Stephen Egerton (1555?-1621?) was an English priest, a leading

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...

preacher of his time, who was also active in agitating for reform of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

Life

He was born in London about 1555, younger son of Thomas Egerton,

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, and was educated at

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite ...

, where he took his M.A. degree in 1579. He had then already taken holy orders. He was one of the leaders in the formation of the presbytery at

Wandsworth, Surrey Wandsworth Town () is a district of south London, within the London Borough of Wandsworth southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Toponymy Wandsworth takes its n ...

, which has been described as the first presbyterian church in England. In 1584 he was suspended for refusing to subscribe to

John Whitgift John Whitgift (c. 1530 – 29 February 1604) was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583 to his death. Noted for his hospitality, he was somewhat ostentatious in his habits, sometimes visiting Canterbury and other towns attended by a retinue of 8 ...

's articles, but shortly afterwards he was active in promoting the ''

Book of Discipline A Book of Discipline (or in its shortened form Discipline) is a book detailing the beliefs, standards, doctrines, canon law, and polity of a particular Christian denomination. They are often re-written by the governing body of the church concerned ...

''. During the imprisonment of the separatists

Henry Barrow Henry Barrow (or Barrowe) ( – 6 April 1593) was an English Separatist Puritan, or Brownist, executed for his views. He led the London Underground Church from 1587 to 1593, spending most of that time in prison, and wrote numerous works of Bro ...

and

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in 1590, Egerton was sent by the

Bishop of London A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

to confer with them, and several letters passed between him and them; but later in the same year, he himself was summoned, together with several other ministers, before the

Court of High Commission The Court of High Commission was the supreme ecclesiastical court in England. Some of its powers was to take action against conspiracies, plays, tales, contempts, false rumors, books. It was instituted by the Crown in 1559 to enforce the Act of U ...

, and was committed to the Fleet prison, where he remained about three years. In 1598 he became minister of St. Anne's, Blackfriars, London. He was one of those chosen to present the

millenary petition The Millenary Petition was a list of requests given to James I by Puritans in 1603 when he was travelling to London in order to claim the English throne. It is claimed, but not proven, that this petition had 1,000 signatures of Puritan ministers ...

for the further reform of the church in 1603, and in May of the following year, he introduced a petition to the lower house of

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for the reformation of the prayer-book. He remained in his cure at Blackfriars till his death, which took place about 1621, being assisted in his latter years by William Googe, who succeeded him. He was described by

Alexander Nowell Alexander Nowell (13 February 1602, aka Alexander Noel) was an Anglican priest and theologian. He served as Dean of St Paul's during much of Elizabeth I's reign, and is now remembered for his catechisms. Early life He was the eldest son of John ...

, in a letter, as a "man of great learning and godliness."

Family

He married in 1585 Sarah Crooke, daughter of Thomas Crooke. Sarah's father and her brother Samuel Crooke were both clergymen who shared Egerton's strongly Puritan beliefs; another of Sarah's brothers, Sir Thomas Crooke, 1st Baronet, is best remembered as the founder of the town of

Baltimore, County Cork Baltimore (, ; , translated as the "Fort of the Jewels") is a village in western County Cork, Ireland. It is the main village in the parish of Rathmore and the Islands, the southernmost parish in Ireland. It is the main ferry port to Sherkin Isla ...

. They had no children; Sarah died in 1624, bequeathing her husband's death's head ring to her brother Thomas. Stephen had obviously been very close to his sister Anne, widow of John Tyndal, who at her death in 1620 had bequeathed to her "kind and loving brother Stephen" a gilt tankard. Anne was the mother of

Margaret Tyndal Winthrop Margaret Tyndal Winthrop (c. 1591 – 14 June 1647) was a 17th-century Puritan, the wife of John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The pair are notable for the survival and character of the love letters which they wro ...

, third wife of

John Winthrop John Winthrop (January 12, 1587/88 – March 26, 1649) was an English Puritan lawyer and one of the leading figures in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the second major settlement in New England following Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led t ...

Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony The territory of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, one of the fifty United States, was settled in the 17th century by several different English colonies. The territories claimed or administered by these colonies encompassed a much larger area tha ...

.Waters p.280 Margaret and her aunt Sarah were close, and Sarah left a substantial legacy to Margaret.

Works

Egerton published sermons, but few of them remain. Among those of his works still extant are ''A Brief Method of Catechising'', first issued in 1594, which in 1644 reached a forty-fourth edition; and a translation from the French of Mathieu Virel entitled ''A Learned and Excellent Treatise containing all principal Grounds of the Christian Religion'', the earliest edition of which now remaining is the fourth, published in 1597, and the latest the fourteenth in 1635. In addition to his own books he wrote introductions for several publications by his fellow puritans, including

Richard Rogers Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside (23 July 1933 – 18 December 2021) was a British architect noted for his modernist and Functionalism (architecture), functionalist designs in high-tech architecture. He was a senior partner a ...

, Robert Pricke, Baine, and Nicholas Byfield.

Notes

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Egerton, Stephen 1555 births 1621 deaths Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge 16th-century English Puritan ministers 17th-century English Puritan ministers Clergy from London