He was educated at Eton, and King's
College, Cambridge. Friend of Erasmus; Registrar of the Order of the
Garter; Provost of Eton; and Almoner to Queen Jane Seymour.

Until the close of the year 1550 his opinion was much sought after on
questions affecting the Sacrament and the mass, which at that period
were much in dispute.

#Owen Oglethorpe# (1557-1559), Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.
Living in the troublous times of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. he had,
somewhat reluctantly, given his adhesion to the new order and form of
service of the holy communion. He was raised to the bishopric of
Carlisle by Mary in 1557. The following year she died, and the bishop
being called upon to say mass before the new queen, elevated the Host,
although she had expressly forbidden it. "A good-natur'd man, and when
single by himself very plyable to please Queen Elizabeth," he crowned
her queen when the rest of his order refused to perform the ceremony.
But "when in conjunction with other Popish Bishops, such principles of
stubbornness were distilled into him" that he refused to take the oath
of supremacy, and was accordingly deprived of his bishopric the
following May. His death, which occurred 31st December 1559, is said to
have been hastened by his remorse at having crowned Elizabeth--an enemy
of the "true Church"--queen of England.

#John Best# (1560-1570). After the death of Oglethorpe, the bishopric
was offered to "the excellent and pious" Bernard Gilpin, "the apostle of
the north," but he refused it.

John Best was then consecrated. He was educated at

Oxford. At the beginning of Queen Mary's reign he had given up all his
preferments and lived privately and obscurely. Four years after his
consecration he had permission from the queen "to arm himself against
the ill-doings of papists and other disaffected persons in his diocese."
He died in 1570, and was buried in the cathedral.

#Richard Barnes# (1570-1577), Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford;
Suffragan-Bishop of Nottingham 1567; translated to Durham 1577. In a
letter dated 1576 Barnes alludes to Carlisle as "this poore and bare
living."

#John Maye# (1577-1598), Master of Catherine Hall; Vice-Chancellor of
Cambridge. He died in February 1598 while the plague was ravaging
Carlisle, and was buried in the cathedral.

#Henry Robinson# (1598-1616). Educated at Queen's College, Oxford, of
which college he became Provost 1581. He took part in the Hampton Court
Conference 160