A History of Chester Cathedral / with biographical notices of the Bishops and Deans

by John Hicklin

William Chadderton, D.D., was born at Nuthurst, near Manchester. He was educated at the Grammar School of Manchester, and afterwards became Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge. In 1567 he was appointed Regius and Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity, and the following year President of Queen’s College. Shortly afterwards he became a Canon of Westminster, and was fortunate in being appointed chaplain to the royal favourite, Dudley, Earl of Leicester, to whom he was chiefly indebted for his subsequent promotion. In 1568 he became Archdeacon of York, and held the dignity for ten years. In 1579 he was nominated to the see of Chester, which had been for some time vacant, and in the same year he accepted the Wardenship of Manchester, where he chiefly resided. He was a member of the Ecclesiastical Commission for the North; and it must be admitted that he used considerable severity towards the Papists, fines and imprisonments being amongst the strongest arguments he employed to induce that body to acknowledge the queen’s supremacy. One of the priests executed at Lancaster, in 1584, as a traitor and rebel, complained of Chadderton as “a Calvinist, and a false and cruel Bishop,” charges which lose much of their severity when proceeding from the friend of Campian and Parsons. Antony á Wood says, that “the Bishop showed more respect to a cloak than a cassock,” and there is no doubt that he was a successful preacher, and a zealous puritan; although by a reference to the Act Books of the Bishop of Chester it will be found that he was strict in enforcing the use of clerical vestments, and both suspended and deprived some of his clergy for their disregard of the Rubric. On the 5th April, 1595, he was translated to Lincoln, when he resigned the Wardenship of Manchester. He died at Southoe, in Huntingdonshire, April 11th, 1608.

Hugh Bellot, D.D., second son of Thomas Bellot, Esq., of Moreton Hall, in the county of Chester. Le Neve says he was brought up in Queen’s College, Cambridge, though Leycester gives him to St. John’s. He was Proctor in 1570, and afterwards Rector of Tydd, near Wisbeach, and Vicar of Gresford, both in episcopal patronage. He was consecrated Bishop of Bangor in the year 1585, and translated to Chester June 25th, 1595. He was Bishop of Chester about seven months, and was buried at Wrexham, in Denbighshire, in 1596, aged 54, where a monument was erected to his memory by his brother, Cuthbert Bellot, Prebendary of Chester.

Richard Vaughan, D.D., a native of Caernarvonshire, educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, and one of the queen’s chaplains. He was B.D. in Oct., 1588, when he was collated by Bishop Aylmer to the Archdeaconry of Middlesex. He was also a Canon of Wells. He succeeded Bellot in the see of Bangor, and was also his successor at Chester, being translated thither, according to Lee, May 16th, 1596, which is probably the correct date, although the generality of his biographers state that he did not become Bishop of Chester until 1597, which might be the date of his consecration. He was translated to London in 1604, and, dying of apoplexy on the 30th March, 1607, was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Wood says he was accounted an excellent preacher and pious liver. It appears from the Bishop’s registers that, like some of his predecessors, he was much concerned to repress the spirit of insubordination and impatience of episcopal restraint which he found existing among his clergy. Failing in his attempts to act as the spiritual adviser and comforter of his clerical brethren, and to uproot their antipathy to certain ancient and decent ecclesiastical forms, he frequently cited them to appear before him in the parish church of Aldford, in which village he then resided, and publicly vindicated in their presence the polity of the church. The bishop did not succeed, however, in removing the scruples of these good men, who regarded their superior as one who sought to fetter their independence and destroy their liberty. On the 3rd of Oct. 1604, a large body of Lancashire dissentients appeared before the bishop at Aldford. They appear to have been men of holy character, laborious in the discharge of their ministerial functions in populous parishes, and apparently received kind and impartial treatment. They were all publicly admonished by the bishop, and required to conform to the liturgy and ceremonies of the church, and also to subscribe, ex animo, to the three articles in the 36th canon. They were cited to appear again at the same place on the 28th of November following, but only one complied with the order. In those days, when roads were proverbially bad, and public conveyances unknown, a journey to Aldford must have been attended with serious inconveniences, especially on a gloomy and boisterous November day. Burnet says, in reference to these dissentients, that “they were very factious and insolent.” During the Episcopate of Bishop Vaughan, the cathedral was much repaired; he caused the bells to be re-cast and hung in the great tower; the west roof he had new leaded, and the timber work repaired. On his translation to London—

George Lloyd, D.D., rector of Halsall, near Ormskirk, and bishop of Sodor and Man in 1509, was translated to Chester January 14th, 1604–5. He died at Thornton-in-the-Moors, near Chester, of which parish he was Rector, on the 1st of August, 1615, aged 55 years, and was privately buried in the choir of the Cathedral of Chester.

Gerard Massie, B.D., was nominated to the bishopric on the death of Lloyd; but died before consecration.

Thomas Moreton, S.T.P., son of Richard Moreton, of York, Mercer, born in that city, March 20th, 1564, and educated there and at Halifax. He distinguished himself by his extensive classical and theological attainments at Cambridge, and was elected a Fellow of St. John’s College. He became B.D. in 1598, and was presented to the rectory of Long Marston, near Tadcaster. In 1602 he rendered himself conspicuous by his fearless attendance on the sick during the prevalence of the plague in York; and becoming chaplain to Lord Evers, accompanied that nobleman, in 1603, in his embassy to the Emperor of Germany. On his return he was appointed domestic chaplain to the Earl of Rutland, and wrote the first part of the Apologia Catholica, in consequence of the merit of which Archbishop Matthews collated him to a prependal stall at York. In 1608 he graduated D.D., and was appointed chaplain to James I., from whom he received the deanery of Gloucester; and in the following year succeeded to the deanery of Winchester. He was a great benefactor to Winchester Cathedral. He was elected Bishop of Chester May 22nd, 1616, and was consecrated at Lambeth July 7th. With this see he held the rectory of Stockport, and diligently applied himself to reconcile popish recusants and scrupulous non-conformists to the church; and his success was noticed in the royal declaration in 1618. He was translated to Lichfield and Coventry March 6th, 1618, and advanced to Durham June 29th, 1632. He died at the house of Sir Henry Yelverton, Bart., at Easton Mauduit, Northamptonshire, September 23rd, 1659, aged 95 years, unmarried, and was buried in the parish church there, with a long epitaph recounting his preferments and sufferings. He endured, with much resignation, hardships, confiscation, and imprisonment. Clarendon mentions Bishop Moreton as being one of the “less formal and more popular prelates.”

John Bridgeman, D.D., the successor of Moreton, was educated at Cambridge, and elected Fellow of Magdalen College, of which he was afterwards chosen master, and appointed chaplain to James I. He was also prebendary of Lichfield and Peterborough. He was consecrated Bishop of Chester 9th May, 1619, at Lambeth, the revenues of the sees amounting at that time to £420 per annum. In 1621 he became rector of Bangor-Iscoed, in Flintshire. He held his see until episcopacy was suspended under the commonwealth; and on the 15th December, 1650, his palace, with all the furniture, was sold by the republicans for £1059. He died at his son’s house at Moreton, and was buried at Kinnersley church, in Shropshire, about the year 1658. Bishop Bridgeman maintained annually at his own expense, hopeful young men at the University, and preferred some to ecclesiastical honours, who afterwards assisted to deprive him of his mitre. He was father of Sir Orlando Bridgeman, created Baronet June 7th, 1660, who was successively Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. He was also the direct ancestor of the present Earl of Bradford.

Brian Walton, D.D., a native of Cleveland, in the north riding of Yorkshire, born in the year 1600, admitted of Magdalen College, Cambridge, as a sizer, and removed thence to St. Peter’s College in 1616. He graduated M.A. in 1623, and D.D. in 1639, being then a prebendary of St. Paul’s, and chaplain to Charles I. His persecutions and losses during the great rebellion having driven him into retirement, he projected his great work, the Polyglot Bible, an imperishable monument of his learning and industry, which was first printed at London in six folio volumes in 1657. On presenting this work to Charles II. at the restoration, he was made chaplain to the king, and consecrated Bishop of Chester in Westminster Abbey, on the 2nd December, 1660. A. á Wood gives a minute and graphic description of the enthusiastic reception which the bishop met with when he went to take possession of this long desecrated see. The joy of the people on the national resuscitation of episcopacy was unbounded, and evinced itself by the most public and decided manifestations.—Wood’s Athenæ, Vol. 2, p. 731. He enjoyed his dignity for a short time only, and dying at his house in Aldersgate-street, London, on the 29th November, 1661, aged 62, was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Henry Ferne, D.D. was born at York, in 1642, he was chaplain to Charles I.; he was one of the king’s commissioners, along with Sheldon, Hammond, and others, to treat at Uxbridge, in matters relating to the Church. He was a personal favourite of the king, and suffered much for the royal cause; but at the Restoration, a succession of dignities and rewards were conferred upon him. He was consecrated Bishop of Chester, February 9th, 1661–2, and died five weeks afterwards, on March 16th, and was buried with great honour March 25th, 1662, aged 59 years, having never been at Chester. In 1642, he published his “Case of Conscience touching Rebellion,” being the first printed vindication of the royal cause.

George Hall, D.D. son of the pious and learned Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, was entered of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1628, being then aged 16 years, elected Fellow of his college in 1632, collated to a Prebend in Exeter Cathedral, in 1639, and installed Archdeacon of Cornwall, October 8th, 1641. He was presented by his college to the vicarage of Menherriot, near Liskeard, but was deprived of his benefice, and prevented keeping a school for his subsistence, during the usurpation. At the Restoration, he became chaplain to the king, was appointed Canon of Windsor, and collated by Archbishop Juxon to the Archdeaconry of Canterbury in 1660, which latter dignity he held in commendam with the see of Chester, of which he was consecrated bishop May 11th, 1662. About the same time he was presented to the rectory of Wigan, by Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. His death was occasioned by a wound he received from a knife which happened to be in his pocket, as he accidentally fell from a terrace in the rectory gardens at Wigan, on the 23rd August, 1668, aged 55 years. He was buried in the rector’s chancel, within Wigan church, where a marble monument was erected to his memory, on which he is styled “Ecclesiæ Dei servus inutilis, sed cordatus.” He published several sermons, and a treatise against popery, with the singular title of “The Triumphs of Romans over Despised Protestancy. London, 1655.”