Though the political ideas of JohnPonet, Edwardian bishop and Marian exile, continue to attract interest, the facts of Ponet's life and, especially, of his activities during his years of exile have excited no high degree of scholarly attention since the works of Christina Garrett and Winthrop S. Hudson. Yet one piece of evidence, unknown to both Garrett and Hudson, exists that tells us a few important things about his attitude toward and, particularly, his involvement in, the propaganda and polemical activities of Protestant exiles under Mary. The evidence in question is a letter from Ponet in Strasbourg to John Bale ‘at Frankfurt’; and since this document has appeared to date only in excerpts, it will be well to begin by offering a complete transcription of it.

The beginning of Elizabeth i's reign was a happy and confident time for committed English Protestants in spite of their doubtful and precarious position in the world. They had almost miraculously survived both the death of their Protestant king, Edward vi, and the reign of the Catholic queen, Mary, and her foreign husband, Philip n of Spain. It seemed that God was testing Protestantism in England. Since he allowed Elizabeth to succeed to the throne, Protestantism, it seemed, had passed the test. As a result early English Protestants confidently began to formulate their place in both the world and history while attacking the established positions of their Catholic opponents. English Catholics defended themselves from these attacks and replied with some of their own. This debate over the historical situation of the Church of England continued through the reign of James i and beyond. During the course of the debate both sides commented frequently and necessarily on what they thought was Martin Luther's place in church history.