Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester Part 8

#Richard de Wendover#, not consecrated till 1238; monks had to appeal to Rome, against the archbishop's claims, to get their election of him confirmed; died in 1250.

#Lawrence de Saint Martin#, succeeded in 1251; appealed to Pope against a robbery of his see by Archbishop Boniface; at Rome for the canonization of St. William in 1256; died in 1274; his tomb (in the choir) has been described.

#Walter de Merton#, appointed in 1274; before this, chancellor (1261-63; 1272-74) and justiciar; founded his college at Maldon, and afterwards transferred it to Oxford; drowned in the Medway in 1277; buried in the cathedral (north choir transept).

#John de Bradfield#, a monk at Rochester; became bishop in 1277; died in 1283; buried in the cathedral (south choir aisle).

#Thomas Inglethorp#, appointed in 1283; formerly Dean of St. Paul's and Archdeacon of Middles.e.x; died in 1291; buried in the cathedral (chancel).

#Thomas de Wouldham#, Prior of Rochester, became bishop in 1292; died in 1317.

#Hamo de Hythe#, appointed in 1319 after a delay caused by Pope's wish to nominate John de Puteoli; did much for church and renewed the shrines of St. Paulinus and St. Ythamar; died in 1352; tomb in the cathedral (north choir aisle).

#John de Sheppey#, succeeded in 1352; treasurer of England, 1326-58; died in 1360; buried on the north side of the choir.

#William of Whittlesea#, Bishop of Rochester, 1362; of Worcester, 1364; Archbishop of Canterbury, 1368; died in 1374.

#Thomas Trilleck#, succeeded in 1364; formerly Dean of St. Paul's; died in 1372.

#Thomas Brinton#, appointed in 1373 by the Pope, who rejected the monk's nominee, their prior, John Hertley; a Benedictine of Norwich; had been penitentiary to the Roman see; died in 1389.

#William de Bottisham#, transferred from Llandaff in 1389, the Pope rejecting John Barnet; died in 1400.

#John de Bottisham#, succeeded in 1400; died in 1404; this repet.i.tion of the same surname has caused some confusion.

#Richard Young#, translated from Bangor in 1404; seems not to have taken full possession of see till 1407; died in 1418.

#John Kemp#, at earlier dates Keeper of Privy Seal and Chancellor of Normandy; Bishop of Rochester, 1419; of Chichester, 1421; of London, 1421; Archbishop of York, 1426; of Canterbury, 1452; Cardinal, 1439; prominent member of Beaufort party; Chancellor of England; served on several important political missions; died in 1454.

#John Langdon#, appointed in 1434; a royal councillor; author of an Anglorum Chronicon; died at Basle in 1434.

#Thomas Brown#, succeeded in 1435; in 1436, while still at Basle, translated by the Pope to Norwich; died in 1445.

#William Wells#, Abbot of York, succeeded in 1437; died before 26 February 1444.

#John Lowe#, translated from St. Asaph in 1444; English Provincial of the Order of St. Augustine; died in 1467; buried in north choir transept.

#Thomas Rotheram# (or #Scott#), appointed in 1468; translated to Lincoln, 1472; Archbishop of York, 1480; died in 1500; had been Chaplain to Edward IV., Keeper of the Privy Seal, and, in 1474, Lord Chancellor.

#John Alc.o.c.k# succeeded in 1472; Privy Councillor, 1470-71; Lord Chancellor, 1474; first Lord President of Wales, 1476; tutor to Edward V., removed by Gloucester; under Henry VII., baptized Prince Arthur; comptroller of the royal works, and again Lord Chancellor; a great architect, works at Ely and Cambridge; translated to Worcester in 1476, to Ely in 1486; "devoted to learning and piety"; died in 1500.

#John Russell#, succeeded in 1476; translated to Lincoln, 1480; died in 1494.

#Edmund Audley#, Canon of York; Bishop of Rochester, 1480; of Hereford, 1492; of Salisbury, 1502; died in 1524; a legatee and executor of Henry VII.

#Thomas Savage#, Canon of York, Dean of the King's Chapel at Westminster; Bishop of Rochester, 1492, of London, 1496; Archbishop of York, 1501; died in 1507.

#Richard FitzJames# succeeded in 1496; translated to Chichester in 1503 and to London in 1506; died in 1522; a famous warden of Merton; Royal Almoner in 1495; did not favour Colet's efforts at reform.

#John Fisher#, having risen to the Chancellorship of Cambridge University in 1504, was then made, for his "grete and singular virtue," Bishop of Rochester; he and his patron, Lady Margaret, were great benefactors to Cambridge; a friend of Erasmus; opposed Henry VIII.'s divorce and the royal supremacy; made a cardinal just before he bravely and resignedly met his death in 1535.

#John Hilsey# came then in 1535; formerly Prior of the Dominicans in London; one of Cromwell's commissioners, compiled at his orders a service book in English; exposed the miraculous rood of Boxley at St.

Paul's Cross; died in 1538.

#Richard Heath#, succeeded in 1539; had been Almoner to Henry VIII.; translated to Worcester, 1543; deprived for a time, but restored on Queen Mary's accession; Archbishop of York, 1555; Chancellor; held both the last appointments under Elizabeth, whose accession he proclaimed, but had to resign when the Act of Supremacy was enforced.

#Henry Holbeach#, succeeded in 1543; translated to Lincoln in 1546; previously suffragan Bishop of Bristol, and Prior (later Dean) of Worcester.

#Nicholas Ridley#, succeeded in 1547; translated to London when Bonner was removed in 1550; a famous Protestant, learned and pious; the story of his martyrdom with Latimer at Oxford, in 1555, is well known.

#John Poynet#, succeeded in 1550; translated to Winchester, 1551; left England when Mary became Queen; died at Strasburg in 1556.

#John Scory#, appointed in 1551; a great preacher; translated to Chichester in 1552; bishop of Hereford in 1559, when able to return from Friesland; died in 1585.

#Maurice Griffith#, appointed after an interval of about two years; educated by the Dominicans at Oxford; formerly Archdeacon of Rochester; one or two Protestants were burnt during his episcopacy; died in 1558.

#Edmund Gheast#, consecrated in 1559 and made Almoner to the Queen; transferred to Salisbury, 1571; died in 1578.

#Edmund Freake#, succeeded in 1571; previously Dean of Rochester, and of Salisbury; Queen's Almoner in 1572; translated to Norwich in 1575, to Worcester in 1584; scandal at Norwich, his wife "will looke on him as the Divell lookes over Lincoln;" troubles with Puritans; died in 1590-91.

#John Piers#, succeeded in 1576; Bishop of Salisbury, 1577; Archbishop of York, 1589; Lord High Almoner, 1576; employed and consulted by the Queen; died in 1594.

#John Yonge#, became bishop in 1578; thought avaricious, but the annual revenue of his see shown not to exceed 220; died in 1605.

#William Barlow#, succeeded in 1605; wrote other works besides his account, denounced as partial by the Puritans, of the famous Hampton Court Conference; translated to Lincoln, 1608; died in 1613.

#Richard Neile#, succeeded in 1608; introduced Laud to the King's notice; Bishop of Lichfield, 1610, of Durham, 1617 and of Winchester, 1627; Archbishop of York, 1631; privy councillor; employed in famous Ess.e.x divorce case; sat in the courts of High Commission and of the Star Chamber; died in 1640.

#John Buckeridge#, formerly a canon at Rochester; confirmed as bishop in 1611; formerly a royal chaplain; took part in Ess.e.x case; active in religious discussions; translated to Ely, 1628; died in 1631.

#Walter Curle#, appointed in 1628; translated to Bath and Wells in 1629, to Winchester in 1632; deprived by Parliamentarians and apparently in great straits before he died, c. 1650.

#John Bowle#, appointed in 1629; apparently in ill-health, and consequently neglectful, for three years before his death in 1637.

#John Warner#, succeeded in 1638; seems to have been the last to struggle for his order's place in Parliament; deprived of revenues, but allowed to stay at Bromley under the Commonwealth; one of the nine bishops who lived till the Restoration; employed in the Savoy Conference; wealthy; benefactor to the cathedral and to Magdalen and Balliol Colleges, Oxford; founded college for clergymen's widows at Bromley; died in 1666; the last bishop buried in the cathedral.

#John Dolben#, made bishop in 1666; had served at Marston Moor and been wounded at York; retained his deanery of Westminster _in commendam_; translated to York in 1683; died in 1686.

#Francis Turner#, succeeded in 1683; translated to Ely in 1684; one of the seven bishops who pet.i.tioned against the Declaration of Indulgence, though he had been James II.'s chaplain; had to give up his see on account of his belief in James' divine right; died in 1700.

#Thomas Sprat#, Dean of Westminster, became Bishop of Rochester in 1685; of such literary ability as to have a place in Johnson's "Lives of the Poets;" wrote a poem on the death of Cromwell, a history of the Royal Society, a life of Cowley, etc.; in no great favour with William's government; implicated in the fabricated Flower-pot Plot, the papers concerning which were said to have been found in a flower-pot at Bromley; seems to have been somewhat of a time-server; died in 1713.

#Francis Atterbury#, born in 1662; took orders after the Revolution; became a Royal Chaplain, but still lived usually at Oxford; took part in the great controversy between Boyle and Bentley, on the Epistles of Phalaris; successively Archdeacon of Totnes, Dean of Carlisle, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and finally in 1713 Bishop of Rochester; in 1710 composed the speech for Sacheverell's defence before the House of Lords; a Tory, but, though he had tried to procure the proclamation of James III., he a.s.sisted at George I.'s coronation; deprived, for Jacobitism, of his see and banished in 1723; retired to Brussels and then for his health's sake to Paris; served James almost as a prime minister; in 1728 he left this service owing to bad treatment, but re-entered it before his death, after nine years of exile, in 1731-2.

#Samuel Bradford#, refused the see of St. David's in 1710; accepted that of Carlisle in 1718; translated to Rochester in 1723; in 1725 first dean of the revised Order of the Bath; his "Discourse concerning Baptismal and Spiritual Regeneration" (1709) had great popularity; died in 1731 at the Deanery, Westminster; buried in the Abbey.

#Joseph Wilc.o.c.ks#, translated in 1731, from Gloucester, which see he had held since 1721; the new west front of Westminster Abbey finished in his time; he refused the Archbishopric of York before his death in 1756.

#Zachary Pearce#, succeeded in 1756; previously Dean of Winchester in 1739, and Bishop of Bangor in 1747; in 1768 he resigned the Deanery of Westminster, which he had held with his bishopric, but was not allowed to resign the see; died in 1774. While a fellow of Trin. Coll., Camb., he edited Longinus' works and Cicero's "De Oratore" and "De Officiis."