John Incent - Education and Career

Education and Career

At the age of 20, Incent studied civil law for one year at Cambridge University, continuing his studies at All Souls College, Oxford and graduating as a Bachelor of Common Law. In 1509 he was appointed as an ecclesiastical lawyer in the Chancellor's Court. Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester and the Lord Privy Seal, appointed Incent in 1512 Commissary and President of the Episcopal Consistory in the Winchester diocese. Incent became a Doctor of Civil Law in 1513, and in the same year he was ordained as a priest in the Church of England.

Incent's career continued to flourish: he took charge of several parishes around Winchester; became master of the Hospital of St Cross in Winchester and the Hospital of Domus Dei in Portsmouth; and he acquired a prebendal stall in St Paul’s Cathedral. Upon Bishop Foxe's death in 1529, Cardinal Wolsey became Bishop of Winchester and Incent soon became Chaplain to King Henry VIII, serving during the turbulent period of Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Following the break with Rome, Incent, like many other clergy, renounced Roman Catholicism.

Incent's loyalty to the king was evident; he was a faithful supporter of the king's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, who was a leader of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and probably played an active part in the destruction of religious houses. In 1540 he turned the Domus Dei Hospital over to the Crown for use as an arsenal in the coastal defences against France. Incent's devotion was rewarded when he was appointed by the king as Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral. Cromwell, meanwhile had fallen into disfavour with the king and he was executed that same year.

  • St Paul's Cathedral as it appeared in Incent's day (illustration c.1670)

  • Incent was Chaplain to Henry VIII from 1529

  • Thomas Cromwell

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