ich he was instituted on February 7th,
1546, holding it (according to the Lansdowne MS. (980 f. 101), in the
British Museum) till his death; and the vicarage of S. Mathew at Wokey, in
Somerset, on March 30th of the same year. Wood dignifies him with the
degree of doctor of divinity at the time of his presentation to these
preferments.

That he seems to have accepted quietly the gradual progress of the reformed
religion during the reign of Edward VI., has been a cause of wonder to
some. It would certainly have been astonishing had one who was so unsparing
in his exposure of the flagrant abuses of the Romish Church done otherwise.
Though personally disinclined to radical changes his writings amply show
his deep dissatisfaction with things as they were. This renders the more
improbable the honours assigned him by Wadding (Scriptores Ordinis Minorum,
1806, p. 5), who promotes him to be Suffragan Bishop of Bath and Wells, and
Bale, who, in a slanderous anecdote, the locale of which is also Wells,
speaks of him as a chaplain of Queen Mary's, though Mary did not ascend the
throne till the year after his death. As these statements are nowhere
confirmed, it is not improbable that their authors have fallen into error
by confounding the poet Barclay, with a Gilbert Berkeley, who became Bishop
of Bath and Wells in 1559. One more undoubted, but tardy, piece of
preferment was awarded him which may be regarded as an honour of some
significance. On the 30th April 1552, the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury,
London, presented him to the Rectory of All Hallows, Lombard Street, but
the well-deserved promotion came too late to be enjoyed. A few weeks after,
and before the 10th June, at which date his will was proved, he died, as
his biographers say, "at a very advanced age;" at the good old age of
seventy-six, as shall be shown presently, at Croydon where he had passed
his youth, and there in the Church he was buried. "June 10th 1552,
Alexander Barkley sepult," (Extract from the Parish Register, in Lyson's
Environs of London).

A copy of his will, an extremely interesting and instructive document, has
been obtained from Doctors' Commons, and will be found appended. It bears
in all its details those traits of character which, from all that we
otherwise know, we are led to associate with him. In it we see the earnest,
conscientious minister whose first thought is of the poor, the loyal
churchman liberal in his support of the house of God, the k