he introduced the service in Latin (ib. p. 3). On 24 July 1628 he was installed dean of Windsor (and Wolverhampton), carrying with it the duties of registrar of the Garter. He went with Charles I to Scotland in 1633; on 20 Oct. Charles made him clerk of the closet. On 14 May 1634 he was chosen a governor of the Charterhouse. On 5 Dec. 1634 he was elected bishop of Hereford; this voided his Winchester stall, but in its place he was nominated (18 Feb. 1634–5) to a stall at Westminster. He had resigned his mastership on 22 Jan., and is said to have interested himself in the appointment of John Cosin [q. v.] as his successor. He was consecrated at Lambeth on 2 March by Laud (Stubbs, Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum, 1897). Though he held the see for eight months only, and as clerk of the closet was much absent from his diocese, he showed some of the qualities of a capable governor; he digested and reformed the statutes of his cathedral and improved its revenue. His visitation articles (1635, 4to) were inquisitorial in character. On 10 Nov. 1635 he was elected bishop of Norwich, retaining his Westminster stall. On 7 March 1635–6 he was made dean of the Chapel Royal; he resigned on 11 July 1641.
At Norwich he succeeded a prelate, Richard Corbet [q. v.], who had never shown any love for puritans, and had taken proceedings against them. Yet Laud, at his visitation (1635), found the diocese ‘much out of order,’ and expected Wren to ‘take care of it.’ Wren's visitation articles (1636, 4to) are an expansion of those for Hereford. The British Museum copy (5155, c. 20) has an appendix of twenty-eight ‘particular orders’ in manuscript. The public mind was soon excited against Wren by William Prynne [q. v.] , writing as ‘Matthew White’ in ‘Newes from Ipswich,’ 1636, 4to, which at once ran through three editions, and was reprinted in 1641. Wren's own reports, as summarised by Laud, explain how, in less than two years and a half, he had roused the puritanism of East Anglia to a dangerous pitch of rebellious fury (Wharton, pp. 540, 548). Clarendon relates that he ‘passionately and furiously proceeded against them [the foreign congregations], that many left the kingdom, to the lessening the wealthy manufacture’ (Hist. 1888, vi. 183). Wren himself affirms (Answer to Articles of Impeachment; Parentalia, p. 101) that the migration was a question of wage; that it began in Corbet's time, and was at its height in the first half-year of the episcopate of Richard Montagu [q. v.] Owing to his liturgical knowledge he was selected as one of the revisers of the new common-prayer book for Scotland. In April 1638 he was translated to Ely, succeeding Francis White [q. v.]; and in this diocese he pursued the same policy as in that of Norwich, and by the same methods. His Ely visitation articles (1638, 4to) are an exact duplicate of those for Norwich. He acted all along, it should be said, under the constant supervision of Laud, confirmed by direct instructions from the king, which appeared on the margins of Laud's reports.
On 19 Dec. 1640, the day after Laud's impeachment, John Hampden acquainted the House of Lords that the commons had received informations against Wren. He was bound in 10,000l. for his daily appearance; on 23 Dec. the bishops of Bangor, Llandaff, and Peterborough became joint sureties with him. A committee of the commons drew up nine articles of impeachment, on which the commons resolved (5 July 1641) that Wren was unfit to hold any office in the church or commonwealth. A conference of both houses was held on 20 July for the transmission of the articles of impeachment (enlarged to twenty-four), when Sir Thomas Widdrington [q. v.] delivered a florid speech urging proceedings against Wren (Sr. Tho. Widdringtons Speech, 1641; Parentalia, p. 19). Wren prepared an elaborate defence. No proceedings were taken; but on 30 Dec. Wren was sent to the Tower with other bishops and detained till 6 May 1642. In 1642 he presented a petition to parliament ‘in defence of episcopacie’ (Bishop Wren's Petition, 1642). On 30 Aug. 1642 his episcopal residence at Ely was searched for ammunition by ‘a troop of well-affected horsemen’ (Joyfull Newes from the Isle of Ely, 2 Sept. 1642), who, by order of parliament, arrested and brought him to London (1 Sept.), when he was again committed to the Tower (A True Relation, 2 Sept. 1642). He continued while in the Tower to perform episcopal acts, such as the institution of clergy, and kept up his register. In the terms offered by parliament to the king at Uxbridge (23 Nov. 1644) he was one of those excluded from pardon. He is said to have held intercourse with Monck, his fellow-prisoner (1644–6), and to have given Monck his blessing on the understanding that he was going to do the king ‘the best service he could’ (Life of Barwick, 1721, p. 16). On 14 March 1648–9 the commons resolved that he be not tried for life, but imprisoned till further order. During the interregnum he was much consulted on church affairs by Hyde, with whom he communicated through John Barwick (1612–1664) [q. v.] Cromwell more than once
