[A.D. 1597-1610.] Gervas Babington, translated from Exeter.
[A.D. 1610-1616.] Henry Parry, translated from Gloucester.
[A.D. 1616-1641.] John Thornborough, translated from Bristol. (See that Cathedral, Pt. II.)
[A.D. 1641-1650.] John Prideaux, was born at Stowford, in the parish of Harford, in Devonshire. His family, although entitled to bear the arms of Prideaux, was in poor circumstances; and the future Bishop became a candidate for the place of parish clerk at Ugborough, and was disappointed. A friend sent him to school for a short time; and he then travelled on foot to Oxford, where he was employed in the kitchen of Exeter College. In 1596, when his abilities had become known, he was admitted a member of the college, of which he eventually became Rector. In 1615 he was made Regius Professor of Divinity, and in 1641 became Bishop. “If I could have been clerk of Ugborough,” he used often to say, “I had never been Bishop of Worcester.”
Bishop Prideaux was an unflinching Royalist, and excommunicated all in his diocese who took up arms against the King. He was of course severely treated in his turn; his palace was plundered, and he was obliged to sell his library as a last means of support. He died at Bredon, in Worcestershire, in 1650, in the house of his son-in-law, Dr. Sutton. An elegy on his death will be found among the works of the Cavalier poet Cleveland. A full account of Bishop Prideaux, with some interesting local anecdotes, is given by Prince in his “Worthies of Devon.”
[A.D. 1660-1662.] The first Bishop of Worcester after the Restoration was George Morley, translated to Winchester 1662. (See that Cathedral, Pt. II.)
[A.D. 1662, died the same year.] John Gauden, translated from Exeter. (See that Cathedral, Pt. II.)
[A.D. 1662, translated to Salisbury 1663.] John Earle. (See Salisbury, Pt. II.)
[A.D. 1663-1670.] Robert Skinner, had been consecrated to the see of Bristol in 1637, and had been translated to Oxford in 1641. During the civil war he was imprisoned by the Puritans. He died at the age of eighty, the last English bishop who had been consecrated before the Great Rebellion.
[A.D. 1671-1675.] Walter Blandford, Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, translated from Oxford.