Daniel Featley - Early Life

Early Life

Featley was born at Charlton-upon-Otmoor, Oxfordshire, on 15 March 1582, the second son of John Fairclough. by his wife Marian Thrift. His father was cook to Laurence Humphrey, President of Magdalen College, Oxford, and afterwards to Corpus Christi College in the same university. Featley was the first of his family to adopt the surname.

He was educated as a chorister of Magdalen College. John Rainolds, President of Corpus, was his godfather and benefactor, and Featley is noted as a protégé of Rainolds, a leading Puritan spokesman. He was admitted scholar of Corpus Christi College 13 December 1594, and probationer fellow 20 September 1602, having taken his BA degree on 13 February 1601. He proceeded MA on 17 April 1606, and became noted as a disputant and preacher. In 1607 he delivered an oration at Rainolds' funeral.

In 1610 and for the two following years he was chaplain to Sir Thomas Edmondes, the English ambassador at Paris, and was noticed for his attacks on Catholic doctrine and his disputations with Jesuits. Twenty-one of the sermons preached by him in the ambassador's chapel are printed. Featley commenced BD on 8 July 1613, and was the preacher at the act of that year. He seems to have given offence by his plain speaking, even in consecration sermons.

Featley was domestic chaplain to George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury. For the benefit of Marc Anthony de Dominis and at Abbot's request, Featley in 1617 kept his exercise for the degree of DD under John Prideaux; Prideaux lost his temper, and Abbot had some difficulty in effecting a reconciliation. De Dominis, soon after appointed master of the Savoy, gave Featley a brother's place in that hospital. In 1610 he had preached the rehearsal sermon at Oxford, and by the Bishop of London's appointment he discharged the same duty at St. Paul's Cross in 1618.

At the invitation of an old pupil, Ezekiel Arscot, Featley accepted the rectory of North Hill, Cornwall, which he soon vacated on his institution by Abbot to the rectory of Lambeth, 6 February 1619. On 27 June 1623 a famous conference was held at the house of Sir Humphrey Lynde between Featley and Francis White, the dean of Carlisle, and the Jesuits John Piercy (alias Fisher) and John Sweet; an account was surreptitiously printed the same year, with the title The Fisher catched in his owne Net. Featley, by Abbot's command, prepared an elaborate report of that and other controversies. The king, James I, himself asked to engage with him in a disputation, which Featley afterwards published. Some time before 1625 Abbot gave him the rectory of Allhallows, Bread Street, which Featley was afterwards allowed to exchange for the rectory of Acton, Middlesex, to which he was instituted on 30 January 1627.

In 1622 Featley had married Mrs. Joyce Halloway, or Holloway. She was the daughter of William Kerwyn, and had already been twice married. There being at the time no parsonage at Lambeth, Featley resided in his wife's house at the end of Kennington Lane. He concealed his marriage for some time, in case it should interfere with his residence at Lambeth Palace; but in 1625 he ceased to be chaplain to Abbot. Featley had been refused admission to the palace, because an illness from which he was suffering was supposed to be the plague; it proved to be a sharp attack of ague, and he abruptly resigned.