Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/323

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Fuller
317
Fuller

House early in 1644, and his biographer states that he encouraged the garrison in their sallies on some occasions. The dates, however, are confused. He was preaching at Oxford 10 May 1644. Later in the year he followed Hopton to the west. By the autumn he was at Exeter, where the queen's fourth child, the Princess Henrietta, was born 16 June 1644. The king was at Exeter, after the surrender of Essex's army (1 Sept. 1644), and appointed Fuller chaplain to the new-born infant. He further pressed upon Fuller a presentation to a living in Dorchester. Fuller, however, declined an offer which could hardly have been carried into effect. He gave up his chaplaincy to Hopton and stayed quietly at Exeter as a member of the princess's household. He preached and worked at his 'Worthies,' and wrote his 'Good Thoughts in Bad Times,' published at Exeter in 1645. In the winter of 1645-6 the town was invested by Fairfax. On 21 March 1645-6, Fuller was appointed to a lectureship founded at Exeter by Laurence Bodley [q. v.] On 9 April following the town surrendered to Fairfax under honourable articles. Fuller went to London, and on 1 June sent in a petition (facsimile in Bailey, p. 376), claiming the protection granted by the articles upon composition for his estate. He could not obtain terms which would permit of his being 'restored to the exercise of his profession.' He employed himself in writing his 'Andronicus,' published in the autumn. He had many influential friends who served him during the troubled times following so as to place him in a better position than most of the ejected clergy. Edward, lord Montagu (son of the first lord, who died 1644), had taken the parliamentary side. In the winter of 1646-7 he hospitably received his old college friend at Boughton House. Montagu was one of the commissioners who in February 1647 received the king at Holmby House. Fuller about the same period became intimate with Sir John Danvers [q. v.], in whose house at Chelsea he was a frequent guest. The intimacy continued until Danvers's death in 1655, although Danvers was one of those who signed the death-warrant of Charles. Fuller, it is said by his biographer, was so affected by the king's death as to throw aside the composition of the 'Worthies;' he preached a sermon on 'The Just Man's Funeral,' evidently referring to it; but he did not break with Danvers, one of the most regular judges at the trial. He was meanwhile leading an unsettled life, finding time to publish a few sermons and books of contemplation and occasionally preaching. In March 1647 he was lecturing in St. Clement's, Eastcheap, although from the preface to a sermon published in that year it appears that he was prohibited from preaching until further order. In 1648 or 1649 he was presented to the perpetual curacy of Waltham Abbey by the second Earl of Carlisle, who had come over to the parliament in March 1644 and compounded for his estate. Carlisle also made Fuller his chaplain. At Waltham, Fuller finished his 'Pisgah-sight of Palestine,' which appeared in 1650, after much delay due to the preparation of the plates. Book v. of Fuller's 'Church History' is dedicated to the third Earl of Middlesex, who lived at Copt Hall, near Waltham. The earl presented to Fuller 'what remained' of the library of his father, the first earl [see Cranfield, Lionel]. Fuller was constantly at Copt Hall, and speaks of the 'numerous and choice library' (Appeal, iii. 617). He was also frequently in London during his curacy at Waltham. He had access to the library at Sion College, where he had a chamber for some time; and he made acquaintance with merchants, many of whom are mentioned among the numerous recipients of his dedications. He was again lecturer at St. Clement's, where he preached every Wednesday, and he was lecturer at St. Bride's in 1655-6, and, it is said, at St. Andrew's, Holborn (Lloyd, Memoirs, p. 524). He is mentioned as preaching in various London churches (Bailey, pp. 527-8) during the following years. About the end of 1651 he married his second wife, Mary, daughter of Thomas Roper, viscount Baltinglasse, and granddaughter of James Pilkington, bishop of Durham. In March 1655 appeared his 'Church History,' which he had been preparing for many years. He had decided, after some hesitation, to bring the history down to his own time; and though necessarily written under constraint, the passages on which he speaks as a contemporary have a special value. His account of his authorities is given in the 'Appeal.' The book is divided into sections dedicated to a great number of patrons. This practice, adopted also in the 'Pisgah-sight,' was a rude form of the later method of publishing by subscription. It was ridiculed at the time by his opponent Heylyn, and by South, who pronounced the 'Terræ Filius' oration at Oxford in 1657 (printed in his 'Opera Posthuma Latina,' by Curll, 1717), where Fuller is described as running round London with his big book under one arm, and his little wife under the other, and recommending himself as a dinner guest by his facetious talk. This spiteful caricature had probably a grain of likeness. John Barnard (d. 1683) [q. v.], editor of Heylyn's 'Tracts' (1681), gives a similar account, which, though