[2] Described as "ultra-conservative", but also "much-respected",[3] Nykke maintained an independent line and was embroiled in conflict until blind and in his last years.
[13] Nykke consistently attempted to maintain Roman orthodoxy, against Lollards, new theological thinking coming out of Cambridge – he was particularly suspicious of Gonville Hall[14]—and the early Protestant reformers.
Another suspected heretic of the same time was Nicholas Shaxton, a Lutheran sympathiser, but in his case Nykke pressured him into a recantation which saved his life.
[16] When Thomas Cranmer was newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1533, Nykke was one of the bishops who found ways to defy his authority.
[18][19] In a more complex picture, Henry VIII used the legal pressure of a praemunire to force an exchange of manors of the Norwich diocese for St Benet's Abbey, Holme, Norfolk, which some claim escaped the Dissolution of the monasteries.
[19][22] Money Henry extracted as a fine from the bishop went to pay for windows in King's College Chapel.