicated to
Gregory the Thirteenth.

4 Pits ad an. 1580. Aged 59;
Fox, Mart. edit. Ima.
p. 846.

dict, though John Bale', who seldom agrees with Pits in characters of men, has left a different account of him. That writer, who in the conclusion of the large catalogue of his own works says he had wrote facetius ac jocos sine certo 5 numero, has been facetious upon this master. They that delight in such sort of wit may consult the author, where they will find three masters facetiously described in three distichs under the emblem of so many animals. But Dr Bullock, or the bull, is principally aimed at.

ΙΟ

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He was chose fellow of this college an. 29 Hen. 8vi. George Day an encourager of learning being then master; he was proctor of the university an. 1549 and 1550, and commenced D.D. an. 1557. Pits says he was regius professor; that is a mistake, but he was Margaret pro15 fessor (though he has not yet been entered in that catalogue) for which he received the usual stipend the last year of this reign. He succeeded Dr Sedgwick in that preferment, who has also been ranked amongst the regius professors, which I shall not contradict, though it is very 20 certain that he likewise was Margaret professor" in this reign. What preferments Dr Bullock had besides is to me unknown, except a prebend of Durham, to which he was presented by queen Mary the true and undoubted patroness thereof Maii 9 an. 1554.

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He and Young seem to have been born and bred under the same stars and influences, they were admitted scholars and elected fellows and masters about the same year, and as both of them came in upon a deprivation, so they were both of them deprived under queen Elizabeth, though under 30 king Edward they had complied. As they run a parallel in their lives, so they died about the same time, the one in imprisonment, the other in exile.

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