John Hilsey
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John Hilsey (a.k.a. Hildesley or Hildesleigh; died 4 August 1539) was an English Dominican, prior provincial of his order, then an agent of
Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
and the
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, and
Bishop of Rochester The Bishop of Rochester is the ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of Rochester in the Province of Canterbury. The town of Rochester has the bishop's seat, at the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was foun ...
.


Life

According to Anthony Wood, Hilsey was a member of the Hildesley family of
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in Berkshire. He entered the Order of Preachers at
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, and then moved to the Dominican house at
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, where in May 1527, he graduated B.D., and proceeded D.D. in 1532; it is probable that he studied also at Cambridge. In May 1533 he was prior of the Dominican house at Bristol, and wrote a letter to
Thomas Cromwell Thomas Cromwell (; 1485 – 28 July 1540), briefly Earl of Essex, was an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king, who later blamed false charge ...
, whom he apparently regarded as his patron, and with whom he seems to have had earlier dealings. This was to explain and excuse his conduct in preaching against Hugh Latimer. He had come across Latimer as a preacher against pilgrimages and other religious traditions, but soon decided that Latimer was more concerned with attacking the abuse of the traditions, rather than the traditions themselves. In April 1534, Cromwell appointed him provincial of his order, and commissioner, along with
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, provincial of the
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, to visit the friaries throughout England. The commissioners were to administer to the friars the oath of allegiance to Henry,
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and their issue, to obtain from them an acknowledgment of the King as head of the national church, and to make inventories of their property. The commissioners visited the London houses 17–20 April, went in May to the friaries within easy reach of London and then turned west. On 21 June, he reported to Cromwell from
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, and in July he reached
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in pursuit of two Observantine friars who were trying to leave the kingdom. In 1535, on the martyrdom of Saint John Fisher, Hilsey succeeded him as Bishop of Rochester, consecrated on 18 September by Archbishop
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at
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. He begged Cromwell for his predecessor's mitre, staff and seal, as being himself too poor to procure such things. In January 1536, Hilsey preached at
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's funeral, alleging that, in the hour of death, she had acknowledged that she had never been Queen of England. In March, he obtained a faculty from Cromwell enabling him to remain prior of the London Dominicans and, when they were dispersed, he received a pension. In 1536, he exercised the duties of censor of the press for the king. On 12 February 1538 he denounced the
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of Boxley Abbey in Kent as a fraud, exhibiting its machinery and breaking it to pieces. On 24 November 1538, he preached at St Paul's Cross on the blood of Hailes Abbey, Gloucestershire as a "feigned relic". He affirmed it to be clarified honey and saffron. In November 1538, as perpetual commendatory of the Dominicans in London, he surrendered the house into the king's hands. He died on 4 August 1539, and was buried in Rochester Cathedral.


Works

Hilsey was occupied, during his last years, in compiling, at Cromwell's order, a service-book in English. It appeared in after his death in 1539 as the Prymer. This has a dedication by Hilsey to Cromwell and an elaborate 'instruction of the sacrament', besides some shorter explanatory prologues. Less radical than the 1535 ''Prymer'' of William Marshall, it was also evangelical with anti-Catholic polemics incorporated and integrated in the text with devotional material, and ultimately was more influential; Hilsey's arrangement of the Epistles and Gospels is substantially the same as in the later prayer books. The book was republished in great part as ''The Prymer both in Englyshe and Latin'' in 1540; there was an edition in
Edward Burton Edward Burton may refer to: *Edward Burton (footballer) (1869–?), English footballer *Edward Burton (Jesuit) (1585–1623), English Jesuit *Edward Burton (theologian) (1794–1836), English theologian, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford *Edwa ...
's ''Three Primers Put Forth in the Reign of Henry VIII'' (1834). Hilsey also prepared a juvenile version of his primer,''The Primer in English, most necessary for the Educacyon of Children, abstracted out of the Manuall of Prayers, or Primer in Englishe and Latin, set forth by John, laet bysh. of Rochester'', &c., 1539. and wrote ''De veri Corporis Esu in Sacramento'' which was dedicated to Cromwell and was mentioned in John White's ''Discosio-Martyrion'' (1553), on the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. Works also ascribed to Hilsey include ''Resolutions concerning the Sacraments'' and ''Resolutions of some Questions relating to Bishops, Priests, and Deaconns'', but he apparently only assisted the compilation of these documents. He also helped to compile ''
The Institution of a Christian Man The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (commonly abbreviated as the Thirty-nine Articles or the XXXIX Articles) are the historically defining statements of doctrines and practices of the Church of England with respect to the controversies of the ...
''.


Notes


References

* Eamon Duffy (1992), ''The Stripping of the Altars''


Attribution

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hilsey, John Year of birth missing 1539 deaths English Dominicans Bishops of Rochester People associated with the Dissolution of the Monasteries 16th-century English bishops People from Oxfordshire People from West Berkshire District 16th-century Anglican theologians 15th-century Anglican theologians