Daniel Featley
1582–1645
Moderate Calvinist Episcopalian; expelled in 1643 after his royalist correspondence was intercepted.
Biography
Of Corpus Christi College Oxford, then chaplain to Archbishop Abbot at Lambeth (1617-33) and rector of Lambeth and Acton. Featley was a moderate conformist Calvinist of the older school — a determined anti-Catholic controversialist (Pelagius Redivivus, 1626) and an opponent of Laudian ceremonial. He was named to the Assembly but his correspondence with Archbishop Ussher in royalist Oxford was intercepted in October 1643 (he had been passing Assembly news to the royalist camp), and he was expelled and briefly imprisoned in Lord Petre's house. Wrote The Dippers Dipt (1645) against the early English Baptists from confinement. He died in April 1645 at Chelsea, the only Assembly member formally expelled.
Principal works
- The Dippers Dipt (1645)
- Pelagius Redivivus (1626)
Named in the ordinance
The 1643 ordinance that summoned the Assembly named some 121 divines. A number — chiefly episcopalians and royalists who heeded the King's proclamation forbidding the Assembly — never took their seats or sat only briefly; a few were later expelled. They are listed here for completeness as part of the originally-summoned roster.