James Pilkington, "the good old Bishop of Durham," as Strype calls him, first saw the light in the year 1518, three years after good Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter, had founded his grammar school at Manchester, when Wolsey was in the plenitude of his power, and the learned Erasmus was winning renown by his Greek translation of the New Testament; the year in which Martin Luther, by his denunciation of the new-fangled doctrine of indulgences, shook the foundation of the Papacy, and cleared the way for that mighty change in religious thought and sentiment the full meaning of which is tersely comprehended in the one word which marks the epoch--the Reformation. Young Pilkington received his earliest instruction in the seminary where so many Puritans were trained--the Grammar School at Farnworth, which had been then lately founded by William Smyth, of Widnes, Bishop of Lincoln, the companion in his boyhood's days of Hugh Oldham, of Exeter, Manchester's great benefactor. It is probable that Thomas Lever, a younger son of John Lever, of Lever Hall, so intimately associated with Pilkington in later years of study, labour, and exile--the future master of St John's, Cambridge, and the favourite preacher of Queen Elizabeth--was attending the same school at the time, so that the two, being about the same age, may very likely, as Dr. Halley suggests, have been taught by the same teacher, and whipped with the same birch. Pilkington subsequently entered at St. John's, Cambridge, at that time a stronghold of the reformed doctrine and a favourite resort of Lancashire men, where he had his quondam schoolfellow, young Lever, as a fellow collegian. At the University he greatly distinguished himself by his zeal in promoting the revival of Greek literature. In due time he obtained the degree of doctor of divinity, and was also elected a fellow of his college. He became famous for his eloquence and his success as a preacher of the reformed doctrines; and in December, 1550, he was presented by the young King Edward to the vicarage of Kendal, but did not enjoy that preferment very long. On the death of his royal patron he ranged himself on the side of the partisans of the hapless Lady Jane Grey, but he does not appear to have been very actively concerned in the futile attempt to place her upon the throne. On the accession of Queen Mary the fires of martyrdom were kindled. John Bradford's preaching brought him to the stake, and Pilkington would doubtless have shared the fate of the Manchester martyr had he not prudently withdrawn from his vicarage and sought safety abroad, where he remained for some years a voluntary exile, three other Lancashire men being his associates in adversity--his old companion, Lever, who afterwards became Archdeacon of Coventry; Alexander Nowell, of Read, in Whalley parish, the future Dean of St Paul's; and Edwin Sandys, of Hawkshead, in Furness, whom Queen Elizabeth promoted to the Bishopric