Robert Parfew (died 1557) was an English Benedictine abbot, at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

, and bishop successively of St Asaph and Hereford.

Life

He was probably born in the late years of the fifteenth century. He is known by different names, variants of two. He was a Cluniac monk, and became abbot of Bermondsey. In 1525 he is said to have proceeded B.D. at Cambridge. The list of supremacy acknowledgments does not include that of Bermondsey, but it seems clear, from his subsequent history, that Warton signed. On 8 June 1536 he was elected bishop of St. Asaph, but retained his abbacy in commendam

In Commendam

In canon law, commendam was a form of transferring an ecclesiastical benefice in trust to the custody of a patron...

 till 1538, when the abbey was suppressed, and Warton received a substantial pension.

Warton lived mostly at Denbigh

Denbigh

Denbigh is a market town and community in Denbighshire, Wales. Before 1888, it was the county town of Denbighshire. Denbigh lies 8 miles to the north west of Ruthin and to the south of St Asaph. It is about 13 miles from the seaside resort of Rhyl. The town grew around the glove-making industry...

. He took part in 1537 in the drawing up of The Institution of a Christian Man. On 18 August 1538 he received the surrender of the Carmelites

Carmelites

The Order of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel or Carmelites is a Catholic religious order perhaps founded in the 12th century on Mount Carmel, hence its name. However, historical records about its origin remain uncertain...

 of Denbigh Friary, and in 1539 he cautiously commended confession

Confession

This article is for the religious practice of confessing one's sins.Confession is the acknowledgment of sin or wrongs...

 as very requisite and expedient, though not enjoined by the word of God.

He had a plan, the revival of a plan of 1282, for moving the seat of the cathedral and grammar school of his diocese to Wrexham

Wrexham

Wrexham is a town in Wales. It is the administrative centre of the wider Wrexham County Borough, and the largest town in North Wales, located in the east of the region. It is situated between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley close to the border with Cheshire, England...

, and he wrote about it to Thomas Cromwell soon after his appointment. Afterwards he thought of Denbigh, where he was in 1538 made free of the borough. In 1537 he was present at the christening of Prince Edward

Edward VI of England

Edward VI was the King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant...

 and the funeral of Jane Seymour

Jane Seymour

Jane Seymour was Queen of England as the third wife of King Henry VIII. She succeeded Anne Boleyn as queen consort following the latter's execution for trumped up charges of high treason, incest and adultery in May 1536. She died of postnatal complications less than two weeks after the birth of...

; in 1538 he was at the reception of Anne of Cleves

Anne of Cleves

Anne of Cleves was a German noblewoman and the fourth wife of Henry VIII of England and as such she was Queen of England from 6 January 1540 to 9 July 1540. The marriage was never consummated, and she was not crowned queen consort...

, the declaration of whose nullity of marriage he afterwards signed. He liked to reside in his remote diocese; when in London, even after the dissolution, he seems to have stayed at Bermondsey. In 1548 he was one of those who in the drawing up of the Book of Common Prayer

Book of Common Prayer

The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...

represented the Bangor use. In 1551 he was placed on the council for Wales.

At the beginning 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...

's reign he was retained and was made a member of the commission which expelled most of the bishops. He was on 1 March 1554 translated to the diocese of Hereford

Diocese of Hereford

The Diocese of Hereford is a Church of England diocese based in Hereford, covering Herefordshire, southern Shropshire and a few parishes within Worcestershire in England; and a few parishes within Powys and Monmouthshire in Wales....

 in place of John Harley

John Harley (bishop)

John Harley was an English bishop of Hereford. A strong Protestant, he was praised in verse by John Leland.-Life:He was probably born at Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, according to Browne Willis. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, of which he was probationer-fellow from 1537 to 1542....

, who had been deprived. He died on 22 September 1557.