He was also sequestered from his livings of Cuddesden in 1646 and Beckenham in 1647.
During the Commonwealth he secured a license to preach, and continued in his diocese. He also conferred holy orders throughout England. It is stated by Thomas Warton, in his ‘Life of R. Bathurst’ (p. 35), that Bathurst secretly examined the candidates, and officiated at Launton as archdeacon. At the Restoration he became one of the king's commissioners of the university of Oxford, and in 1663 was translated to Worcester. He died on 14 June 1670, and is buried in a chapel at the east end of the choir of Worcester Cathedral. At the head of the inscribed stone, which is now in the crypt, are the arms of the family impaled with those of the see. He married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Bernard Bangor, esquire bedell of Oxford, and left issue six sons and four daughters.
Skinner's eldest son Matthew became fellow of Trinity. The latter's grandson was Matthew Skinner [q. v.], serjeant-at-law; while from the bishop's fourth son was descended John Skinner (1772–1839) [q. v.], the antiquary.
[A few Memorials of the Right Rev. Robert Skinner, and the authorities there cited; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iv. 842 and Fasti, i. 489; Nelson's Bull, p. 25; Woolrych's Lives of Eminent Serjeants, ii. 521.]
SKINNER, STEPHEN (1623–1667), physician and philologist, born in 1623, was the son of John Skinner of London. He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 6 Dec. 1639; but the civil war breaking out, he left England and ‘served in wars beyond seas.’ He was probably the Skinner who was stated by the parliamentary visitors of Oxford to be ‘in the service of Ireland.’ In 1646 he was again at Oxford, and in consideration of his foreign service was allowed to accumulate both his arts degrees in that same year, B.A. on 21 Oct. and M.A. on 10 Nov. On 22 April 1649 he entered as a medical student at Leyden, on 6 May 1653 at Heidelberg, and on 4 Nov. 1653 again at Leyden. At the beginning of 1654 he graduated M.D. of Heidelberg, and on 26 May following was incorporated in that degree at Oxford. Wood says that during his absence from England he ‘visited France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, visited the courts of divers princes, frequented several universities, and obtained the company and friendship of the most learned men of them.’ He was made honorary fellow of the College of Physicians in December 1664. He practised in Lincoln, where he died of malignant fever on 5 Sept. 1667. Administration of his estate was granted to his sister, Elizabeth Bowyer, and his daughter Stephanie Skinner, on 7 Sept. 1667.
Skinner left behind him several philological treatises in manuscript which are enumerated by Wood. These were edited by Thomas Henshaw [q. v.] and published in London in 1671, under the title of ‘Etymologicon Linguæ Anglicanæ.’ Dr. Johnson gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to Skinner in the preface to his ‘Dictionary’ (1755).
[Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, vol. iii. cols. 793–4; Wood's Fasti, ed. Bliss, vol. ii. cols. 90, 91, 148; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Album Studiosorum Academiæ Lugduno-Batavæ, pp. 394, 432; Toepke's Die Matrikel der Universität Heidelberg, ii. 316; Burrows's Reg. of Visitors, p. 329; Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 335–6; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. xi. 122, 168; Horne Tooke's Epea pteroenta, passim.]
SKINNER or SKYNNER, THOMAS (1629?–1679), historian, probably son of Nicholas Skinner, gent., who was educated at Bishops Stortford and was admitted sizar of St. John's College, Cambridge, on 29 May 1646, at the age of sixteen (Mayor, Admissions to the College of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge, i. 78). He proceeded doctor of medicine from St. John's College, Oxford, on 17 July 1672, and is described as sometime of Cambridge University (Wood, Fasti, ii. 333; Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, 1500–1714, p. 1362). Skinner practised at Colchester, and is stated to have been ‘physician to the Duke of Albemarle, when residing at New Hall in Essex’ (Preface to Skinner's Life of Monck, p. xcii; cf. Wortley's translation of Guizot's Life of Monck, p. xiv). He was buried at St. Mary's, Colchester, on 8 Aug. 1679 (Morant, History of Colchester, p. 118).
Skinner was the author of:
- ‘Elenchi Motuum Nuperorum in Anglia pars tertia, sive Motus Compositi,’ 8vo, 1676. This was a continuation of Bates's ‘Elenchus;’ an English translation of all three parts was published in 1685.
- ‘The Life of General Monk, Duke of Albemarle,’ 8vo; this was published in 1723 by William Webster, curate of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, with a preface vindicating Monck's character, and attributing the manuscript to Skinner.
A letter from Skinner to the secretary of state in January 1677 states that he was solicited by the second Duke of Albemarle to write a life of his father in Latin, but only this English version of the life has survived. Skinner applied to Dr. Samuel Barrow and others for assistance in his task, and claims to have had access to a collection of Monck's
