Giles Wigginton

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Giles Wigginton (fl. 1564 – 1597) was an English clergyman who became a fringe religious activist towards the end of the sixteenth century.

Life

Wigginton was born at

Puritan views. He commenced M.A. in 1572, having studied divinity, Greek, and Hebrew.[1][2]

On 3 September 1579 Wigginton was instituted to the vicarage of

St. Dunstan-in-the-West. Whitgift, by then archbishop of Canterbury, sent a pursuivant to Wigginton at night while he was in bed, to forbid him to preach and require him to give a bond for his appearance at Lambeth the next day. On his appearance before Whitgift he was tendered an oath ex officio to answer certain articles unknown to him. Wigginton refused, and Whitgift committed him to the Gatehouse Prison, where he remained for over two months. On his release he was admonished not to preach in the province of Canterbury without further licence.[2]

In the following year, on the information of Edward Middleton, Whitgift gave orders to Sandys to proceed against Wigginton, and he was in consequence cited before Chaderton and deprived of his living.

On 14 March 1586 Wigginton was present at the trial of

peine fort et dure for refusing to plead, Wigginton stood up in court and protested that she should not be put to death on the basis of a child's testimony and that while the Queen's law might allow such a penalty, God's law did not. Wiggington subsequently visited Clitherow in prison and tried to convert her, arguing that his faith gave him an assurance of salvation predestination which she admitted she did not possess, and that the willingness of Catholic priests to die for their faith did not prove its truth, since Protestants had also been martyred under Mary I. Clitherow's biographer Katharine Longley says that Fr John Mush's account of their exchanges suggest that Clitherow respected Wigginton's sincerity but he failed to shake her determination.[3]

Later in 1586, while visiting London, he was apprehended by one of Whitgift's pursuivants, brought before the archbishop at Lambeth, and, on refusing the oath again, was committed to the

White Lion prison, where he was treated harshly. He was removed to another prison, and, on failing through illness to obey a citation of the archbishop, he was sentenced to deprivation and degradation, in spite of the intercession of Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick and Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon.[2]

On his release and recovery he returned to Sedbergh, but without permission to preach. He did preach, at his own house and elsewhere, gathering large audiences. Whitgift then instigated Sandys to issue an attachment, and Wigginton was arrested by a pursuivant at

Marprelate tracts. Though he denied the accusation he declined the oath tendered to him, and was committed to the Gatehouse, where he long remained in confinement.[2]

During his imprisonment he was nearly involved in the punishment of the fanatic William Hacket, whom he had met at some time during a visit to Oundle, their common birthplace. He became a disciple, and was also the confidant, of another enthusiast, Edmund Coppinger. Around Easter 1591 Hacket came to London and visited Wigginton in prison. Wigginton introduced Hacket to Coppinger, and they found common cause in English ecclesiastical and social reform. It is not clear how far Wigginton was privy to the subsequent plotting, which ended in the suicide of Coppinger and the execution of Hacket. A pamphlet entitled The Fool's Bolt, put into circulation by them, is ascribed to him by John Strype.[2]

Around 1592 Wigginton was restored to the vicarage of Sedbergh by the direction of

Lord Burghley
.

The date of Wigginton's death is unknown.[2]

Works

On 4 April 1597 he wrote to Burghley, proposing the establishment of a seminary to train men for controversy with Catholic priests, and presenting him with a manuscript anti-Catholic treatise.[4] While in prison he composed A Treatise on Predestination. He was also the author of Giles Wigginton his Catechisme (London, 1589), and of several theological treatises in manuscript that came into the possession of Dawson Turner.[2]

References

  1. ^ "Wigginton, Giles (WGNN564G)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g "Wigginton, Giles" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  3. ^ Katharine Longley, St Margaret Clitherow, third edition 1998, earlier version published 1966 under pen-name Mary Claridge.
  4. Lansdowne MS.
    84, art. 105).
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Wigginton, Giles". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

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