John Preston (clergyman) - Chaplain-in-ordinary

Chaplain-in-ordinary

Preston's kinsman, Sir Ralph Freeman, who had married a relative of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, now took occasion to represent to Buckingham that he might make friends of the puritans by promoting Preston. Through Buckingham's interest he was made chaplain-in-ordinary to Prince Charles. He took the degree of Bachelor of Divinity in 1620. On Davenant's election (11 June 1621) to the see of Salisbury, Preston had some expectation of succeeding him as Margaret professor of divinity. He felt his Latin to be rusty, and, as an exercise in speaking Latin, he resolved on a visit to the Dutch universities, a project which he carried out with a singular excess of precaution.

From the privy council he obtained the necessary license for travel. He gave out that he was going, the next vacation, to visit Sir Richard Sandys in Kent, and possibly to drink the Tunbridge waters. From the Kentish coast he took boat for Rotterdam, in a lay habit with 'scarlet cloake' and 'gold hat band'. In Holland he consorted with Roman Catholics as well as Protestants. On his return to Cambridge he met the rumour of his having been beyond the seas with a wonder 'at their silliness, that they would believe so unlikely a relation'. After all he had been outwitted, for Williams, the lord keeper, suspecting some puritan plot, had set a spy on his movements, who sent weekly intelligence of his doings.