Stephen Egerton (priest)

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Stephen Egerton (1555?-1621?) was an English priest, a leading

Puritan preacher of his time, who was also active in agitating for reform of the Church of England.[1]

Life

He was born in London about 1555, younger son of Thomas Egerton,

Fleet prison, where he remained about three years.[3]

In 1598 he became minister of

William Googe, who succeeded him. He was described by Alexander Nowell, in a letter, as a "man of great learning and godliness."[3]

Family

He married in 1585 Sarah Crooke, daughter of Thomas Crooke.[4] Sarah's father and her brother Samuel Crooke were both clergymen who shared Egerton's strongly Puritan beliefs; another of Sarah's brothers, Sir Thomas Crooke, 1st Baronet, is best remembered as the founder of the town of Baltimore, County Cork. They had no children; Sarah died in 1624, bequeathing her husband's death's head ring to her brother Thomas.

Stephen had obviously been very close to his sister Anne, widow of John Tyndal, who at her death in 1620 had bequeathed to her "kind and loving brother Stephen" a gilt tankard.

Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.[6]
Margaret and her aunt Sarah were close, and Sarah left a substantial legacy to Margaret.

Works

Egerton published sermons, but few of them remain. Among those of his works still extant are A Brief Method of Catechising, first issued in 1594, which in 1644 reached a forty-fourth edition; and a translation from the French of Mathieu Virel entitled A Learned and Excellent Treatise containing all principal Grounds of the Christian Religion, the earliest edition of which now remaining is the fourth, published in 1597, and the latest the fourteenth in 1635. In addition to his own books he wrote introductions for several publications by his fellow puritans, including Richard Rogers, Robert Pricke, Baine, and Nicholas Byfield.[3]

Notes

  1. ^ Francis J. Bremer, Tom Webster, Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia (2006), p. 87.
  2. ^ "Egerton, Stephen (EGRN575S)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  3. ^ a b c Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1889). "Egerton, Stephen" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 17. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  4. ^ Waters, Robert Edmond Chetster. Memoirs of the Extinct Family of Chester of Chicheley (1878), p.278.
  5. ^ Waters p.278
  6. ^ Waters p.280
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1889). "Egerton, Stephen". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 17. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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