| Notes |
- No. XXXVIII.
A Letter from Richard [Vaughan], Bishop of London, to the Lord Chancellor.
To the right Honourable the Lord Chancellor of England, and the High Court of Chancery.
DUPORT v. AYLMER. M. T. 1606. PLEASETH it this Honourable Court to be advertized that I promised Dr. Duport to take some pains with Mr. Samuel Aylmer, for to order and compound all matters of difference between them; which, hitherto, I have deferred, by the means of the more weighty affairs of my place. But, nevertheless, I shall afford some time for it very shortly, as I shall be able to dispense with my other occasions, if it shall so seem good to this Honourable Court.
RIC. LONDON.
The plaintiff, Dr. Duport, was prebendary of Ely and master of Jesus College, Cambridge. He was one of seven to whom the translation of part of the Apocrypha was assigned. (Collier's Eccles. Hist. lib. 8. part ii. vol. vii. p. 338.)
Richard Vaughan, who had been archdeacon of Middlesex and bishop of Chester, was made bishop of London A. D. 1604, and died 30th March 1607. (Maitland's Hist. Lond. vol. ii. p. 1223.) He had been chaplain to L. K. Sir Jno. Puckering (Hacket's Life of Williams, p. 24.); and also to Dr. Aylmer, bishop of London, to whom he was related. He is said to have been "a deserving man, and known both for his learning, readiness in preaching, and other godly gifts, as inferior to few." (Strype's Aylmer, p. 194.)
source: Monro, Cecil. Acta Cancellariæ: or, Selections from the Records of the Court of Chancery, Remaining in the Office of Reports and Entries, p. 61. London, UK: William Benning and Company, 1847.
- RICHARD VAUGHAN was born at Nyffryn in the county of Carnarvon. We know not his father’s name. His mother was of the family of Griffin. He was matriculated as a sizar of S. John’s college 16 Nov. 1569, having for tutor the learned John Becon, of whom we have already made mention in this volume. He was admitted a scholar on the lady Margaret’s foundation 6 Nov. 1573, went out B.A. 1573-4, and commenced M.A. 1577.
He was nephew to John Aylmer bishop of London, who constituted him one of his chaplains. On 22 Apr 1578 he was instituted to the rectory of Chipping Ongar Essex, on the presentation of James Morris, esq., as he was on 24 Nov. 1580 to the rectory of Little Canfield in the same county, on the presentation of Andrew Pashcal and Philipa his wife, the relict of William Glascock. In or about April 1581 he resigned Chipping Ongar.
On 18 Nov. 1583 he was collated to the prebend of Holborn in the church of S. Paul, and in May 1584 was incorporated M.A. at Oxford.
On 26 Oct. 1588, being then, as it is said, B.D., he was collated to the archdeaconry of Middlesex. He was also canon of Wells and rector of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, but we have not ascertained when or how he obtained these preferments. In 1589 he was created D.D. In or about January 1590-1 he resigned the church of Little Canfield. We find bishop Aylmer on 17 April 1591 strongly urging lord Burghley that Dr. Vaughan might be constituted one of the residentiaries of S. Paul’s, but the result is unknown. On 19 Aug. 1591 he was instituted to the rectory of Moreton in Essex, on the presentation of James Morris, esq., and John Morris, gent. Patrons for that turn, and on 19 Feb. 1591-2 was collated by bishop Aylmer to the vicarage of Great Dunmow in the same county.
He was chaplain to the queen, and sir John Pickering, when he became lord-keeper, also appointed him one of his chaplains. Sir John Harington says that Dr. Vaughan was the lord-keeper’s “examiner of such as sued for the benefices in my lords gift in which, though some complaine he was too precise, yet for my part I ascribe to that one of his greatest praises. For this I know, that a preacher being a Nobleman’s Chaplaine, and therefore qualified for two Benefices, came to him recommended in good sort, and brought with him a Gentleman of both their acquaintance, that sometime had been an University man, to speak for his approbation. Mr. Vaughan examined him of no very deep points, and found but shallow, and not very ready in the Roman Tongue, his friend having been fain to help him up in two or three foul stumbles, both of language and matter; whereupon he dismist him without all hope of the Benefice, and after the Gentleman seriously, that if he would have it himselfe, he would allow him sufficient but the suiter by no means.” It is said that Dr. Vaughan was also chaplain to sir Thomas Egerton when lord-keeper, but this must be a mistake, although he may have been his chaplain whilst he held the office of master of the rolls.
Under a congé d'élire issued 6 Nov. 1595, he was on the 22nd of that month elected bishop of Bangor. His election was confirmed 22 Jan. 1595-6, he was consecrated on the 25th of the same month, and obtained restitution of the temporalities 5th March following.
In November 1596 he or his friends sought the intercession of the powerful earl of Essex to obtain his translation to the see of Salisbury. In April or May 1597 he was nominated to the bishopric of Chester. The royal assent was signified 4 June, the temporalities were restored 12 August, and he was enthroned on the 10th of November. Immediately after the accession of James I. he obtained from the crown £200 per annum for the stipends of four preachers appointed by him for the instruction of the people of the county palatine of Lancaster in true religion. The persons whom he selected were Michael Salson, William Foster, William Harrison, and Richard Midgley.
In September 1604 the king declared his intention of translating Dr. Vaughan from Chester to London, but the congé d'élire did not issue till the 8th of December. His election took place on or about the 14th of that month, and the royal assent was signified on the 17th. On the 25th he had restitution of the temporalities, and on the following day was enthroned. The University sent him letter of gratulation. In his reply, which bears date 29 December, he acknowledged that his good fortune was owing to the education he had received at Cambridge, and requested to be furnished with a list of able theologians in the university whose talents might prove advantageous to the church.
John Chamberlain, writing to Ralph Winwood 26 Feb. 1604-5, says: “Our Puritans go down all Sides; and tho’ our new Bishop of London proceeds but slowly, yet at last he hath deprived, silenced, or suspended all that continue Disobedient, in which Course he hath won himself great Commendations of Gravitie, Wisdom, Learning, Mildness, and Temperance even among that Faction, and indeed is held every way the most sufficient Man of that Coat.”
Thomas Gataker narrates the following circumstance which shews the bishop’s mildness and wisdom. A preacher at S. Paul’s cross inveighing against the puritans as seditious, bishop Vaughan who was present said to a gentleman who that dined with him, “I wish I could have had the preacher’s toung to day for some space of time in my pocket: the way is not to convert or convince that party by invectives and untruths: it is true they affect not the present form of Government; they are for another: but they seek it by petition, not by insurrection or sedition.”
He died of apoplexy 30 March 1607, and was buried without pomp in the chapel of bishop Kempe in the cathedral of S. Paul. It seems that he was commemorated by an inscription which had disappeared some years before the great fire destroyed the cathedral.
He was married, and left three sons and six daughters. His daughter Elizabeth married Thomas Mallory, D.D. dean of Chester.
The bishop’s will was proved in the Prerogative court.
His countryman and kinsman John Williams, ultimately archbishop of York, wrote and dedicated to Thomas Egerton lord Ellesmere: Vaughanus redivivus sive amplissimi viri Domino Richardo Vaughani Doctoris in theologia et primo Bangoriensis, deinde Cestriensis, postremo Londoniensis ecclesiae episcopi vita atque obitus. Henry Holland, who apparently refers to William’s MS., says of bishop Vaughan: “Dum fuit in collegio, propter studiorum intentionem, illud cohonestavit: propter concionandi labores toti fuit ornamento Academiae, & ad Episcopalem dignitatem vocatus, non solum mansit vigilans, prudens & moderatus Ecclesiae Rector, sed etiam efficax & scientissimus concionator: nam, sive loqueretur, sermo ejus fuit religiosus, sive admoneret quempiam, ejus commonefactiones erant gratia plenae; sive censuram adhiberet, censura ejus erat recta & cum judicio: homines adhoratatus est ad omnem pietatem & religionis veritatem: & sese summo cum animi, zeliq. ardore (pront ex ejus doctrina & vita apparet) omni superstitioni opposuit. Vtq. comprehendam brevi, valde quidem doctus fuit; vitae vero sanctimonia melior, quod (si ipsius mox subsecuturam foelicitatem spectemus) mors ejus censeri debet optima.”
He assisted William Morgan in his translation of the Holy Bible into welsh, and is author of:
1. Two latin poems of sir John Prise’s Historiae Brytannicae Defensio, 1573.
2. Answer in latin to an address of Mons. de la Fontain on behalf of the dutch and french churches in London. In Strype’s Annals, iv. 395.
3. Letters in latin and English.
During his occupancy of the sees of Bangor and Chester he repaired the cathedrals.
There is a portrait of bishop Vaughan in the picture gallery at Oxford, and another attributed to Cornelius Jansen, in the library at the palace at Fulham. Engraved portraits of him are in the Heroologia and in Freherus.
Arms: S. a chev. betw. 3 fleurs-de-lis. A.
source: Cooper, Charles Henry and Thompson Cooper. Athenae Cantabrigiensis, Volume 2, 1586-1609. Cambridge, UK: Deighton, Bell, and Company, 1861.
- Richard Vaughan, Bishop of London, Fellow of Trinity College.
“Dr. Robert Hill, in his dedication of his Path-way to Prayer, to the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, says, that Bishop Vaughan was a great encourager of his, Dr. Hill’s, studies; and that he, the Bishop, was an honour to our College, St. John’s in Cambridge, in which he once lived a painful student; and an ornament to our Church, of which he was a preaching Bishop. For his admirable learning he was at our University created D. D. long since; and for his ability to rule, afterwards consecrated Bishop of Bangor, immediately translated to Chester, and after a while to London. In these advancements of his how much he was beholden to your honour I had rather be silent, than say little: but surely he was worthy you should do for him.
“Qu. if he was not the young scholar that went as sort of under secretary to Robert Ascham, who attended Sir Rich. Morrison as ambassador to the Emperor in 1551, of whom frequent mention is made by Ascham in his letters to Mr. Edward Raven, Fellow of St. John’s College, which are printed at the end of Ascham’s English works, published by one James Bennet, schoolmaster of an academy at Hodddeson in Harfordshire, without any date, but I believe about 1766, in 4to. at London. At p. 374 he thus speaks of him: ‘Vaughan hath a better life than either my Lord or I: he lacks nothing; he fares well; he lives well; he may do what he lists; study what thing he list; go to the Emperor’s court, or elsewhere, when he list. If he do not come home well furnished with much knowledge, he little considers what God doth call to by this journey. If I were any man’s man, as Vaughan is mine, I would wish no better felicity abroad. Those that stopped S. Wright from this occasion shall never be able to make him amends: for in lacking nothing, he should have studied, and seen what he had list. There can be no greater commodity to an Englishman abroad. If Wright had ten fellowships at St. John’s, it would not counter-weigh with the loss of this occasion: for besides Dutch, French, and Italian, which he should have leaned, in a manner, whether he would or no, he might have learned as much Greek and Latin, and perhaps more than in St. John’s. I am almost an Italian myself, and never look on it.’ In another place he writes thus, p. 378, ‘If Vahan were an honest fellow, he might write at large of any thing; for he hath good leisure.’ And again, at p. 382, ‘I have called Vahan L. K. [perhaps lewd knave!] many times, that having so much leisure, he never writes.’ Thus again, at p. 384, ‘Tell Henry Stiland [Qu. If not Ailand?] that I am well acquainted with Andreas Vesabius, that noble physician, and, as Vahan saith, the best physician in the world, because he gives him pitcher meat enough.’
“Before his translation from Chester, the Puritans, with Mr. Bruen at their head, had meetings and prayers to exercise one Tho. Harrison, a boy of about 11 or 12 years of age, who was supposed to be possessed by the devil; and so busy and earnest were those bigots in this affair, that they prevailed with the Bishop to grant a licence for a private fast in the boy’s father’s house, where many of these puritan preachers, with Mr. Bruen and twenty or thirty more of the same stamp attended. The Bishop’s licence seems to be granted that too many of these gentry might not assemble together on this farce: so it is more than probable that the temper of the times and place obliged the Bishop to comply with a piece of buffoonery which he could not avoid.”
source: Brydges, Egerton. Restituta; or, Titles, Extracts, and Characters of Old Books in English Literature, Revived, Volume 4, pp. 381-382. London, UK: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1816.
- Gravestone inscription:
Piæ memoriæ duorum Episcoporum in hac Ecclesia proxime succedentium qui fuerunt contigue nati, Coetanei, sibi invicem cari Condiscipuli, Consanguinei; et illustri Familia Vaughanorum de Talhenbont in Evionydd Prior; Filius Thomæ ab Robert Vachan Generosi de Niffryn in Llŷn, Qui Sedem hanc per Biennium tenuit, deinde Cestrensem per Septem Annos; Postea Londinensem per Triennium tenuit, ubi vitam mensis martii ultimo An. Dom. 1607, immatura morte commutavit. Cujus Virtus post funera vivit: Pósterior Henricus Filius Rolandi ab Robert Armigeri de Melteyrn in Llŷn et Elisabeth filia Griffini ab Robert Vachan, Armigeri, de Talhenbont, qui annum Consecrationis suæ jam agit decimum octavum multosque agat feliciter ad honorem Dei & Evangelii propagationem, mutuo amore alter ultrique hoc struxit monumentum mense maii, Anno Dom. 1616.
Orimur, Vicissim morimur,
Qui non precesserunt sequuntur.
source: Wynn, John. The History of the Gwydir family, by Sir John Wynn, First Published by the Honorable Daines Barrington, with an Introduction and Notes; now Re-edited, with Additional Notes, by a Native of the Principality: to Which is Added, an Original Work, Containing Memoirs of Contemporary Welshmen, Bishops, Etc. by the Same Author. Ruthin, Wales: The Taliesen Press, 1827.
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1550 - 1607 (~ 57 years)
[8, 9, 14, 15] 
