John Warner (bishop)
Encyclopedia
John Warner was an English churchman, bishop of Rochester
and royalist.
, in 1599, and was elected fellow there in 1604. He proceeded M.A. in 1605, and D.D. in 1616. He was rector of St. Michael's, Crooked Lane, London, from 1614 to 1619, and was nominated prebendary and canon of Canterbury in 1616. He was instituted rector of Bishopsbourne
, Kent
, in 1619, rector of Hollingbourne
, Kent, in 1624, and rector of St. Dionis Backchurch, London, in 1625.
Warner was a strong supporter of the monarchy. In 1626, he preached in Passion week
before the king at Whitehall a sermon on Matthew xxi. 38: 'This is the heir; come, let us kill him,' which nearly occasioned his impeachment by parliament, and induced him to obtain for safety the king's pardon. In 1633 he became chaplain to Charles I and dean of Lichfield. In the same year he attended the king at his coronation in Edinburgh. In 1637, he was promoted to the bishopric of Rochester. In March 1640, he preached a sermon in Rochester Cathedral
on Psalm liiiv. 23, 'Forget not the voice of thy enemies,' against the puritans and rebels, to which allusion made in 'Scot Scout's Discovery.'
Warner attended at York in 1640 the king's council of peers, at which only one other prelate was present. He took part in the convocation which was called together on the opening of the Short parliament
of 1640. When that parliament was dissolved, and the convocation continued its sittings under royal license, Warner assisted William Laud
in framing new canons. Warner joined in the declaration made on 14 May 1641 by the bishops to maintain the existing constitution of church and state. On 4 August following he was impeached with other bishops by the House of Commons, under the stature of praemunire
, for taking part in the convocation of 1640 and making new canons. In December 1641 Warner, with eleven other bishops, was committed to prison, but the impeachment was afterwards dropped, meeting the defence made by Warner through Chaloner Chute
, the counsel whom he had selected for the defence of the bishops. On 13 February 1642, when the bishops were excluded by statute from the House of Lords. Sequestration of his lands and goods followed in 1643, and Warner had to leave Bromley Palace
in disguise. For three years he led a wandering life in the west of England.
By Charles's command he published in 1646 a treatise on Church Lands not to be sold, or a Necessary and Plain Answer to the question of a Conscientious Protestant whether the lands of Bishops and Churches in England and Wales may be sold. On 4 February 1649, within a week of the execution of Charles I, he preached and afterwards published anonymously a sermon alludint to it on Luke xviii. 31: 'Behold we go up to Jerusalem, entitled The Devilish Conspiracy.
In 1649, on payment of a fine, the sequestrations on his property were discharged; but he refused to take the oaths to the usurping government, as he considered it to be. At the Restoration Warner and eight other sequestrated bishops who had survived resumed, the government of their diocesses. In 1661 parliament recalled the bishops to the House of Lords, and once more, on 11 February 1662, Warner was able to address his clergy in Rochester Cathedral. He died on 14 October 1666, aged 86, and was buried in Merton's Chapel in Rochester Cathedral, where a monument by Joshua Marshall exists to his memory.
), a home for 20 widows of clergyman, to be supported by his estate at Swaton
, among numerous gifts and benefactions. Money he left for Scottish scholarships at Magdalen College, was refused, and Balliol College took it, urged by Thomas Good
.
Gilbert Burnet
had a copy of the Articles of the Barons, the heads of agreement for the Magna Carta
, and he said it had come via John Lee from Warner, who had taken it from Lambeth Palace
at the time of Laud's arrest on 18 December 1640. Hugh Trevor-Roper finds this episode, in which Warner took papers of Laud's for safe-keeping or to avoid embarrassment, to be confused in its details when Burnet's account is compared with Laud's. But he doesn't rule out Burnet's version. Stephen Langton
took the Articles in 1215, and they were in the Lambeth archives.
's Synopsis Criticorum. In 1645 he published The Gayne of Losse, or Temporal Losses spiritually improved, in a Century and one Decad of Meditations and Resolves. The authorship of an anonymous manuscript diary giving eye-witness details of the House of Lords during the start of the Long parliament
is attributed to him, for example by Conrad Russell.
Bishop of Rochester
The Bishop of Rochester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Rochester in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers the west of the county of Kent and is centred in the city of Rochester where the bishop's seat is located at the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin...
and royalist.
Life and career
Son of Harman Warner of London, merchant tailor, he was baptised at St. Clement Danes in the Strand on 17 September 1581. He became demy of Magdalen College, OxfordMagdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...
, in 1599, and was elected fellow there in 1604. He proceeded M.A. in 1605, and D.D. in 1616. He was rector of St. Michael's, Crooked Lane, London, from 1614 to 1619, and was nominated prebendary and canon of Canterbury in 1616. He was instituted rector of Bishopsbourne
Bishopsbourne
Bishopsbourne is a small village in Kent, England. It lies in the Nailbourne valley some from Canterbury and about from Dover. It has a public house, The Mermaid, built in 1861, and a church, St Mary's, with 14th-century wall paintings. Author Joseph Conrad lived here and his house, "Oswalds",...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, in 1619, rector of Hollingbourne
Hollingbourne
Hollingbourne is a village and civil parish in the Maidstone District of Kent, England. The parish is located on the southward slope of the North Downs to the east of the county town, Maidstone. The parish population is almost 1000 persons and includes Hollingbourne village as well as Broad...
, Kent, in 1624, and rector of St. Dionis Backchurch, London, in 1625.
Warner was a strong supporter of the monarchy. In 1626, he preached in Passion week
Passion Week
Passion Week is a name for the week beginning on Passion Sunday, as the Fifth Sunday of Lent was once called in the Roman Rite.However, even before Pope John XXIII's Code of Rubrics changed the name of this Sunday from "Passion Sunday" to "First Sunday of the Passion" , the liturgical books gave...
before the king at Whitehall a sermon on Matthew xxi. 38: 'This is the heir; come, let us kill him,' which nearly occasioned his impeachment by parliament, and induced him to obtain for safety the king's pardon. In 1633 he became chaplain to Charles I and dean of Lichfield. In the same year he attended the king at his coronation in Edinburgh. In 1637, he was promoted to the bishopric of Rochester. In March 1640, he preached a sermon in Rochester Cathedral
Rochester Cathedral
Rochester Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a Norman church in Rochester, Kent. The bishopric is second oldest in England after Canterbury...
on Psalm liiiv. 23, 'Forget not the voice of thy enemies,' against the puritans and rebels, to which allusion made in 'Scot Scout's Discovery.'
Warner attended at York in 1640 the king's council of peers, at which only one other prelate was present. He took part in the convocation which was called together on the opening of the Short parliament
Short Parliament
The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that sat from 13 April to 5 May 1640 during the reign of King Charles I of England, so called because it lasted only three weeks....
of 1640. When that parliament was dissolved, and the convocation continued its sittings under royal license, Warner assisted William Laud
William Laud
William Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645. One of the High Church Caroline divines, he opposed radical forms of Puritanism...
in framing new canons. Warner joined in the declaration made on 14 May 1641 by the bishops to maintain the existing constitution of church and state. On 4 August following he was impeached with other bishops by the House of Commons, under the stature of praemunire
Praemunire
In English history, Praemunire or Praemunire facias was a law that prohibited the assertion or maintenance of papal jurisdiction, imperial or foreign, or some other alien jurisdiction or claim of supremacy in England, against the supremacy of the Monarch...
, for taking part in the convocation of 1640 and making new canons. In December 1641 Warner, with eleven other bishops, was committed to prison, but the impeachment was afterwards dropped, meeting the defence made by Warner through Chaloner Chute
Chaloner Chute
Chaloner Chute was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1654 and 1659. He was Speaker briefly in 1659....
, the counsel whom he had selected for the defence of the bishops. On 13 February 1642, when the bishops were excluded by statute from the House of Lords. Sequestration of his lands and goods followed in 1643, and Warner had to leave Bromley Palace
Bromley Palace
Bromley Palace is a manor house in Bromley, London Borough of Bromley; and was the residence of the Bishops of Rochester from the 12th century to 1845...
in disguise. For three years he led a wandering life in the west of England.
By Charles's command he published in 1646 a treatise on Church Lands not to be sold, or a Necessary and Plain Answer to the question of a Conscientious Protestant whether the lands of Bishops and Churches in England and Wales may be sold. On 4 February 1649, within a week of the execution of Charles I, he preached and afterwards published anonymously a sermon alludint to it on Luke xviii. 31: 'Behold we go up to Jerusalem, entitled The Devilish Conspiracy.
In 1649, on payment of a fine, the sequestrations on his property were discharged; but he refused to take the oaths to the usurping government, as he considered it to be. At the Restoration Warner and eight other sequestrated bishops who had survived resumed, the government of their diocesses. In 1661 parliament recalled the bishops to the House of Lords, and once more, on 11 February 1662, Warner was able to address his clergy in Rochester Cathedral. He died on 14 October 1666, aged 86, and was buried in Merton's Chapel in Rochester Cathedral, where a monument by Joshua Marshall exists to his memory.
Legacy
Warner was married, but he died without issue, and on his death his estates descended to his nephew John Lee, archdeacon of Rochester, who was the son of his sister, and who afterwards assumed the additional name of Warner in compliance with the terms of the bishop's will. Warner had inherited wealth, and endowed Bromley College (or Bishop Warner's College at BromleyBromley
Bromley is a large suburban town in south east London, England and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Bromley. It was historically a market town, and prior to 1963 was in the county of Kent and formed the administrative centre of the Municipal Borough of Bromley...
), a home for 20 widows of clergyman, to be supported by his estate at Swaton
Swaton
Swaton is a hamlet and civil parish in North Kesteven, Lincolnshire, England, off the A52 road on the B1394. The name comes from Suavetone or Swaffa’s Farmstead. The nearest town is Sleaford. The Roman Car Dyke runs to the east of the village. Roman brick pits are still extant. The Eau river rises...
, among numerous gifts and benefactions. Money he left for Scottish scholarships at Magdalen College, was refused, and Balliol College took it, urged by Thomas Good
Thomas Good
Thomas Good was an English academic and clergyman, and Master of Balliol College, Oxford. He is known as a moderate in and orthodox apologist for the Church of England, engaging with Richard Baxter and urging him to clarify a 'middle way'.-Life:Originally from the Tenbury Wells area of...
.
Gilbert Burnet
Gilbert Burnet
Gilbert Burnet was a Scottish theologian and historian, and Bishop of Salisbury. He was fluent in Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Burnet was respected as a cleric, a preacher, and an academic, as well as a writer and historian...
had a copy of the Articles of the Barons, the heads of agreement for the Magna Carta
Magna Carta
Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225...
, and he said it had come via John Lee from Warner, who had taken it from Lambeth Palace
Lambeth Palace
Lambeth Palace is the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury in England. It is located in Lambeth, on the south bank of the River Thames a short distance upstream of the Palace of Westminster on the opposite shore. It was acquired by the archbishopric around 1200...
at the time of Laud's arrest on 18 December 1640. Hugh Trevor-Roper finds this episode, in which Warner took papers of Laud's for safe-keeping or to avoid embarrassment, to be confused in its details when Burnet's account is compared with Laud's. But he doesn't rule out Burnet's version. Stephen Langton
Stephen Langton
Stephen Langton was Archbishop of Canterbury between 1207 and his death in 1228 and was a central figure in the dispute between King John of England and Pope Innocent III, which ultimately led to the issuing of Magna Carta in 1215...
took the Articles in 1215, and they were in the Lambeth archives.
Works
Warner published sermons, and contributed to Matthew PooleMatthew Poole
Matthew Poole was an English Nonconformist theologian.-Life to 1662:He was born at York, the son of Francis Pole, but he spelled his name Poole, and in Latin Polus; his mother was a daughter of Alderman Toppins there. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from 1645, under John...
's Synopsis Criticorum. In 1645 he published The Gayne of Losse, or Temporal Losses spiritually improved, in a Century and one Decad of Meditations and Resolves. The authorship of an anonymous manuscript diary giving eye-witness details of the House of Lords during the start of the Long parliament
Long Parliament
The Long Parliament was made on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its dissolution until after the English Civil War and...
is attributed to him, for example by Conrad Russell.
Further reading
- Edward Lee-Warner (1901), The Life of John Warner, Bishop of Rochester, 1637-1666 with appendix containing some account of his successors, the Lee-Warner family