Aylmer, John

AYLMER, êl-mer (ELMER), JOHN: Bishop of London; b. at Aylmer Hall, parish of Tivetshall St. Mary (15 m. s. of Norwich), Norfolk, England, 1521; d. in London June 3,1594. He studied at Cambridge (B.A., 1541) and was tutor to Lady Jane Grey; was made Archdeacon of Stow in 1553. During the reign of Mary he retired to Strasburg and Zurich, and wrote there a reply to John Knox’s Monstrous Regiment of Women (Geneva, 1558), under the title An Harborowe [Harbor] for Faithful and True Subjects against the late blown blast concerning the government of women (Strasburg, 1559). He returned to England shortly after the accession of Elizabeth (1558) and was made archdeacon of Lincoln in 1562, bishop of London in 1577. He was a somewhat narrow-minded man, of arbitrary and arrogant temper, and as bishop displayed a harshness toward Puritans and Roman Catholics which brought upon him much unpopularity and exposed him to the biting satire of the Marprelate tracts (q.v.); yet he was a man of learning and a patron of scholars. Besides the volume already mentioned he left sermons and devotional works.

Bibliography: The best book is by J. Strype, Historical Collections of the Life and Acts of John Aylmer, Oxford, 1821; S. R. Maitland, Essays on the Reformation in England, London, 1849; J. Hunt, Religious Thought in England, i, 73-76, London, 1870; DNB, ii, 281-283.