and others, for ecclesiastical causes within the diocese of Winchester, and in another to exercise all spiritual jurisdiction in the said diocese with Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas, bishop of Winton, and others, by James I, 1603, to whom he was also chaplain, and by whom he was sent to the Hampton Court conference, 14 Jan. 1603.
When King James came to Oxford in 1605, Field was sent for to take part in the Divinity Act. Sir Nathaniel Brent, then one of the proctors, and afterwards vicar-general and warden of Merton, declared that the disputation between Doctors Field and Aglionby before the king, on the question ‘Whether saints and angels know the hearts of men,’ was the best he ever heard. In 1610 he was made dean of Gloucester, but never resided there, preaching rarely above four or times a year, but always commanding a great audience. He chiefly resided at Burghclere and Windsor, and when in residence in the cloisters at the latter place during the winter months his house was the resort of many eminent men, who came to enjoy his learned conversation. He was on intimate terms with Sir Henry Savile, the provost of Eton, and Sir Henry Nevill, who had been Queen Elizabeth's ambassador to France, and lived near to Windsor. He often preached before the king, who, upon the first occasion that he heard him, exclaimed ‘Is his name Field? This is a field for God to dwell in.' Similarly Fuller, years afterwards, styled him ‘that learned divine, whose memory smelleth like a field which the Lord hath blessed.’ The king took singular pleasure in discussing with him nice and curious points of divinity, and had designed to send him to Germany to compose the differences between Lutherans and Calvinists, but for some reason not known the project was dropped. His majesty also wished to bestow on him the bishopric of Salisbury, but it seems the solicitations of his courtiers were powerful enough to procure it for another person. It is certain, however, from a letter from Sir George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham, dated ‘from the court at Wansted 11 July 1616,’ that the revision of the see of Oxford, upon its next avoidance, was proposed to him. Bishop Hall, who became dean of Worcester the month after Field's death, mentions that that deanery was deanery was designed for him, and laments that so learned a man did not live to fill it. On 14 Oct. 1614 he lost his wife, who left him six sons and a daughter. ‘He continued a widower about two years, when he was persuaded by his friends to marry again, and they recommended to him, for a religious, wise, understanding woman, the widow of Dr. John Spencer, sometime president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, of whose birth and education Mr. Isaak Walton gives us a very good character in the life of Mr. Hooker.’ Dr. Spencer's widow was Dorothy, daughter of Thomas Cranmer, the archbishop's nephew, and Isaak Walton's aunt. Field, however, survived his second marriage little more than a month. On 16 Nov. 1616 he was seized with a fit of apoplexy and suddenly carried off. He was buried in the outer chapel of St. George's, Windsor, below the choir. A black marble slab, with his figure in brass, was laid over his grave, and an inscription, also on brass, recording his death and that of his first wife, Elizabeth Harris.
His great work was first published in 1606. The title is ‘Of the Church Five Bookes, by Richard Field, Doctor of Divinity; at London imprinted bv Humfrey Lownes for Simon Waterson, 1606.’ This is a 4to volume. There are in reality only four books. In 1610 was printed ‘The Fifth Booke of the Church, together with an appendix containing a defence of such passages of the former books that have been excepted against, or wrested to the maintenance of Romish errors, by Richard Field, Doctour of Divinity; London, printed by Nicholas Okes for Simon Waterson,’ 1610, 4to. It has been discovered that there was another impression of the volume of 1606, in which the errata were corrected. Both have the same date and the same number of pages, but no two pages in the two books agree in all particulars, and Lownes's name does not appear in the title of the second impression. These are Field's own editions, and are dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury (Bancroft). A second edition of the whole ‘Of the Church Five Bookes, by Richard Field, D.D., and sometimes Dean of Glocester. The second edition, very much enlarged in the third booke, and the appendix to the same; at Oxford, imprinted by William Turner, printer to the famous University, 1628,’ folio, was edited by Nathaniel Field, the author's son, and dedicated to Villiers, duke of Buckingham. This edition is charged by the Scots in their ‘Canterburian's Self-conviction,’ 1641, 4to, with additions made by Archbishop Laud. The third edition was printed ‘by William Turner, printer to the famous Vniversitie, 1635’ folio. Modern editions are those by the Ecclesiastical History Society, Cambridge, 1847-52, 4 vols. 8vo, reissued with new title, London, 1853, edited by the Rev. J. S. Brewer, London, 1843, of which the first volume only was published. It is needless to speak of a work which has long taken its
