Francis White

c.1564-1638. Bishop of Ely. Educated at Cambridge, he was ordained in 1588 and held livings at Broughton Astley, Leicestershire, and at St. Peter, Cornhill. In 1617 he published The Orthodox Faith and Way to the Church against a Roman Catholic treatise entitled White dyed Black. He was employed by James I* in 1622 in two disputes against the Jesuit John Fisher,* a report being later published as The Fisher Catched in his owne Net. He was made dean of Carlisle (1622) and bishop of that diocese, with some suspicion of simony (1629), and was translated to Norwich (1629) and to Ely (1631). White opposed the Puritan view of the Sabbath, in a conference with Theophilus Brabourne.* In 1635 he published his Treatise of the Sabbath Day, written at the command of Charles I* and dedicated to William Laud,* and in 1637 A Brief Answer to a late Treatise of the Sabbath Day.