Richard Butler (English priest)

Richard Butler (died 14 September 1612) was Archdeacon of Northampton from 9 July 1611 until his death.[1] Butler was among the earliest Arminians, along with John Buckeridge (his predecessor), Benjamin Carier, and Richard Neile.[2][3]

Butler was educated at St John's College, Cambridge.[4] He was ordained deacon and priest in 1588 at Peterborough. He held incumbencies at Spratton (starting 1591) and Ashton-in-the-Wall (starting 1602).[3]

Butler attended the Hampton Court Conference of 1604, where he famously described Puritans as being Prostestants "frayed out of [their] wits".[3] He received his Doctor of Divinity in 1608, on the same day as William Laud.[3] Butler assisted Neile in the examination of Edward Wightman, who was the last person to be burned at the stake in England for heresy.[3] Butler was one of the founding benefactors of St John's College, Oxford, to which he bequeathed certain medieval manuscripts, including Richard Rolle's Parce mihi.[5]

References
  1. Horn, Joyce M. (1996), Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541–1857, vol. 8, pp. 122–123
  2. Cambers, Andrew (2012). Lewycky, Nadine; Morton, Adam (eds.). "Reading Libels in Early Seventeenth-Century Northamptonshire". Getting Along? Religious Identities and Confessional Relations in Early Modern England - Essays in Honour of Professor W.J. Shiels. St Andrews Studies in Reformation History. Ashgate: 118.
  3. Foster, Andrew. "Butler, Richard (d. 1612), Church of England clergyman". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/65644. Retrieved 5 December 2021.
  4. Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900, John Venn/John Archibald Venn Cambridge University Press > (10 volumes 1922 to 1953) Part II. 1752–1900 Vol. i. Abbas – Cutts, (1922) p273
  5. Ogilvie-Thomson, S. J. (2007). The Index of Middle English Prose: Handlist VIII. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. p. xviii.


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