Perceval Wiburn or Wyburn (Percival) (1533?-1606?) was an English clergyman, a Marian exile, suspected nonconformist and Puritan, and polemical opponent of Robert Parsons.

Life

Born about 1533, he was admitted a scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge, on 11 November 1546, and matriculated as a pensioner in the same month. He proceeded B.A, in 1551, and on 8 April 1552 he was elected and admitted a fellow of his college.

A man of strong Protestant opinions, he sympathised with the reforming tendencies of Edward VI's government, and after the accession of Queen Mary

Mary I of England

Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...

 he left England. In May 1557 he joined the English congregation at Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

. On the accession of Elizabeth he returned to England; in 1558 he proceeded M.A., and in the same year was appointed junior dean and philosophy lecturer in his college. On 25 January 1560 he was ordained deacon

Deacon

Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...

 by Edmund Grindal

Edmund Grindal

Edmund Grindal was an English church leader who successively held the posts of Bishop of London, Archbishop of York and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Elizabeth I of England.-Early life to the death of Edward VI:...

, and on 27 March 1560 he received priest's orders from Richard Davies. On 24 February 1561 he was installed a prebendary of Norwich, and on 6 April 1561 was admitted a senior fellow of St. John's College. On 23 November 1561 he was installed a canon of Westminster.

Wiburn took part, as proctor of the clergy of Rochester, in the convocation of 1562, and subscribed the revised articles. On 8 March 1564 he was instituted to the vicarage of St. Sepulchre's, Holborn. In the same year however, he was sequestered on refusing subscription, and, a married man, in order to maintain his family employed himself in husbandry. The ecclesiastical authorities connived at his keeping his prebends and at his preaching in public.

In 1566 he visited Theodore Beza

Theodore Beza

Theodore Beza was a French Protestant Christian theologian and scholar who played an important role in the Reformation...

 at Geneva and Heinrich Bullinger

Heinrich Bullinger

Heinrich Bullinger was a Swiss reformer, the successor of Huldrych Zwingli as head of the Zurich church and pastor at Grossmünster...

 at Zurich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

, and to solicit assistance from the Swiss reformers. It was probably at this time that Wiburn wrote his manuscript description of the State of the Church of England. He was suspected by the English ecclesiastics of calumniating the church, an accusation which rejected, and which in a letter dated 25 Feb. 1567 he asked Bullinger to contradict.

In June 1571 Wiburn was cited for nonconformity before Archbishop Matthew Parker

Matthew Parker

Matthew Parker was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1559 until his death in 1575. He was also an influential theologian and arguably the co-founder of Anglican theological thought....

, together with Christopher Goodman

Christopher Goodman

Christopher Goodman BD was an English reforming clergyman and writer. He was a Marian exile, who left England to escape persecution during the counter-reformation in the reign of Queen Mary I of England. He was the author of a work on limits to obedience to rulers, and a contributor to the Geneva...

, Thomas Lever

Thomas Lever

Thomas Lever was an English Protestant reformer and Marian exile, one of the founders of the Puritan tendency in the Church of England.-Life:...

, Thomas Sampson

Thomas Sampson

Thomas Sampson was an English Puritan theologian. A Marian exile, he was one of the Geneva Bible translators. On his return to England, he had trouble with conformity to the Anglican practices...

, and some others, and in 1573 he was examined by the council concerning his opinion on the Admonition to the Parliament, which had appeared in the preceding year Wiburn declared that the opinions expressed in it were not lawful, but he was forbidden to preach until further orders. He was later restored to the ministry, and was preacher at Rochester.

In 1581 he was one of the divines chosen for their learning and theological attainments to dispute with the papists. In the same year he published a reply to Robert Parsons, who under the name of John Howlet had dedicated his Brief Discourse to Queen Elizabeth. Wiburn's treatise was entitled A Checke or Reproofe of M. Howlets vntimely shreeching in her Majesties eares. He was again suspended from preaching in 1583, by Archbishop John Whitgift

John Whitgift

John Whitgift was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583 to his death. Noted for his hospitality, he was somewhat ostentatious in his habits, sometimes visiting Canterbury and other towns attended by a retinue of 800 horsemen...

. He continued under suspension for at least five years.

Towards the close of his life he preached at Battersea

Battersea

Battersea is an area of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is an inner-city district of South London, situated on the south side of the River Thames, 2.9 miles south-west of Charing Cross. Battersea spans from Fairfield in the west to Queenstown in the east...

, near London. Being disabled for a time by breaking his leg, he was assisted by Richard Sedgwick. He died about 1606 at an advanced age.