Climbing the Ladder, 1578–1612

This chapter charts the rise of John Prideaux from a Devonshire farming background to the headship of Exeter College, Oxford, an institution refounded and revivified a generation earlier by the Elizabethan statesman Sir William Petre. It shows how Prideaux’s talents were spotted in his boyhood by a local patron, a member of the Reynell family, and it outlines both the general religious situation in the Church of England and the particular religious milieu of the College which Prideaux entered in 1596. Strongly Calvinist and anti-Catholic, the College and its learned rector, Thomas Holland, exercised a formative influence on Prideaux’s intellectual and religious development. The chapter describes his early work as a college tutor, writer for undergraduates, and theological magnet for foreign scholars and students. It goes on to show the significance of his promotion to a chaplaincy in the household of Henry, Prince of Wales, James I’s son and heir, whose influence brought him the headship of his College. Stress is laid on the importance both of patronage and of Prideaux’s personal qualities––intellectual force, hard work, and ambition––in explaining his rise to eminence as a scholar and college head.