ess popular feeling, and no
doubt Cromwell found in him an invaluable instrument. But on his patron's
fall in 1540 Bale fled with his wife and children to Germany. He returned
on the accession of Edward VI. He received the living of Bishopstoke,
Hampshire, being promoted in 1552 to the Irish see of Ossory. He refused to
be consecrated by the Roman rite, which still obtained in the Irish church,
and won his point, though the dean of Dublin entered a protest against the
revised office during the ceremony (see his _Vocacyon of John Bale to the
Bishopperycke of Ossorie, Harl. Misc._ vol. vi.). He pushed his Protestant
propaganda in Ireland with no regard to expediency, and when the accession
of Mary inaugurated a reaction in matters of religion, it was with
difficulty that he was got safely out of the country. He tried to escape to
Scotland, but on the voyage was captured by a Dutch man-of-war, which was
driven by stress of weather to St. Ives in Cornwall. Bale was arrested on
suspicion of treason, but soon released. At Dover he had another narrow
escape, but he eventually made his way to Holland and thence to Frankfort
and Basel. During his exile he devoted himself to writing. After his
return, on the accession of Elizabeth, he received (1560) a prebendal stall
at Canterbury. He died in November 1563 and was buried in the cathedral.

The scurrility and vehemence with which "foul-mouthed Bale," as Wood calls
him, attacked his enemies does not destroy the value of his contributions
to literature, though his strong bias against Roman Catholic writers does
detract from the critical value of his works. Of his mysteries and miracle
plays only five have been preserved, but the titles of the others, quoted
by himself in his _Catalogus_, show that they were animated by the same
political and religious aims. The _Thre Laws of Nature, Moses and Christ,
corrupted by the Sodomytes, Pharisees and Papystes most wicked_ (pr. 1538
and again in 1562) was a morality play. The direction for the dressing of
the parts is instructive: "Let Idolatry be decked like an old witch, Sodomy
like a monk of all sects, Ambition like a bishop, Covetousness like a
Pharisee or spiritual lawyer, False Doctrine like a popish doctor, and
Hypocrisy like a gray friar." _A Tragedye; or enterlude manyfesting the
chief promyses of God unto Man ..._ (1538, printed in Dodsley's _Old
Plays_, vol. 1), _The Temptacyon of our Lorde_ (ed. A. B. Grosart in
_Miscellanies of th