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 1519 - 1575 (56 years)
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| Name |
Harpsfield, Nicholas |
| Born |
16 May 1519 |
St Mary Magdalen, Old Fish Street, London, England  |
| Gender |
Male |
| Died |
18 Dec 1575 |
London, England |
| Person ID |
I07524 |
My Genealogy |
| Last Modified |
20 May 2015 |
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| Notes |
- ....Harpsfield was educated at Winchester College and studied canon and civil law in New College, Oxford receiving a BCL in 1543. In Oxford he became connected to the circle of Thomas More, of whom he later wrote a biography, ...With the more aggressive religious policies of the English Reformation following the accession of Edward VI in 1547, he left England in 1550 to pursue his studies in the Catholic University of Louvain....
Upon the accession of Mary I in 1553, Harpsfield returned to England, took the degree of DCL at Oxford in 1554, and became Archdeacon of Canterbury in the same year, serving under Reginald Pole . He superintended hundreds of trials targeting lay Protestants in London, which resulted in punishments and intimidation (though not any charges under the revived Heresy Acts.
Harpsfield defiantly opposed the new regime of Elizabeth I, opposing the election of Matthew Parker and refusing to subscribe to the Book of Common Prayer. At some point between 1559 and 1562, he was committed to Fleet Prison, together with his brother John Harpsfield, for his refusal to swear the Oath of Supremacy. He remained in prison until his release on health grounds in 1574, sixteen months before his death.
Wiltshire Notes and Queries:
NICHOLAS HARPESFELD, bust, represented as St. Jerome, beating his breast with a stone, garment of green and buff fur; inscribed NICHOLAUS ARCHIDIACONUS CANTUARIRENSIS; panel i8 in. by 15 in.; ? of Wilts, first Regius Professor of Greek; a Catholic historian, imprisoned in the Tower, d. 1575; he and his brother John, Warden-elect of New College and also Regius Professor of Greek, a zealous opponent of the Reformation, imprisoned in the Fleet, were according to Kirby's Winchester Scholars born in London, but a Nicholas Harpysfield was born at Wishford in 1474, a student of Bologna, and went on pilgrimage to Rome. The writer would like to hear something more about this family.
May have died 1583.
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