[A.D. 1487-1497.] Robert Morton, Archdeacon of Winchester, and nephew of Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury.
The next four bishops were Italian intruders.
[A.D. 1497-1498.] John de Gigliis, a native of Lucca, the Pope’s collector in England. He was already Canon of Wells and Archdeacon of Gloucester.
[A.D. 1498-1521.] Silvester de Gigliis, nephew of his predecessor, and, like him, Papal collector.
[A.D. 1521-1522.] Julius de Medicis, uncle of Leo X., afterwards himself Pope Clement VII. He was made “perpetual commendator or administrator of the see of Worcester” by Papal bull, and resigned voluntarily in the following year.
[A.D. 1522-1535.] Jerome Ghinucci, succeeded by papal provision, but probably with the consent of Henry VIII., to whom this last of the Italian bishops of Worcester was of great service. He was employed on many embassies, both to Spain and Italy, and laboured much in both countries to procure from their universities and theologians opinions in favour of the King’s divorce. After Wolsey’s disgrace, however, and the marriage with Anne Boleyn, the Bishop fell into disfavour, and was removed from his see by Act of Parliament in 1535, as “an alien and non-resident.” At the same time Cardinal Campeggio was removed from Salisbury.
During this foreign occupation of Worcester the affairs of the see were administered by suffragan bishops, of whom several will be found recorded in Mr. Stubbs’ Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum, Appendix V.
[A.D. 1535, resigned 1539.] Hugh Latimer. The life of this most vigorous reformer belongs so completely to the history of his time that only the principal events in it can be mentioned here. Latimer was born at Thurcaston, in Leicestershire. The passage from his sermons in which he describes his father’s condition has been often quoted:—“My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own; only he had a farm of three or four pounds a-year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half-a-dozen men; he had walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able and did find the king an harness with himself and his horse, whilst he came unto the place that he should receive the king’s wages. I can remember I buckled his harness when he went to Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or else I had not been able to have preached before the King’s Majesty now. He married my sisters with five pounds, or twenty nobles, a-piece; so that he brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbours, and some alms he gave to the poor; and all this did he of the same farm where he that now hath it payeth sixteen pounds by the year or more, and is not able to do anything for his prince, for himself, nor for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor.”
Latimer was educated at Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he was at first well known as a defender of the “old religion,” and afterwards, by the persuasion of his friend Thomas Bilney, became as zealous a reformer. He was more than once silenced by the University, but had powerful friends, and was introduced at court by the King’s physician, Dr. Butts, and by Cromwell, the latter of whom procured for him the living of West Kington, in Wiltshire. Here he was accused of favouring strange and novel doctrines touching the saints and purgatory, and was compelled to appear before Stokesley, Bishop of London. He escaped with some difficulty, the King himself interfering; and in 1535, after Ghinucci’s deprivation, Latimer was made Bishop of Worcester. In his diocese he laboured zealously, until the Parliament of 1539, which, by the influence of Gardiner, passed the famous Six Articles. For these Latimer would not vote, and at once resigned his see, as did Shaxton, Bishop of Salisbury. He was very shortly afterwards sent to the Tower, on a charge of having spoken against the Six Articles. He remained in prison during the last six years of Henry’s reign, but was set at liberty on the accession of Edward. He would not be reinstated in his see, however, but remained with Cranmer at Lambeth, occasionally preaching at Paul’s Cross, until the fall of the Duke of Somerset. He then retired into the country. On Mary’s accession he was apprehended by Gardiner’s order, and was sent to Oxford with Cranmer and Ridley, where he suffered Oct. 16, 1555.
The fullest and best account of Latimer will be found in Foxe, although, like the rest of the “Book of Martyrs,” it must be read with due caution. His sermons, with a life, were edited by Watkins in 1824, and with other remains, for the Parker Society, in 1844.