Volume 2

Athenae Oxonienses. An exact history of all the writers and bishops who have had their education in the University of Oxford. To which are added the Fasti, or annals of the said university / By Anthony à Wood.

  • Anthony Wood
Date:
1813-1820
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Athenae Oxonienses. An exact history of all the writers and bishops who have had their education in the University of Oxford. To which are added the Fasti, or annals of the said university / By Anthony à Wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    during all the time of his most exemplary prepa¬ ration for death, and at the moment of his exe¬ cution absolutely denied the fact, and the fellow who swore against him, when he came to he exe¬ cuted himself some time afterwards for his crimes, confessed at the gallows that he hadfalsly accused < him. The bishop however was executed presently after lord deputy Wandesford’s death in Decem¬ ber 1640, in a season when by the wicked policy of the times, every thing was encouraged that would throw a scandal upon that order of men, and render episcopacy odious.?] JOHN BANCROFT, son of Christopher Ban¬ croft (by Audrey Andrews his wife) eldest son of Job. Bancroft of Farnworth in Lancashire, by Mary his wife, daughter of John Curwyn, bro¬ ther to Hugh Curwyn, sometimes bishop of Ox¬ ford, was born in a little village called Astell or Estwell, lying between Witney and Burford in Oxfordshire, was [educated at YVestminster school, and] admitted a student of Christ Church in 1592, aged eighteen years or more, took the degrees in arts, holy orders, and became a preacher for some years in and near Oxon. In 1609, he being newly admitted to proceed in divinity, was by the endeavours of his uncle Dr. Richard Bancroft archbishop'of Canterbury (a younger son of John Bancroft before-mention’d,) elected master. of University college, where he continued above twenty years: In which time, he was at great pains and expence to recover and settle the antient lands belonging to that foundation. In 1632, he was, upon the translation of Dr. Corbet to Norwich, nominated bishop of Oxford; where¬ upon being elected by the dean and chapter in April the same year, had the temporalities of that see given 8 to him on the 6th of June fol¬ lowing, being about that time consecrated. In 1640, when the long parliament began, and proceeded with, great vigour against the bishops, he was possessed so much with fear (having always been an enemy to the puritan) that with¬ out little or no sickness, he surrendred up his last breath in his lodgings, at Westminster. [740] Afterwards his body was carried to Cudesden in the diocese of Oxon, and was buried near to and under the South wall of the chancel of the church there, on the twelfth day of February in 16-lQ-H sixteen hundred and forty, leaving then behind him the character 9, among the puritans or presby- terians then dominant, of a corrupt, unpreaching, popish prelate. The reader is now to know that before this man’s time, the bishops of Oxford had no house left belonging to their episcopal see, either in city or country, but dwelt at their par¬ sonage-houses which they held in commendam, tho’ Dr. Jo. Bridges, who had no commendam in 7 [Life of James first Duke of Ormonde, 173b fob vol. i. page 68.] 8 Pat. 8 Car. L p. 13. 9 See in Canterburies Doom, printed in fob 1046. p. 353. his diocese, lived for the most part in hired houses in the city.1 For, as I have before told you in Dr. Robert Kynge, tho’ at the foundation of the bi- shoprick of Oxford in the abbey of Osney, the king appointed Gloucester college for the bishop’s palace, yet when that foundation was inspected into by king Edward 6. and a recital thereupon made of the foundation thereof done by his father, that place was left out of the charter, as being designed then for another use. So that from that time till this man (Dr. Bancroft) came to be bishop, there being no settled house or pa¬ lace for him or his successors, he did resolve by the persuasion of Dr. Laud, archbishop of Can¬ terbury, to build one. Wherefore in the first place the impropriate parsonage of Cudesden be¬ fore-mentioned, five miles distant from Oxon, which belonged to the bishop in right of his see* he let the lease thereof run out without any more renewing, that in the end it might be made an improvement to the slender bishoprick. The vi- caridge also of his own donation falling void in the mean time, he procured himself to be legally instituted and inducted thereunto. All which be¬ ing done, he, through the power and favour of Dr. Laud before-mentioned, obtained an annexa¬ tion of it to the see episcopal, (the design of bringing in the impropriation going forward still) and soon after began, with the help of a great deal of timber from the forest of Shotover, given to him by his majesty, to build a fair palace; which, with a chappel in it, being compleatly finished, an. 1634, was the next summer out of curiosity visited by the said Dr. Laud ; which he remits into his Diary thus. 1 September the 2d, an. 1635, I was in attendance with the king at Woodstock, and went thence to Cudsden, to see the house which Dr. John Bancroft then lord bishop of Oxford had there built to be a house for the bishops of that see for ever; he having built that house at my persuasion.’ But this house or palace (which cost three thousand and five hun¬ dred pounds ~) proved almost as short liv’d as the founder, being burn’d down by colonel William Legg during the short time that he was governor of the garrison of Oxford, in the latter end of 1644, for fear it might be made a garrison by the parliament forces, though with as much reason and more piety (as one3 observes) he might have garrison’d it for the king, and preserved the house. Being thus ruined, it lay so till Dr. John 1 [Bridges resided at March-Bald win in bis own diocese of Oxford, where he died, and of which parish Willis conjec¬ tures he was rector. He was buried in the chancel of that church, with the following epitaph : * Here lyeth the body of the reverend father John Bridges, late bishop of Oxford, who departed this life the 25th of March l6l8.’ Cathedrals, (Oxon) page 432.] 2 [The sum was two thousand five hundred pounds, as I learn from the best authority.] 3 Dr. P. Heylin in his History of the Life and Death of Dr, William Laud, lib. 3. part 1.
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