William Downham
William Downham (1511–1577) was bishop of Chester.
Under Mary of England, he was chaplain to her sister Princess Elizabeth.[1] He became bishop of Chester in 1561, shortly after Elizabeth's accession.[2]
As bishop, he was considered rather ineffectual against the Roman Catholics, preferring not to offend the gentry.[3] The reformer Christopher Goodman attacked him in 1571, as supine, on a pretext of the continuing Whitsun plays.[4]
He had further problems with the diocesan finances, being dependent on rents that could prove hard to collect.[5] He also had very few university graduates among his candidates for ordination.[6]
Family
George Downame and John Downame were his sons.[7]
Notes
- ^ Andrew Pettegree, The Reformation: Critical Concepts in Historical Studies (2004), p. 337.
- ^ https://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=35844
- ^ Christopher Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire (1975), p. 210.
- ^ https://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=57329
- ^ Christopher Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire (1975), p. 225.
- ^ Richard L. Graves, Society and Religion in Elizabethan England (1981), p. 78.
- ^ Benjamin Brook, The Lives of the Puritans (1813), p. 496.