Queen Elizabeth. He now resigned his Deanery to the most pious and ingenious Dr. John Donne, as also his stall in the Church of Lincoln, having vacated the Mastership of Christ College in the preceding year. Dying in 1627, he was succeeded at Exeter by the famous Dr. Joseph Hall, then Dean of Worcester.* Fuller's father having left Cambridge, was, on the 6th of September, 1632, instituted to the Rectory of Aldwinckle, St. Peter's, on the presentation of Thomas Cecil Lord Burghley,+ Dr. Thomas Dove being then Bishop of Peterborough. At Aldwinckle his son Thomas, the Church Historian and antiquary, was born; and on the 19th of June, 1608, appears, by the parochial register, to have been baptized. There are preserved also the dates of the baptisms of his brother John, afterward of Sidney Sussex College, and of his four sisters: 1609. Elizabeth, 22 Jany. 1612. Mary, 13 Septr. 1613. Judith, 21 November. 1615. John, 30 July. *Baker's MSS. vol. xxvii. p 208. Nichols' Progresses of James I. Willis's Cathedrals, p. 244. Wood's Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. p. 294. Fuller dedicated the 5th book of his "Pisgah Sight" to the Right Hon. John Lord Burghley, son to the Right Hon. John, Earl of Exeter. In the Dedication he says, Now the first light which I saw in this world was in a benefice conferred on my father by your most honourable great-grandfather, and therefore I stand obliged in all thankfulness to your family." p. 140. 1616. Anne, 23 March.* It has been already observed that Fuller's maternal grandmother is the Davenant, whose tomb is to be seen on the south side of the chancel of St. Peter's, Aldwinckle. His father married her daughter Judith, and Dr. Robert Tounson her daughter Margaret. Tounson was a native of St. Botolph's parish, Cambridge, was educated at Queen's College in that University, and chosen to a Fellowship there. In 1604, he was Vicar of Wellingborough,† and in 1606 Rector of Old or Wold, a village about eight miles to the north of Northampton, and near the ancient church of Brixworth. To the rectory of Old, which he retained until his promotion to the see of Salisbury, he was presented by William and Francis Tate, of de la Pre, in the county of Northampton, knts. He was also chaplain to James the First, and, in 1617, on the promotion of the courtier, George Mounteigne, to the Bishop Davenant in his will, dated January 29th, 1637, left to the three daughters of his sister Fuller, Elizabeth, Anne and Margaret,' £50. each; to his nephew Thomas Fuller, B. D. £4. and to his brother John £20. upon his taking his degree of A. M. Cassan's Lives of the Bishops of Salisbury. Part ii. p. 121. + Bridges' Northamptonshire, ii. p. 151. He was chosen Fellow of Qu. Coll. Sept. 2, 1597. Feb. 16th, 1606. Bliss's Wood's Fasti, i. p. 203. And see Fuller's Worthies. Cambridgeshire, pp. 153, 154. ' Margaret is probably a mistake for Mary. As no mention is here made of Judith, probably she had died before see of Lincoln, succeeded him as Dean of Westminster. He was in July, 1620, consecrated by Archbishop Abbot, Monteigne, Bishop of Lincoln, Buckeridge, Bishop of Rochester, and Bridgman, Bishop of Chester, to the see of Salisbury. His character was that of the most unimpeachable integrity, as his nephew, Dr. Fuller, sufficiently evinces in his own "Appeal of Injured Innocence," or Answer to Heylyn. Dr. Tounson died on the 20th of April, 1620, leaving a widow and fifteen children. Of these, his son Robert, born in Northamptonshire, was, on November 24th, 1625, elected to a Fellowship also in Queen's College.* Dr. Tounson was succeeded at Salisbury by the profound and erudite Dr. John Davenant, also uncle to Dr. Fuller. Dr. Davenant was at this time President of Queen's College, and Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity. In 1622 he preferred his brother in law, Thomas Fuller of Aldwinckle, to the prebendal stall of Highworth in his Church of Sarum, then vacant by the decease of Henry Cotton. This stall our author's father held till his death in 1632,† upon which Bishop Davenant presented to it John Tounson, probably a son of his predecessor in this see. Bishop Davenant was Vicar of Oakington near Cambridge, from April to December, 1612. Ful * Regist. Baker's MSS. Brit. Mus. + In 1632 William, Earl of Exeter, presented to St. Peter's, Aldwinckle, on the death of Thomas Fuller, John Webster, B. D. who was instituted April 30. Bishop Andrewes' Register. Baker's MSS. vol. xxviii. p. 229. ler in the second book of his Church History, relates the following anecdote of him: "A reverend Doctor in Cambridge, and afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, was troubled at his small living at Hogginton (Oakington) with a peremptory Anabaptist, who plainly told him, 'It goes against my conscience to pay you tithes, except you can show me a place of Scripture whereby they are due unto you.' The Doctor returned, 'Why should it not go as much against my conscience, that you should enjoy your nine parts, for which you can show no place of Scripture ?' To whom the other rejoined, 'But I have for my land deeds and evidences from my fathers, who purchased and were peaceably possessed thereof by the laws of the land.' 'The same is my title,' saith the Doctor; 'tithes being confirmed unto me by many statutes of the land, time out of mind.' Thus he drave that nail not which was of the strongest metal or sharpest point, but which would go best for the present. It was argumentum ad hominem fittest for the person he was to meddle with, who afterwards peaceably paid his tithes unto him. Had the Doctor engaged in Scripture argument, though never so pregnant and pertinent, it had been endless to dispute with him, who made clamour the end of his dispute, whose obstinacy and ignorance made him incapable of solid reason, and therefore the worse the argument, the better for his apprehension." * *Ch. Hist. B. ii. p. 112. CHAPTER II. Dr. Fuller's Friends at the University. F the earlier years of Dr. Fuller no a boy of a pregnant wit, and when the Bishop [Davenant his uncle] and his father were discoursing, he would be by and hearken, and now and then put in, and sometimes beyond expectation, or his years. He was of a middle stature, strong set, curled hair, a very working head, in so much, that walking and meditating before dinner, he would eat up a penny loaf, not knowing that he did it."* Fuller was educated for about four years in a private school at Aldwinckle, under the Rev. Arthur Smith, who in September 1621, appears to have compounded for his first fruits as Vicar of Oundle.+ He was probably the same who was B. A. of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1608, and M. A. 1612. * Aubrey's Letters. London, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 334. + Univ. Register. |