COX, RICHARD (I500?-1581), dean of Westminster and bishop of Ely, was born at Whaddon, Buckinghamshire, educated at the Benedictine priory of St. Leonard Snelshall near Whaddon, at Eton, and at King's college, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1524. At Wolsey's invitation he became a member of the cardinal's new foundation at Oxford, was incorporated B.A. in 1525, and created M.A. in 1526. In 153o he was engaged in per suading the more unruly members of the university to approve of the king's divorce. He was then appointed master of the royal foundation at Eton. In 1533 he appears as author of an ode on the coronation of Anne Boleyn. In 1 S4o he was one of the 15 divines to whom were referred crucial questions on the sacraments and the seat of authority in the church; his answers (printed in Pocock's Burnet, iii. 443-496) indicate a mind tending away from Catholicism, but susceptible to "the king's doctrine" ; and, indeed, Cox was one of the divines by whom Henry said the "King's Book" had been drawn up when he wished to impress upon the Regent Arran that it was not exclusively his own doing. Cox subscribed the divorce of Anne of Cleves in 154o, and in that year became archdeacon and prebendary of Ely and canon of Westminster.
After Edward's accession, Cox's opinions took a more Pro testant turn, and he became one of the most active agents of the Reformation. He was consulted on the compilation of the Communion office in 1548, and the first and second books of Common Prayer, and sat on the commission for the reform of the canon law. As chancellor of the University of Oxford 5 2) he promoted foreign divines such as Peter Martyr, and was a moving spirit of the two commissions which sought with some success to eradicate everything savouring of Romanism from the books, mss., ornaments and endowments of the university, and earned Cox the sobriquet of its cancellor rather than its chan cellor. He received other preferments, which he lost on Mary's accession, and was for a fortnight in Aug. 1553 confined to the Marshalsea. He remained in obscurity until after the failure of Wyatt's rebellion, and then in May 1554 escaped in the same ship as the future archbishop Sandys, to Antwerp. Thence in March he made his way to Frankfort, where the English and Scot tish exiles had, under the influence of Knox and Whittingham, adopted Calvinistic doctrine and a form of service far more Puritanical than the Prayer Book of 1552. Cox stood up for that service, and the exiles were divided into Knoxians and Coxians. Knox attacked Cox as a pluralist, Cox accused Knox of treason to the emperor Charles V. This proved the more dangerous charge: Knox and his followers were expelled, and the Prayer Book of 1552 was restored.
In 1559 Cox returned to England, and was elected bishop of Norwich, but the queen changed her mind and Cox's destination to Ely, where he remained 21 years. He was an honest, but narrow-minded ecclesiastic, who held what views he did hold intol erantly, and was always wanting more power to constrain those who differed from him (see his letter in Hatfield mss. i. 308). While he refused to minister in the queen's chapel because of the crucifix and lights there, and was a bitter enemy to the Roman Catholics, he had little more patience with the Puritans. He was grasping, or at least tenacious of his rights in money matters, and was often brought into conflict with courtiers who coveted episcopal lands. The queen herself intervened, when he refused to grant Ely House to her favourite, Sir Christopher Hatton; but the well-known letter beginning "Proud Prelate" and threat ening to unfrock him seems to be an impudent forgery which first saw the light in the Annual Register for 1761. It hardly, how ever, misrepresents the queen's meaning, and Cox was forced to give way. These and other trials led him in 158o to resign his see, which remained vacant 19 years. Cox died on July 22, 1581. BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Voluminous details about Cox's life are given in T. Strype, Works, Parker Soc. Publ., and C. H. and T. Cooper, Athenae Cantab, i. 437-445 (1858-1913). See also T. Gairdner, Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. (1862 etc.) ; Acts of the Privy Council ; Calendar State Dom. Papers (1856-71) ; Cal. Hatfield mss. (1883 etc.) ; Lit. Remains of Edward VI., ed. J. G. Nichols (1857) ; W. Whittingham, Troubles at Frankfort (1575, 1907) ; J. Le Neve, Fasti (1716) ; B. Willis, Cathedrals (1718-19) ; J. Bentham, Ely (1771) ; H. Machyn, Diary (1848) ; G. Burnet's History of the Reformation, ed. N. Pocock (1865) .