290 
THE ESSEX NATURALIST. 
keen intellect and devoted life of the great ’French Reformer 
had fastened on some of the finest minds and most powerful 
statesmen in France, Scotland, Holland and Switzerland, 
as well as on many of the greatest Englishmen of the day, 
brought down on the preacher a cautionary rebuke from the 
Primate Whit gift, but apparently did not otherwise affect 
Harsnett prejudicially, since his fellow townsmen, the Bailiffs 
and Council of Colchester, appointed him Headmaster of the 
Grammar School in March 1587 ; but learning, rather than the 
“ painful trade ” of teaching, was then his ambition and his 
destiny was to rule men rather than boys, so he resigned after 
18 months’ experience, and returned to Pembroke, having vainly 
endeavoured to secure the appointment of a successor, who 
also enjoyed the recommendation of the powerful puritan states¬ 
men, our Recorder, Sir Francis Walsingham. 
No doubt the young divine, play-fellow and lifelong friend 
of Sir Thomas Lucas, was present at St. John’s when the Earl 
of Leicester was feasted there in December 1584, on his way to 
the Netherland, at the head of a gallant band which included 
that fine Elizabethan scholar and courtier, the translator of 
Plutarch’s Lives, Edward North, who had married the widow 
of Harsnett’s old patron, Dr. Bridgwater. 
In 1592 Harsnett was elected Junior Proctor of his University, 
and in 1596 he again came forward as a champion of liberal 
views in support of Peter Baro, Lady Margaret professor of 
divinity, who had criticized adversely Whitgift’s Calvinistic 
Lambeth Articles. His colleagues were those two eminent 
Anglican Divines, Lancelot Andrewes, Master of Pembroke, 
an Essex worthy, whose devotions still keep the affections of 
English Churchmen, and John Overall, afterwards the learned 
Bishop of Norwich. 
Harsnett was now appointed Chaplain to Richard Bancroft, 
Bishop of London, and later Primate, whose genius and states¬ 
manship fixed the hitherto wavering policy of the English 
church on the lines it has ever since retained. From him Harsnett 
received rapid promotion as Prebendary of St. Paul’s and Arch¬ 
deacon of Essex, with a succession of livings, Chigwell, Shenfield, 
Hutton and Stisted, held, according to the bad custom of the 
day, in plurality, though not all at one time. It is not probable 
that he acquired much experience as a parish priest in view of 
