Nicholas Felton (1556–1626) was an English academic, the Bishop of Bristol from 1617 to 1619, and then Bishop of Ely.
Life
He was born in Great Yarmouth and educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. He was rector of St Mary-le-Bow church in London, from 1597 to 1617; and also rector at St Antholin, Budge Row. St Antholin's was on Watling Street, and it has been suggested that the 1606 play The Puritan, or the Widow of Watling Street alludes to Felton through the name Nicholas St Antlings of one of the Widow's serving men.
He was Master at Pembroke, where he became a Fellow in 1583, from 1616 to 1619. In university politics, he conspicuously supported Thomas Howard, Earl of Berkshire, against George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, in an election for the position of Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, in 1626. King Charles I of England supported Buckingham, and this contest became a test of strength of the religious groups, Puritan and Anglican. He employed as chaplain Edmund Calamy, who had studied at Pembroke, already dissenting from orthodox Anglican belief.
His death was the occasion of an early Latin poem by John Milton.
Notes
- Bishops of Bristol
- "Felton, Nicholas (FLTN577N)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- St Mary le Bow Church
- Swapan Chakravorty, Society and Politics in the Plays of Thomas Middleton (1996), p. 63.
- Pembroke College
- William Riley Parker, revised Gordon Campbell, Milton: A Biography (1996), p. 36.
- Profiles in Puritanism William Barker Archived 2008-10-12 at the Wayback Machine
- Thomas N. Corns, A Companion to Milton (2001), p. 111.
- Graham Parry, The Arts of the Anglican Counter-Reformation: Glory, Laud and Honour (2006), p. 154.
- online text and translation
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded bySamuel Harsnett | Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge 1616–1619 |
Succeeded byJerome Beale |
| Church of England titles | ||
| Preceded byJohn Thornborough | Bishop of Bristol 1617–1619 |
Succeeded byRowland Searchfield |
| Preceded byLancelot Andrewes | Bishop of Ely 1619–1626 |
Succeeded byJohn Buckeridge |
| Bishops of Bristol | |
|---|---|
| For the sole Bishop suffragan of Bristol, see Henry Holbeach | |
| Bristol (1542) |
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| Bristol (1897) | |
| Bishops of Ely | |
|---|---|
| High Medieval | |
| Late Medieval | |
| Early modern |
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| Late modern | |