Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bray, William (d.1644)
BRAY, WILLIAM (d. 1644), chaplain to Archbishop Laud, was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1616-17, M.A. in 1620, and B.D. in 1631. At the outset of his clerical career he was a popular lecturer in puritan London, but changing his views he became one of Archbishop Laud's chaplains in ordinary, and obtained considerable church preferment. He was rector of St. Ethelburga in London, 5 May 1632; prebendary of Mapesbury in the church of St. Paul, 12 June following; and vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 2 March 1632-3. The king presented him, on 7 May 1634, to the vicarage of Chaldon-Herring in Dorsetshire, and by letters patent, dated 15 Jan. 1637-8, bestowed on him a canonry in the church of Canterbury. Having licensed two obnoxious books by Dr. John Pocklington, the Long parliament enjoined him to preach a recantation sermon at St. Margaret's, Westminster. On 12 Jan. 1642-3 the house proceeded to sequester him from the vicarage of St. Martin's, and in the latter end of March following his books were seized; he was also imprisoned, plundered, and forced to fly into remote parts, where, it is said, he died in 1644. His recantation sermon was published with the title: 'A Sermon of the Blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper; proving that there is therein no proper sacrifice now offered; Together with the disaproving of sundry passages in 2 Bookes set forth by Dr. Pocklington; the one called Altare Christianum, the other Sunday no Sabbath: Formerly printed with Licence. Now published by Command, London, 1641, 4to.
[Newcourt's Repertorium Ecclesiasticum, i. 176, 346, 692; Heylyn's Life of Abp. Laud, 441 et passim; Troubles and Tryal of Abp. Laud, 367; MS. Addit. 5863, f. 103 b; Lloyd's Memoires (1677), 512; Hutchins's Dorset, i. 209.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.35
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 241 | ii | 12 f.e. | Bray, William: for Having licensed read After he had licensed |