John Bell (Bishop of Worcester)

John Bell LL. D (died 11 August 1556) was a Bishop of Worcester (1539–1543), who served during the reign of Henry VIII of England.

Bell attending Balliol College, Oxford, and later at Cambridge where he took the degree of LL.B in 1504.

Following this advancement he was promoted to other posts:

Wolsey, would appoint Bell to the membership of the Legantine court of audience, where in 1523, he examined William Tyndale on charges of heresy.

One such mission was to secure a religious and political relationship with the Lutheran Princes in Germany. While abroad Bell was made LL.D of some foreign university, in which his degree was incorporated at Oxford in 1531.

In 1531, primarily as a result of the innovative suggestion of Thomas Cranmer, who thought the King's position in the divorce would be strengthened by obtaining favourable opinions from the various universities in England and abroad, Henry VIII sent Dr. Bell, together with the bishop of Lincoln and Foxe, to deliver a letter that he had personally drafted and to canvass Oxford, for a favourable opinion concerning the King's cause; of which they successfully secured despite the danger, being pelted with stones by the popish opposition, together while overcoming the strong resistance from the junior members of convocation.

In the same year he was also one of a commission including Sir Thomas More to assist the Archbishop in preparing the royal proclamation against William Tyndale's translation of the Scriptures and a number of heretical books.

In 1532 he took part in the proceedings of the convocation which decided that the King's marriage was contrary to divine law, and consequently that the pope's dispensation was ultra vires, and which drew up 'the articles about religion,' of which the original may be seen, with John Bell's name attached, in the Cotton Library.

"He served as proctor for the king at the trial at Dunstable Abbey [May 10–17, 1533] which definitively nullified Henry's first marriage in time for the coronation of Anne Boleyn."

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