COLE, HENRY

Confessor of the faith; b. Godshill, Isle of Wight, c. 1500; d. Fleet Prison, Feb. 1580. He was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, and received a bachelor of civil law degree on March 3, 1530. He traveled abroad, residing mainly at Padua. Upon acknowledging Henry VIII head of the church in England, he received several ecclesiastical prebends. After he became doctor of civil law (Oxford 1540) he was elected (1542) warden of New College and rector of Newton Longueville, Buckinghamshire. As an ardent reformer during the reign of Edward VI, he later regretted this and between 1548 and 1551 gradually resigned all his preferments. At Queen Mary's accession, he publicly adhered to Roman Catholicism and was appointed archdeacon of Ely in 1553, and canon of Westminster and provost of Eton College in 1554. Cole was chosen by the queen to preach the sermon before the execution of Thomas Cranmer (1556). He was a delegate of Cardinal Pole for the visitation of Oxford (1556), was elected dean of St. Paul's and judge of the Archiepiscopal Court of Audience (1557). Cardinal Pole appointed him executor of his will. Under Queen Elizabeth, Cole was one of eight leading Catholics appointed to take part in the disputation at Westminster in 1559. He was heavily fined for his defense of the faith and deprived of all his preferments. He was committed to the Tower on May 20, 1560, but was transferred to the Fleet in June. Here he died, after nearly 20 years imprisonment.

Bibliography: j. gillow, A Literary and Biographical History or Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics from 1534 to the Present Time (London-New York 1885–1902; repr. New York 1961) 1:529–532. h. tootell, Dodd's Church History of England, ed. m. a. tierney (London 1839–43) v.2, 3. a. À wood, Athenae Oxonienses, ed. p. bliss (London 1813–20) v.1. p. hughes, The Reformation in England, 3 v. in 1 (5th, rev. ed. New York 1963).

[j. d. hanlon]