He was soon promoted to be one of Edward VI.'s chaplains and prebendary of Westminster, and in October 1552 was one of the six divines to whom the Forty-two articles were submitted for examination before being sanctioned by the Privy Council.
Forty-two years before his day, under King Pontius Pilate, there had appeared the true prophet Yahya or John son of Zechariah, an incarnation of Hibil, of whose birth and childhood fantastic stories are told.
The success of Edwards's very respectable work seems to have provoked competition, and in 1765, at the instigation of Buffon, the younger d'Aubenton began the publication known as the Planches enlumineez d'histoire naturelle, which appearing in forty-two parts was not completed till 1780, when the plates' it contained reached the number of 1008 - all coloured, as its title intimates, and nearly all representing birds.
Notwithstanding its name it only contains eighty plates, but of them forty-two, all by Pretre and in his usual stiff style, represent birds.
The interior, a basilica with nave and two aisles, contains columns said to come from a temple of Minerva and a fine mosaic pavement of 1166, with interesting representations of the months, Old Testament subjects, &c. It has a crypt supported by forty-two marble columns.
