The Three Choirs: A Handbook to the Cathedrals of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester: A Complete Description of the Buildings, a History of Each Diocese and Biographical Notices of the BishopsKing, R. J. (Richard John)
Religion
The Three Choirs: A Handbook to the Cathedrals of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester: A Complete Description of the Buildings, a History of Each Diocese and Biographical Notices of the Bishops
[A.D. 1603-1617.] ROBERT BENNETT, Dean of Windsor. Bishop Bennett
was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where, says Sir John
Harrington, he was “an active man, who played well at tennis, and
could toss an argument in the schools even better than a ball in
the tennis court.” He was a vigorous defender of the privileges of
his see against the corporation of Hereford, and both he and his
predecessor Westfaling expended large sums in the restoration of
the episcopal residences at Hereford and at Whitbourn. Bishop
Bennett’s tomb with effigy remains on the north side of the choir.
(Pt. I. § X.)
[A.D. 1617-1633.] FRANCIS GODWIN, translated to Hereford from
Llandaff. Bishop Godwin was the compiler of the “Catalogue of the
Bishops of England,” to which all succeeding writers on English
Church history have been greatly indebted. He was the son of Thomas
Godwin, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and was born at Harsington in
Northamptonshire. In the year 1601 he became Bishop of Llandaff,
and in 1605 published the first edition, in English, of his
“Catalogue.” It was again published in Latin, in 1616, and in 1743
this Latin version was edited, in a large folio volume, by Dr.
Richardson, Canon of Lincoln, and Master of Emmanuel College,
Cambridge. Richardson made considerable additions to the book,
besides correcting numerous errors; and it is his edition of the
Commentary _De Præsulibus Angliæ_ that is alone to be relied upon.
“Bishop Godwin,” says Fuller, “was a good man, grave divine,
skilful mathematician, pure Latinist, and incomparable historian.
The Church of Llandaff was much beholding to him; yea, the whole
Church of England; yea, the whole Church Militant; yea, many now in
the Church Triumphant had had their memories utterly lost on earth,
if not preserved by his painful endeavours. I am sorry to see that
some have since made so bad use of his good labours, who have
lighted their candles from his torch, thereby merely to discover
the faults of our bishops, that their personal failing may be an
argument against the prelatical function[57].” Bishop Godwin also
wrote a life of Queen Mary, inserted in Kennet’s History of
England, vol. ii.; and “Annals of England under Henry VIII., Edward
VI., and Mary.” He was interred at Whitbourn, where the bishops of
Hereford had a palace, April 29, 1633. A good portrait of Godwin,
engraved by Vertue, is prefixed to Richardson’s folio.
[A.D. 1634, died in November of the same year.] AUGUSTINE LINDSELL,
translated from Peterborough.
[A.D. 1635, trans. to Norwich in the same year.] MATTHEW WREN. (See
NORWICH CATHEDRAL, Pt. II.)
[A.D. 1635-1636.] THEOPHILUS FIELD, had been Bishop successively of
Llandaff and St. David’s.
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