Officials: Bird, John

JOHN BIRD

First bishop of Chester, deprived by Queen Mary; little concerned with the work of the consistory court.

JOHN BIRD (BYRD/BYRDE), bishop of Chester, (c. 1477-1558)

Qualifications:    Master of Arts, 1506; Bachelor of Divinity, 1512; Doctor of Divinity, 1514

CCEd person ID 31015

Career: Carmelite friar until the dissolution, attended Oxford University as a Carmelite; elected Provincial (in charge of pastoral supervision and oversight) of the British Province of the order in 1516 until 1519 and again from 1522 until 1534 and then 1535 until the dissolution; supporter of the divorce of Henry VIII he wrote a treatise on the matter and preached before the king at Easter 1537; in 1537 he was appointed suffragan bishop of ‘Penreth’ and acted as suffragan for the bishops of Llandaff and Lichfield; bishop of Bangor in 1539; translated to Chester in 1541 on the foundation of the diocese; deprived 1554; vicar of Great Dunmow, Essex, 1554 until his death.

Further notes: He is said to have come from an old Chester family, but this is debateable.

The diocese of Chester was one of the poorest in the country and Bird attempted to enhance his income by various ill-judged property exchanges which left the diocese worse off. He was appointed rector of Mottram in Longdendale in Cheshire by 1548 and Wistaston in Cheshire in 1552, no doubt to increase his income.

In an effort to conserve money he retained the post of archdeacon of Chester and devolved some of his authority to the rural deans, appointing a chancellor at Chester and a commissary for Richmond.

He had married during his period as bishop, and so was deprived of Chester diocese in March 1554 following the accession of Queen Mary, whose restoration of Catholicism precluded married priests. He renounced his wife, claiming that he had married against his will, and was appointed vicar of Great Dunmow in Essex in 1554 where he died in 1558. While at Great Dunmow he acted as suffragan to Edmund Bonner, bishop of London.

When he was a Carmelite, he was described as ‘pulcherrimus, eruditus, probus, dignissimus’ (Sanders quoting John Bale) (very handsome, learned, upright, very worthy). Although by the time he was appointed to Great Dunmow he was ‘well stricken in years’ and had only one eye, rumours in the parish suggested an illicit relationship between him and the young wife of a servant.

Sources

Richard Copsey, ‘Bird, John (d. 1558)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online edition) https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/2447

Joyce M Horn, David M Smith, Patrick Mussett, ‘Archdeacons: Chester’, in Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541-1857: Volume 11, Carlisle, Chester, Durham, Manchester, Ripon, and Sodor and Man Dioceses( London, 2004), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/fasti-ecclesiae/1541-1847/vol11/pp45-47 

Rev. F. Sanders, ‘John Bird, D.D., Bishop of Chester, 1541-1554’, Journal of the Architectural, Archaeological and Historic Society for the county and city of Chester and North Wales, new series, 13 (1907), pp. 110-126

John Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. III, part I, (London, 1822), pp. 218-219

George Watson, ‘A misappropriated bishop’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 15 (1897–9), pp. 303–308

Officials: Bucksey, Nicholas

NICHOLAS BUCKSEY

Occasionally presided over Chester Consistory Court as commissary

NICHOLAS BUCKSEY (BUCKSYE/ BUCKSIE) d.1567

Qualifications: Canon Burne gives Bucksey the qualification of M.A. but no details of an academic career have been traced.

CCEd person ID 174199

Career: Benedictine monk of St Werburgh’s Abbey in Chester; prior of St Werburgh’s until its surrender in January 1540; appointed to the second prebend in the foundation charter of the new cathedral August 1541; treasurer of the cathedral. He was commissary of George Wilmesley who was official principal of the Chester Consistory Court, occasionally presiding over the court as deputy even following Wilmesley’s removal from office in 1556. He retained his position in the diocese through the religious changes of the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth I. He continued to preside over the consistory court occasionally until at least March 1561 (CALS EDC 1/16, f. 59v) and the appointment of Robert Leche.

Sources:

R. V. H. Burne, Chester Cathedral from its Founding by Henry VIII to the Accession of Queen Victoria (London, 1958), pp. 4, 43

James Gairdner and R. H. Brodie (eds), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 16, 1540-1541 (London, 1898), no. 1135 (4) British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol16/pp524-537

 Christopher Haigh, ‘A Mid-Tudor Ecclesiastical Official: the Curious Career of George Wilmesley’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 122 (1971 for 1970), pp. 1-24

Joyce M. Horn, David M. Smith and Patrick Mussett, ‘Canons of Chester’, in Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541-1857: Volume 11, Carlisle, Chester, Durham, Manchester, Ripon, and Sodor and Man Dioceses (London, 2004), pp. 50-63. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/fasti-ecclesiae/1541-1847/vol11/pp50-63

 

Officials: Pewson alias Morgell, John

JOHN PEWSON otherwise MORGELL

Scribe and deputy registrar of the court.

JOHN PEWSON alias MORGELL

Qualifications: Notary Public

By 1580 John Pewson alias Morgell, of the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, was acting as deputy Registrar to Randle Cotgreave in the diocese of Chester. He was often deputed when depositions were to be taken away from Chester.

In 1606 a patent was granted by the bishop of Chester to John Morgyll as Registrar for his life and the life of his two sons. John Morgell or Morgan of Moston, near Chester, bought the Manor of Moston in about 1600 and died in 1636. In view of the dates, it seems likely that this John Morgell was the son of John Pewson alias Morgell who seems to have established a dynasty of Registrars of the diocese.

Signature from EDC 5/1580/10

Sources:

F. R. Raines, (ed.), Notitia Cestriensis, or historical notices of the diocese of Chester, by Right Rev. Francis F.  Gastrell, vol. 1 Cheshire (Chetham Society, old series, 8, 1845).

J. P. Rylands, (ed.), ‘Cheshire and Lancashire Funeral Certificates; A.D. 1600 to 1678’, Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, vol. vi (1882).

Officials: Cotgreave, Randle

RANDLE COTGREAVE

Principal registrar of the diocese

RANDLE COTGREAVE (COTGREVE), principal registrar of the diocese of Chester (appointed 1565)

Qualifications: Notary Public

Career: Very little is known about Cotgreave’s qualifications and his life, except that he was the son of William Cotgreve of Christleton, near Chester, as shown in a herald’s visitation of 1580. A man of the same name was acting as registrar under George Wilmesley by 1541, but a study of handwriting suggested that this was not the same man.

He was appointed principal registrar in 1565, probably following the death of John Chetham, and was still acting early in 1581.

Further Notes: He married Ellen Taylor of Chester and had four sons and one daughter. There were several branches of the Cotgreave family in the Chester area at this time.

His signature from EDC 5/1575/13

Sources:

J. Paul Rylands (ed.), The Visitation of Cheshire 1580, (The Harleian Society, 18, 1882), pp. 68-9

Cheshire Sheaf, 3rd Series, iv, pp. 25-6, 88-9

Officials: Chaderton, William

WILLIAM CHADERTON

Bishop of Chester 1579-1595; translated to Lincoln. He rarely attended the consistory court, spending much of his episcopate in Manchester.

WILLIAM CHADERTON (CHADDERTON), bishop of Chester, d. 1608

Qualifications:  Bachelor of Arts, 1557; Master of Arts, 1561; Bachelor of Theology, 1566; Doctor of Theology, 1568

CCEd person ID: 40034

Career: He attended Queen’s College at Cambridge University, was subsequently elected a Fellow of Christ’s College and later Lady Margaret professor of Divinity in 1567; in 1568 he was appointed archdeacon of York (until 1575) and chaplain to Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, who was also chamberlain of Chester. Prebendary of Fenton (York) from 1574-1579; a Canon of Westminster from 1576-1579. He was consecrated bishop of Chester in November 1579 and moved his establishment to Manchester after his appointment as warden of Manchester College in June 1580, from this base he worked to suppress Catholicism in Lancashire and to correct Puritan clergy. He aimed to improve preaching throughout the diocese and was a regular preacher himself. He was friendly with Henry, earl of Derby, and regularly preached at his houses. He held the wardenship of Manchester College with the see of Chester until 1595 when he was translated to the wealthier diocese of Lincoln which he held until his death. Prior to this move, however, in about 1593 he had returned to Chester, probably because of conflict between his servants and the people of Manchester. He held the parishes of Thornton-le-Moors in Cheshire from 1581 and Bangor in Flintshire from 1584 in addition to his other offices.

Further notes: His family came from Nuthurst, in the parish of Manchester; probably educated at Manchester Grammar School.

He married Katherine Revell, daughter of a London gentleman, who was niece of Dr Cliffe, warden of Manchester College. The couple had one daughter, Joan, who was married at the age of 9 in 1582 in the bishop’s palace. Her husband was Richard Brooke, son of a wealthy local gentleman, who was 11 at the time of the marriage. The marriage was later ratified by Robert Leche after the children had reached the age of consent (at that time 12 for a girl) but the couple were not happy together and lived apart for many years.

Chaderton was described as ‘a learned man, and liberal, given to hospitality, and a more frequent preacher and baptizer then other bishops of his time’ (Hollingworth).

Sources:

‘Archdeacons: York’, in Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541-1857: Volume 4, York Diocese, ed. Joyce M Horn, David M Smith( London, 1975), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/fasti-ecclesiae/1541-1847/vol4/pp13-14

‘Prebendaries: Fenton’, in Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541-1857: Volume 4, York Diocese, ed. Joyce M Horn, David M Smith( London, 1975), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/fasti-ecclesiae/1541-1847/vol4/pp34-35

‘Canons (to 1660): Fourth prebend’, in Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541-1857: Volume 7, Ely, Norwich, Westminster and Worcester Dioceses, ed. Joyce M Horn( London, 1992), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/fasti-ecclesiae/1541-1847/vol7/pp74-75

‘Manchester: The parish and advowson’, in A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 4, ed. William Farrer, J. Brownbill ( London, 1911), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol4/pp192-204

Christopher Haigh, ‘Chaderton, William (d. 1608)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online edition) https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/5011

R. Hollingworth, Mancuniensis (Manchester, 1839), p. 89

W. H. Price and Canon Morris, ‘Early Marriages in the Diocese of Chester’, Journal of the Architectural, Archaeological and Historic Society of Chester, vol. VI, part II, (1899), pp. 217–230

F. R. Raines, The rectors of Manchester, and the wardens of the collegiate church of that town, Chetham Society, new ser., 5-6 (1885), pp. 89-101

Officials: Yale, David

DAVID YALE

Chancellor of the diocese of Chester and official principal of the Chester consistory court 1587-1608; commissioner of ecclesiastical causes for York province from 1599

DAVID YALE, d. 1626

Qualifications: of Queens College Cambridge, 1555; Bachelor of Arts 1564; Master of Arts 1567, proctor of the University 1575 to 1576; Doctor of Law 1579.

CCEd person ID:
17535

Career: presented to the rectory of Llandegla 1564; vicar of High Offley briefly in 1573; prebendary of St Asaph 1578; admitted as an advocate to the Court of Arches in the following year; full member of Doctors’ Commons in 1582; a prebendary of Chester in the same year; rector of Llandyrnog 1583; joint administrator of the diocese of Bangor in 1585 sede vacante; JP for Denbigh 1604.

Further notes: David Yale was probably the illegitimate son of John Wyn of Plas-yn-Iâl near Wrexham in north Wales. He bought extensive lands at Erddig in Wrexham and owned land in Derbyshire. He was the great-grandfather of Elihu Yale, benefactor of the American university which bears his surname.

Sources:

Dictionary of Welsh Biography online edition <https://biography.wales/article/s-YALE-PLA-1500>

Ormerod, George, The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester, (second edition, revised and enlarged by T. Helsby, 3 vols, London: George Routledge & Sons, 1882), vol i, p. 113.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edition (in Yale, Thomas) <https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/30184>

Venn, J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, part I, volumes IV, 1927.

Officials: Pennant, Henry

HENRY PENNANT

Notary Public and Deputy Registrar of the diocese

HENRY PENNANT

Notary Public and deputy to Randle Cotgrave, Registrar of the diocese

Qualifications: Notary Public

Career: Deputy Registrar of the diocese from at least 1572, he sometimes acted as promoter in promoted office causes. By the 1580s he had begun to act as a proctor.

Henry Pennant’s signature from EDC 5/1576/43

Notes: He copied some lines of poetry into the last surviving page of one of his account books. These lines formed part of Jasper Heywood’s 1560 translation of Seneca’s play Thyestes.

Sources:

Cheshire Sheaf, 3rd series, xii, pp. 6-7, 12.

Officials: Downham, William

WILLIAM DOWNHAM

First Elizabethan bishop of Chester; actively involved in the work of the consistory court during his episcopate.

WILLIAM DOWNHAM (DOWNAM), bishop of Chester, (c. 1511 – 1577)

Qualifications: Bachelor of Arts 1541; Master of Arts 1543; Doctor of Divinity 1566 (Oxford)

CCEd person ID 65611

Career: brother of the College of Bonhommes at Ashridge, then in Buckinghamshire, until its dissolution in 1539, probably consecrated priest while there, he entered Oxford University in 1539 after the dissolution of the college. He was fellow of Magdalen College by 1543; held a number of parishes, mostly in the diocese of Lincoln all of which he had resigned by the time he became bishop of Chester; archdeacon of Brecon 1559,  canon of Westminster 1560 to 1564. He was appointed chaplain to Princess, later Queen, Elizabeth.

He was consecrated bishop of Chester in May 1561 and held the see until his death in 1577, probably in late November

Further notes: Downham was probably born in Herefordshire and is unlikely to have visited the north-west before his appointment as bishop of Chester. His position as one of Princess Elizabeth’s chaplains during the reign of her Catholic sister, Queen Mary, combined with his ordination as a Catholic priest prior to the break with Rome and his perceived religious conservatism have led to accusations that he remained a Catholic. However, the fact of his marriage by 1554, probably during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary, would argue against this, since acceptance of clerical marriage was an important theological principle to Protestants. Furthermore, while he was bishop of Chester he insisted on conformity with the Elizabethan Prayer Book and seems to have attempted to follow a middle way between the two extremes of Catholicism and Puritanism, thus alienating both groups, but ‘he had an almost impossible task in remote country’ (Knighton) in one of the poorest sees in the country.

He is also often accused of laziness but he was more assiduous than many contemporary bishops in his supervision of his consistory court. When he arrived in Chester he had no experience of diocesan administration, and familiarised himself with the work of the court by attending almost every general session for the first twelve months he was in Chester and he is invariably addressed as ‘judge’ of the court, so clearly regarded its supervision as his own responsibility and duty. He occasionally presided over court hearings and he also took some depositions, seemingly taking a particular interest in matrimonial causes.

He had two sons and one, or possibly two, daughters and was characterised as ‘a milde, courteous & loueinge man, wisheinge well vnto all’ (Rogers).

Sources:

‘Disbrowe-Dyve’, in Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714, ed. Joseph Foster( Oxford, 1891), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/alumni-oxon/1500-1714/pp406-439

Christopher Haigh, ‘Finance and administration in a new diocese: Chester, 1541-1641’, in R. O’Day and F. Heal, Continuity and change: personnel and administration of the Church of England, 1500-1642 (Leicester, 1976), pp. 145-66

‘Canons (to 1660): Tenth prebend’, in Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541-1857: Volume 7, Ely, Norwich, Westminster and Worcester Dioceses, ed. Joyce M Horn (London, 1992), pp. 80-81. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/fasti-ecclesiae/1541-1847/vol7/pp80-81

C. S. Knighton, Downham, William (1510/11-1577) bishop of Chester in , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online edition) https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/7979

‘House of Bonhommes: The college of Ashridge’, in A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 1, ed. William Page (London, 1905), pp. 386-390. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/bucks/vol1/pp386-390

David Rogers’ History in British Library, Harley 1948, f. 86v

B. Usher, William Cecil and Episcopacy, 1559-1577 (Aldershot, 2003)

K. R. Wark, Elizabethan Recusancy in Cheshire (Chetham Society, 3rd series, 19, 1971)

F. O. White, Lives of the Elizabethan Bishops of the Anglican Church (London, 1898), pp. 167-171

Officials: Knight, William

WILLIAM KNIGHT

Nominally in charge of the Chester Consistory Court during his period in office as archdeacon of Chester, he delegated oversight of the court to official principals including Adam Beconsall.

WILLIAM KNIGHT, 1475/6 – 1547

Qualifications: fellow of New College, Oxford in 1493; Bachelor of Canon Law by 1504; Doctor of Canon Law by 1506 (Oxford); much influenced by a period of education in Italy

CCEd person ID 147690

Career: He was secretary to both Henry VII and Henry VIII and as such was sent abroad on a number of important diplomatic missions. He held several ecclesiastical positions, including parishes such as Preston in Lancashire and canonries including at Lincon, St Paul’s and Bangor, he was a notable pluralist.

He was appointed archdeacon of Chester in 1522 and was the last archdeacon to head the consistory court before the foundation of Chester diocese in 1541.

He was also appointed archdeacon of Huntingdon and Richmond while archdeacon of Chester. His holding of the contiguous archdeaconries of Chester and of Richmond may have facilitated their combination as the diocese of Chester in 1541 at which date he surrendered these archdeaconries and was appointed bishop of Bath and Wells. He held that see until his death in 1547; a religious conservative.

Further notes: ‘ one of the best rewarded clerical careerists of his age’. (Clark)

Sources:

Richard Clark, ‘Knight, William (1475/6-1547), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online edition) https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/15738

‘Kandruth-Kyte’, in Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714, ed. Joseph Foster( Oxford, 1891), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/alumni-oxon/1500-1714/pp837-867

Peter Heath, ‘The Medieval Archdeaconry and Tudor Bishopric of Chester’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 20 (2) (1969), pp. 243-52

Joyce M Horn, David M Smith, Patrick Mussett, ‘Archdeacons: Chester’, in Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541-1857: Volume 11, Carlisle, Chester, Durham, Manchester, Ripon, and Sodor and Man Dioceses( London, 2004), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/fasti-ecclesiae/1541-1847/vol11/pp45-47 

Joyce M Horn, David M Smith, Patrick Mussett, ‘Archdeacons: Richmond’, in Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541-1857: Volume 11, Carlisle, Chester, Durham, Manchester, Ripon, and Sodor and Man Dioceses( London, 2004), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/fasti-ecclesiae/1541-1847/vol11/pp47-49

 

Officials: Wydhope, Richard

RICHARD WYDHOPE

Scribe and registrar of the court, the precise dates during which he held this office are not known.

RICHARD WYDHOPE fl. 1526-1528

Registrar of the Court

Qualifications: Notary Public

Sources:

Rev. G. J. Piccope, (ed.), Lancashire and Cheshire wills and inventories from the Ecclesiastical Court, Chester, (Chetham Society, old series, 33, 1857 (First Portion)), p. 29.