John Ponet (c. 1514 – August 1556), sometimes spelled John Poynet, was an English Protestant churchman and controversial writer, the bishop of Winchester and Marian exile. He is now best known as a resistance theorist who made a sustained attack on the divine right of kings. Early life Ponet was from Kent. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1533, was elected a fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge in the same year: and became a Master of Arts in 1535. Humanist scholar Ponet was a pupil and one of the humanist circle of Thomas Smith, who claimed that the new pronunciation of Ancient Greek had been introduced by himself, Ponet, and John Cheke. Smith and Cheke also were proponents of mathematics, and Ponet was one of their numerous followers. A sundial of his design was installed at Hampton Court. Ponet was ordained a priest at Lincoln on 10 June 1536. From 1539 to 1541 he was a university professor of Greek. In the later 1530s and early 1540s he took on college offices at Queens', acting as bursar and Dean. By the time of the Prebendaries' Plot, Ponet was a partisan of Thomas Cranmer. By 1545, he was Cranmer's chaplain. Edwardian reformer By November 1548, Ponet had married, though the Parliament of England had not yet removed the ban on clerical marriage. In the power struggles of the early reign of Edward VI, he was a supporter of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and suspicious of his rival the Earl of Warwick (later the Duke of Northumberland). Following Somerset's fall from political power, Ponet was arrested in November 1549, perhaps in connection with his translation from Ochino, which flattered Somerset and was dedicated to him. By spring 1550 Ponet was rehabilitated, and preached before the king. In March 1550, he was nominated as bishop of Rochester, and was consecrated at Lambeth Palace on 29 June. In January 1551, he was appointed to a commission to investigate anabaptists in Kent. On 8 March 1551 Ponet was appointed to the see of Winchester, replacing Stephen Gardiner. As a diocesan he agreed a reduction in the income of the see, to the benefit of the government. His own salary fell to £1300 compared to £3000 for his predecessor. Marian exile In 1553, the Roman Catholic Mary I succeeded to the English throne. With the group of nearly 800 others, Protestants and mainly