Whether John Wyclif was actually a Fellow of Merton is still an open question, though no sufficient evidence has been produced to rebut a belief certainly held in the next generation after the great Reformer’s death. That his influence was strongly felt at Merton is an undoubted fact, and the liberal school of thought which he represented had there one of its chief strongholds until the Renaissance and the Reformation. Being anti-monastic by its very constitution, and having been a consistent opponent of Papal encroachments, Merton College might naturally have been expected to cast in its lot with the Protestant cause at this great crisis. A deed of submission to Henry VIII. as Supreme Head of the Church, purporting to represent the unanimous voice of the College, and professing absolute allegiance not only to him, but to Anne Boleyn and her offspring, is preserved in the Public Record Office. This deed bears the signatures of the Sub-Warden and fifteen known Fellows, besides those of three other persons who were perhaps Chaplains, but not that of Chamber, the Warden, though his name is expressly included in the body of the deed. Nevertheless, the sympathies of the leading Fellows appear to have been mainly Catholic. William Tresham, an ex-Fellow, zealous as he was in the promotion of learning, was among the adversaries of the Reformation movement, and was rewarded by Queen Mary with a Canonry of Christ Church. Though he signed the acknowledgment of the Royal Supremacy, Richard Smyth was a still more active promoter of the Catholic re-action. He also received a Canonry of Christ Church, with the Regius Professorship of Divinity, and preached a sermon before the stake when Ridley and Latimer were martyred, on the unhappy text--“Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” Dr. Martiall, another Fellow of Merton, acted as Vice-Chancellor on the same occasion, and his brother Fellow, Robert Ward, appears on the list of Doctors appointed to sit in judgment on the doctrines of the Protestant bishops. Parkhurst, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, is the only Fellow of Merton recorded by Anthony Wood to have sought refuge beyond the seas during the Marian persecution. On the other hand, four only, including Tresham, are mentioned as having suffered the penalty of expulsion for refusing the Oath of Supremacy under Elizabeth, though Smyth was imprisoned in Archbishop Parker’s house, and Raynolds, the Warden, on refusing that Oath, was deposed by order of a new Commission.