Daniel Featley

fairclough) (1582-1645. Anglican controversialist. Oxford graduate, he became chaplain to Archbishop Abbot and, in 1619, rector of Lambeth. His anti-Roman views and his preaching impressed James I, but during an outbreak of plague Featley forsook controversy to produce Ancilla Pietatis (1626), a popular manual of devotion later a favorite of Charles I in his troubles. Featley produced also an exposition of Paul's epistles which with his marginal annotations was printed in the Bible issued in 1645 by the Westminster Assembly, from which he was the last episcopal member to withdraw. Imprisoned as a spy by Cromwell, he continued his writing against Roman Catholics and his defense of the Church of England against Puritan divines. After eighteen months he was released for health reasons, but soon died. “A most smart scourge of the church of Rome,” it was said at his funeral, “a compendium of the learned tongues, and of all the liberal arts and sciences.”