George Morley
1598–1684
Later Bishop of Winchester; senior Anglican manager of the Restoration settlement.
Biography
Of Christ Church Oxford under Brian Duppa, Morley was royal chaplain to Charles I and a familiar of Sidney's circle at Great Tew (Lord Falkland's house, where Clarendon, Sheldon, Chillingworth, and Hammond met). Named to the Westminster Assembly but he refused to sit, remaining with the king's cause; he was deprived of his Christ Church canonry and went into exile in Antwerp, the Hague, and Breda as one of Charles II's most trusted exiled chaplains. He preached the sermon at Charles II's coronation at Scone in 1651 and was the senior chaplain to the king in Brussels through the late 1650s. At the Restoration he became Bishop of Worcester (1660) and then Winchester (1662-84), and was the senior Anglican manager — alongside Sheldon — of the Savoy Conference (1661) and the negotiations that produced the Act of Uniformity and the Great Ejection. Died in 1684, aged 86.
Principal works
- A Modest Advertisement Concerning the Present Controversie about Church Government (1641)
- Several Treatises (1683)
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.