6 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP, other request, or rather exhortation, was, that they both 

 should persist and continue that their present course of life, 

 of reading and studying. &quot; How free,&quot;&quot; said he, &quot; how 

 &quot; sweet, how like philosophers then should we live ! What 

 &quot; should hinder then, dear friend, but that we might enjoy 

 &quot; all those good things which Cicero, in the conclusion of 

 &quot; his third book De Finibus, attributed to this way of living ? 

 &quot; Nothing would occur to us in both the languages, nor in 

 &quot; all records of time past and present, but we should gather 

 &quot; thence matter to render our life sweet and pleasant.&quot; 

 studies di- But Aylmer did not only follow the studies of humani 

 ty, but of divinity also, and devoted himself to the service of 

 Christ in the Gospel. And having the countenance once of 

 the Duke of Suffolk, his lord, under King Edward, and after 

 of the Earl of Huntingdon, (both whose places were in 

 Leicestershire,) he was the only preacher in that county for 

 some time. And by his and that EarFs means that shire 

 was converted, and brought to that state wherein it was in 

 the latter end of King Edward, and in the beginning of 

 Queen Elizabeth; which in true religion was above any 

 other place in this regard, that they retained the Gospel 

 without contention ; which few other places did. 

 Becomes The first preferment I find him possessed of was the 

 o/sto\T COtl Archdeaconry of Stow, in the diocese of Lincoln, which he 

 obtained in the beginning of the year 1553, succeeding Dr. 

 Draicot, lately deceased. This dignity qualified him to be 

 of the Convocation, which happened the first year of Queen 

 Mary, wherein when he saw the Clergy to run strongly 

 towards Popery, in compliance with the Queen, he, with five 

 more, (though with an hundred halberds about his ears,) 

 boldly and bravely offered to dispute the controverted 

 points in religion openly in that synod, against all the learn 

 ed Papists in England ; and learnedly argued out of Theo- 

 doret with one Moreman there, against the doctrine of tran- 

 substantiation : which dispute is set down at large in Mr. 

 Fox s Acts and Monuments. 



Flies abroad But for this confidence, grounded upon his love of truth 

 for his reh- an( j fa e Q OS p e l ? ne underwent great danger, and was de- 



