Thomas Westfield
1573–1644
Bishop of Bristol; aged Calvinist Episcopalian; declined the Assembly.
Biography
Of Jesus College Cambridge, then a long London ministry — vicar of Hornsey, archdeacon of St Albans, and finally Bishop of Bristol from 1642. Westfield was a Calvinist Episcopalian of the older Jacobean type, much closer doctrinally to the Westminster majority than to Laud's circle, but he refused the Assembly's summons out of episcopal loyalty. The royalists held Bristol from July 1643, and Westfield remained at his cathedral through the occupation. He died at Bristol in June 1644 — one of the older bishops whose physical survival into the Assembly years was brief.
Principal works
- Sermons (posthum. 1646)
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.