Edmund Calamy

1600-1666. Puritan divine. Educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, he entered the church and was successively bishop's chaplain (at Ely), vicar of St. Mary, Swaffham Prior, and then lecturer at Bury St. Edmunds in 1626. At first he regarded “ceremonial” as neutral, but later strongly opposed Laudian policy. In 1639 he was elected to the perpetual curacy of St. Mary Aldermanbury. During the controversy over divine-right episcopacy in 1640/41 Calamy contributed, as one of the authors who wrote under the pseudonym of Smectymnuus, to the Presbyterian reply. Later he was prominent in the Westminster Assembly.* He opposed the execution of Charles I and remained quiet during the Commonwealth and Protectorate. After welcoming back Charles II, he was a member of the Savoy Conference* (1661), and a leader of those who wanted a broadly based national church. He was ejected in 1662 and imprisoned briefly in 1663 for disobeying the Act of Uniformity.* His last years were spent in quiet retirement. His son, Edmund the Younger, was also an ejected minister; his grandson, also Edmund,* was the historian of early Nonconformity.*