Life

His father George Heton was prominent in the London commercial world and as a church reformer

English Reformation

The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....

. His mother Joanna was daughter of Martin Bowes

Martin Bowes

Sir Martin Bowes , was a sixteenth-century English politician.Bowes made a career at the Royal Mint, as a master-worker and under-treasurer, and personally contributed to the debasement of English currency. He was a Sheriff of London for 1540 and the Lord Mayor of London for 1545...

, Lord Mayor of London in 1545. He was educated at Westminster School

Westminster School

The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...

 and Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...

.

He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1588. He became Dean of Winchester

Dean of Winchester

The Dean of Winchester is the head of the Chapter of Winchester Cathedral in the city of Winchester, England in the Diocese of Winchester. The first incumbent was the last Prior William Kingsmill and the post is currently held by the Very Revd James Edgar Atwell,MA.-Deans:*1541–1549 William...

 in 1589, and Bishop of Ely

Bishop of Ely

The Bishop of Ely is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Ely in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese roughly covers the county of Cambridgeshire , together with a section of north-west Norfolk and has its see in the City of Ely, Cambridgeshire, where the seat is located at the...

 in 1599. There is a story that Elizabeth I applied pressure to him, or his predecessor Richard Cox

Richard Cox (bishop)

Richard Cox was an English clergyman, who was Dean of Westminster and Bishop of Ely.-Biography:Cox was born of obscure parentage at Whaddon, Buckinghamshire, in 1499 or 1500....

, over some land deals disadvantageous to the diocese, in a letter beginning “Proud prelate!” But scholars from the nineteenth century onwards, for example Mandell Creighton

Mandell Creighton

Mandell Creighton , was a British historian and a bishop of the Church of England. A scholar of the Renaissance papacy, Creighton was the first occupant of the Dixie Chair of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Cambridge, a professorship that was established around the time that the study...

, have considered the letter in question a hoax of the eighteenth century.

A fat man, Heton was supposedly complimented by the king James I with the comment "Fat men are apt to make lean sermons; but yours are not lean, but larded with good learning."