It was in broken health that Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester (1205–38), returned for the last time to England, about Michaelmas 1236. On 31 October 1236, at Rochester, he made his last testament; this was given royal acceptance and confirmation at Windsor on 4 November, in the presence of some of the executors: Ralph de Nevill, bishop of Chichester (1222–44) and chancellor (1226–44), P. archdeacon of Winchester, Luke des Roches, archdeacon (by 1228–44) of Surrey, and the versatile architect and administrator Mr. Elias de Derham (c. 1167–d. 1245). Bishop Peter rallied, to take some part in national affairs, as well as in his diocese, during die next two years. He died at his episcopal castle of Farnham on 9 June 1238 and his body was buried in his cathedral; but his heart was buried at die Cistercian abbey of Waverley, a few miles soudi-west of Farnham. In 1237 he had petitioned the Cistercian chapter general for leave to have a Cistercian monk and two lay brodiers living with him. This, the heart burial, and the notices accorded him by Waverley's annalist, reflect die private preoccupations of his last years: die founding of Cistercian houses in his native country and in his English diocese. The arrangements, unfinished at his deadi, were left to be completed by his executors, who notified die Order's chapter general at its usual mid-September meeting in 1238, when die investigating commissioners for die new foundations were appointed.

The apparent suddenness of the reformation in Scotland has sometimes been considered difficult to understand, but more difficul has been the abandonment, seemingly at the eleventh hour, of the old Church by some of those who held key positions in it. The desertion to die reform movement of John Wynram, sub-prior of the St. Andrews Augustinians and dean of die Faculty of Divinity, has recendy called forth this caustic comment from Dr McRoberts, ‘One would very much like to know what religious convictions he really held, if any’. In a footnote McRoberts adds ‘He is reminiscent of his contemporary, Hermann von Wied, archbishop of Cologne, who was described by the Emperor Charles V as “neither a Protestant nor a Catholic but a proper headien’”. The linking of Wynram's name widi rfiat of the archbishop elector, as we shall see, is not widiout foundation, although not necessarily on account of the judgments of the emperor or the monseigneur. No doubt similar comments could be passed on John Douglas, principal of St. Mary's College and rector of die University, who shared widi Wynram, Knox, and odiers in drawing up in 1560 die Scots Confession and the First Book of Discipline.

The later 1550s in Sprain are remembered as the time of the discovery of ‘Lutheran’ groups in Valladolid and Seville and the ensuing reaction of the authorities: the autos de fe, as the Fernando de Valdés's Index librorum prohibitorum, the edict ordering all Spaniards (with few exceptions) studying or teaching abroad to return to Spain within four months. ‘Heresy’ was to be eradicated at home and Spain was to be preserved from contagion from beyond her frontiers. There was, however, a further subordinate aim: to capture and bring back to Spain those Spaniards who for reasons of religion had taken refuge in Northern Europe. When a dozen Hieronymite monks from San Isidro at Seville fled their monastery and their country in the late summer of 1557, one finds the Inquisitor General, in November of that year, sending a list of their names to the king in the Netherlands. Further lists of wanted heretics continued to be forwarded there when Philip had returned to Spain. Cardinal Granvelle, in a letter to the king of 18 October 1561, refers to ‘aquella escriptura que V. M. me embió venida de los inquisidores de Sevilla’. At the start of that year he had similarly referred to ‘un escripto venido de los inquisidores de Sevilla’ which the king had recently sent. In April 1562 the Margrave of Antwerp was replying to inquiries from Granvelle concerning persons named in the trials of Julian Hernandez (caught when in Seville, distributing Protestant literature, in 1557) and Fray Domingo de Guzmán.