page_title: Richard Foxe
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Richard Foxe / Life
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Grab des Bischof von Winchester Richard Fox in der Kathedrale von Winchester English: Tomb of Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester, in Winchester Cathedral
context_page_description: Richard Foxe was an English churchman, successively Bishop of Exeter, Bath and Wells, Durham, and Winchester, Lord Privy Seal, and founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
context_section_description: Foxe was born at Ropsley near Grantham, Lincolnshire. His parents belonged to the yeoman class, and little is known about Foxe's early career. He is thought to have gone to Magdalen College, Oxford, from which he drew many members of his subsequent foundation, Corpus Christi. He also appears to have studied at Cambridge University, but nothing definite is known of his first thirty-five years. He was Master of the school in Stratford-upon-Avon from 1477, "a man of wisdom, knowledge, learning and truth."
  In 1484, Foxe was in Paris possibly for the sake of learning or because he had made himself unpopular with Richard III. There he came into contact with Henry Tudor, who was beginning his quest for the English throne, and was taken into his service. In January 1485 Richard intervened to prevent Foxe's appointment to the vicarage of Stepney on the ground that he was keeping company with the "great rebel, Henry ap Tuddor."
  The important offices conferred on Foxe immediately after the Battle of Bosworth imply that he had already seen more extensive political service than can be traced in records.  His Tudor credentials immediately confirmed by ordination as Vicar of Stepney. Doubtless Henry had every reason to reward his companions in exile, and to rule like Ferdinand II of Aragon by means of lawyers and churchmen rather than trust nobles like those who had made the Wars of the Roses. But without an intimate knowledge of Foxe's political experience and capacity he would hardly have made him his principal secretary, and soon afterwards Lord Privy Seal and elected Bishop of Exeter on 29 January 1487, being consecrated on 8 April. The ecclesiastical role provided a salary that was not at Henry's expense; for Foxe never saw either Exeter or the diocese of Bath and Wells to which he was moved in February 1492. His activity was confined to political and especially diplomatic channels; during John Morton's lifetime, Foxe was his subordinate, but after the archbishop's death he was first in Henry's confidence, and had an important share in all the diplomatic work of the reign. In 1487 he negotiated a treaty with King James III of Scotland, and in 1491 he baptised the future King Henry VIII of England. In 1492 he helped conclude the Peace of Etaples, and in 1493 he was chief commissioner in the negotiations for the famous commercial agreement with the Netherlands which Bacon seems to have been the first to call the Magnus Intercursus.
  Meanwhile, in July 1494 Foxe had been translated to the see of Durham, not merely because it was a richer see than Bath and Wells but because of its political importance as a palatine earldom and its position with regard to the Borders and relations with Scotland. For these reasons rather than from any ecclesiastical scruples Foxe visited and resided in his new diocese; and he occupied Norham Castle, which he fortified and defended against a Scottish raid in Perkin Warbeck's interests in 1497. But his energies were principally devoted to pacific purposes. In that same year he negotiated Perkin's retirement from the court of James IV, and in 1498–1499 he completed the negotiations for that treaty of marriage between the Scottish king and Henry's daughter Margaret which led ultimately to the union of the two crowns in 1603 and of the two kingdoms in 1707. The marriage itself did not take place until 1503, just a century before the accession of James I.
  In August 1501 he was translated once more, this time to the see of Winchester, then reputed the richest bishopric in England. In that year he brought to a conclusion marriage negotiations not less momentous in their ultimate results, when Prince Arthur was betrothed to Catherine of Aragon. His last diplomatic achievement in the reign of Henry VII was the betrothal of the king's younger daughter Mary to the future emperor Charles V.
  In 1500 Foxe was elected chancellor of Cambridge University and in 1507 master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. Lady Margaret Beaufort made him one of her executors, and in this capacity as well as in that of chancellor, he had the ch
caption: Foxe's tomb in Winchester Cathedral
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