FOX, RICHARD successively bishop of Exeter, Bath and Wells, Durham and Winchester, lord privy seal, and founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was born about 1448 at Ropesley, near Grantham, Lincolnshire. His parents be longed to the yeoman class, and there is some obscurity about Fox's early career. He probably studied at Magdalen college, Oxford, whence he drew so many members of his subsequent foun dation, Corpus Christi. He also appears to have studied at Cam bridge. In 1484 he was in Paris, where he met the earl of Rich mond (the future Henry VII.) and was taken into his service. In January 1485 Richard intervened to prevent Fox's appointment to the vicarage of Stepney on the ground that he was keeping company with the "great rebel, Henry ap Tuddor." On Henry's accession Fox became the King's principal secre tary, and soon afterwards lord privy seal and bishop of Exeter (1487). The ecclesiastical preferment was merely intended to provide a salary not at Henry's expense ; for Fox never saw either Exeter or the diocese of Bath and Wells to which he was trans lated in 1492. His work was political and especially diplomatic. In 1487 he negotiated a treaty with James III. of Scotland, in 1492 he helped to conclude the treaty of Staples, and in 1497 he was chief commissioner in the negotiations for the famous mercial agreement with the Netherlands, the Magnus Intercursus.
Meanwhile in 1494 Fox had been translated to the see of Dur ham, which was of political importance as a palatine earldom and because of its position with regard to the Borders and relations with Scotland. Fox therefore visited and resided in his new dio cese ; and he occupied Norham castle, which he fortified and defended against a Scottish raid in Perkin Warbeck's interests • But his energies were principally devoted to pacific pur poses. In that same year he negotiated Perkin's retirement from the court of James IV., and in 1498-1499 he completed the nego tiations 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.
This consummated Fox's work in the north, and in 1501 he was translated to Winchester, then reputed the richest bishopric in England. In that year he concluded the negotiations for the betrothal of Prince Arthur to Catherine of Aragon. He also ar ranged the betrothal of the king's younger daughter Mary to the future emperor Charles V. In 15oo he was elected chancellor of Cambridge university, and in 1507 master of Pembroke hall in the same university. The Lady Margaret Beaufort made him one of her executors, and with Fisher, he was principally responsible for the foundation of St. John's college and the Lady Margaret pro fessorships and readerships.
His financial work brought him a less enviable notoriety, though a curious freak of history has deprived him of the credit which is his due for "Morton's fork." The invention of that ingenious dilemma for extorting contributions from poor and rich alike is ascribed as a tradition to Morton by Bacon; but the story is told in greater detail of Fox by Erasmus, who says he had it from Sir Thomas More, a well-informed contemporary authority.
Under Henry VIII. the personnel of the ministry at first re mained unaltered. The Venetian ambassador calls Fox alter rex and the Spanish ambassador Carroz says that Henry VIII. trusted him more than any other adviser, although he also reports Henry's warning that the bishop of Winchester was, as his name implied, "a fox indeed." Wolsey's rapid rise in 1511 put an end to Fox's influence. The pacific policy of the first two years of Henry VIII.'s reign was succeeded by an adventurous foreign policy directed mainly against France ; and Fox, who desired peace, complained that no one durst do anything in opposition to Wol sey's wishes. Gradually Warham and Fox retired from the govern ment; the occasion of Fox's resignation of the privy seal was Wolsey's ill-advised attempt to drive Francis I. out of Milan by financing an expedition led by the emperor Maximilian in 1516. Tunstall protested, Wolsey took Warham's place as chancellor, and Fox was succeeded by Ruthal, who, said the Venetian ambas sador, "sang treble to Wolsey's bass." He bore Wolsey no ill-will, and warmly congratulated him two years later when warlike adventures were abandoned at the peace of London. But in 1522 when war was again declared he refused to bear any part of the responsibility, and in 5523 he opposed in convocation the financial demands which met with a more strenuous resistance in the House of Commons.
He now devoted himself assiduously to his long-neglected epis copal duties. His sight failed during the last ten years of his life. The crown of Fox's career was his foundation (1515-16) of Cor pus Christi college. Originally he intended it as an Oxford house for the monks of St. Swithin's, Winchester; but he is said to have been dissuaded by Bishop Oldham, who denounced the monks and foretold their fall. The scheme adopted breathed the spirit of the Renaissance ; provision was made for the teaching of Greek, Erasmus lauded the institution and Pole was one of its earliest fellows. The humanist Vives was brought from Italy to teach Latin, and the reader in theology was instructed to follow the Greek and Latin Fathers rather than the scholastic commentaries. Fox also built and endowed schools at Taunton and Grantham, and was a benefactor to numerous other institutions. He died at Wolvesey on Oct. 5, 1528; Corpus possesses several portraits and other relics of its founder.
See Letters and Papers of Henry VII. and Henry vols. i.–iv.; Spanish and Venetian Calendars of State Papers; J. Gairdner, Lollardy and the Reformation (1908-13) and The Eng. Church in the 26th Cent. (1899) ; A. F. Pollard, Henry VIII. (1905) ; Longman, Political History, vol. v. (1905) ; other authorities cited in the article by T. Fowler (formerly president of Corpus) in the Dict. Nat. Biog.