Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Henchman, Humphrey (1592-1675)
HENCHMAN, HUMPHREY, D.D. (1592–1675), bishop of Salisbury and subsequently of London, the third son of Thomas Henchman, skinner, of the city of London, by his wife Anne Griffiths, daughter of Robert Griffiths of Carnarvon, was born at Barton Seagrove, Northamptonshire, in the house of Owen Owens, the rector of the parish, whose wife was his mother's sister. He was baptised there 22 Dec. 1592. His family was of long standing in the county of Northampton. He matriculated at Christ's College, Cambridge, 18 Dec. 1609 (B.A. 1612–13, M.A. 1616, B.D. 1623, and D.D. 1628). About 1616 he became one of the first two fellows on the Freeman foundation at Clare Hall, his grandmother being a near kinswoman of the founder. He resigned his fellowship in March 1622–3 on his appointment to the precentorship, together with a prebendal stall, in Salisbury Cathedral. He married the niece of John Davenant, bishop of Salisbury [q. v.] He was also rector of Rushton, Northamptonshire, from 4 May 1624; of Westbury, Wiltshire, on his own presentation in right of his precentorship (1631); and of the Isle of Portland till 1643. As canon residentiary of Salisbury he was distinguished for his hospitality, for the regularity of his attendance at the cathedral services, and for the care he took to secure reverence in the church and a more dignified ceremonial at the altar. He told Walton that he had taken part in George Herbert's ordination by Bishop Davenant, and ‘within less than three years lent his shoulder to carry his dear friend to the grave’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 130). The great rebellion deprived Henchman, a staunch royalist, of all his preferments. His rectory house and library at Portland were destroyed, and he had to pay 200l. for composition with the parliamentarians (Walker, Sufferings, ii. 264). He resided in a private capacity in the Close at Salisbury, whence he kept up a secret correspondence with the royalist leaders. He was mainly instrumental in arranging for the escape of Charles II from England after the battle of Worcester in 1651. On 13 Oct. Henchman very early in the morning conducted the king from Hele House, near Salisbury, to Clarendon Park Corner (Lord Clarendon's statement that Henchman met Charles at Stonehenge is erroneous), whence he reached Brighton and crossed safely to France (Boscobel Tracts, pp. 80, 175, 277, 278; Clarendon, Rebellion, bk. iii. p. 331).
Until the restoration of 1660 Henchman appears to have lived unmolested at Salisbury. Before Charles returned he corresponded with Hyde as to filling the vacant bishoprics and other church dignities, and was instructed by him to convey to those who openly anticipated preferment the king's determination not to bestow it on any who asked for it (Kennett, Register, p. 818; Clarendon, Correspondence). His friend Evelyn, the diarist, supped with him, Fearne, Gunning, ‘and other discreet and learned divines, firm confessors, and excellent persons, 9 Dec. 1659 being our fast day’ (Diary, ii. 109). Evelyn says that he heard Henchman preach on ‘Christian Circumspection,’ 8 July 1660, the date of the public restoration of the anglican liturgy (ib.) The king's personal obligations to Henchman, and his reputation as ‘an eminent example of primitive Christianity,’ led to his election (28 Oct. 1660) to the see of Salisbury, vacated by Bishop Duppa's translation to Winchester. At Salisbury he at once set about the restoration of the cathedral and the palace after the devastations of the puritans. He ‘restored and perfected the upper chamber,’ which forms the domestic chapel, and consecrated it, whether for the first time or as a reconsecration after the profanation of the puritan rule is uncertain. He was popular in his diocese, and was received with general demonstrations of regard at his visitations (Kennett, Register, p. 771). In 1661 he was one of the episcopal members of the Savoy conference, in which he took an influential part, and impressed even the leaders of the opposite party with his ‘most grave, comely, and reverend aspect.’ Baxter says ‘he spoke calmly and slowly, and not very oft, but he was as high in his principles and resolutions as any,’ and adds that ‘he, Gunning, and Cosin were the only three who showed much insight in the fathers and councils; in this they were better than any of either party’ (Baxter, Life and Times, pp. 363 ff.).
Henchman remained at Salisbury less than three years, succeeding Sheldon in the see of London 1 Sept. 1663. The same year he was appointed lord high almoner. Neither at Salisbury nor in London did he give ‘trouble or disturbance to the nonconformists’ (Kennett, Register, p. 818). During the great plague of 1664–5 he set a noble example to his clergy by remaining firmly at his post. In reply to an inquiry from Lord Arlington, Henchman stated that most of his own officials had deserted him, but that the sober clergy remained, that nonconformists had not occupied vacant pulpits, that attendance at public worship had greatly increased, and that he was busily ‘making collections and taking counsel as to the best distribution of the money among the poor’ (Cal. State Papers, cxxvii. 497, 524). Henchman attended the parliament meeting that year at Oxford and occupied the lodgings of the warden of Wadham, giving the college 20l. to buy books (Wood, ed. Gutch, p. 602). The next year St. Paul's Cathedral was destroyed in the great fire. Henchman had previously taken a lively interest in its restoration (cf. Evelyn, Diary, ii. 199), and now made strenuous exertions for its rebuilding. He gave an annual subscription to the work from his own purse, and left a bequest towards its completion in his will. He also restored the episcopal palace in Aldersgate Street, and rebuilt at his own expense the chapel, to which he bequeathed his communion plate and altar furniture. He died in his house in Aldersgate Street in the eighty-third year of his age, 7 Oct. 1675, and was buried in the south aisle of Fulham Church. His memorial slab, bearing an epitaph describing him as ‘gravitate et pastorali clementia quæ vel in vultu elucebat, et vitæ etiam sanctitate venerabilis,’ was brought to light in the rebuilding of the church, and is placed in the north aisle. The general sorrow felt in London at his death is evidenced in two broadsides preserved in the ‘Luttrell Collection of Eulogies and Elegies’ at the British Museum, Nos. 60, 61.
Henchman took little part in public affairs, but, according to Walton, ‘no one mentioned him without some veneration for his life and excellent learning.’ At Fulham his charity and hospitality were rarely paralleled (Cole MSS. xxx. 52). He was popular with the king, but was independent enough to enjoin on his clergy the duty of preaching against popery when the declaration for liberty of conscience was published in 1672, though he was well aware that such action would cause offence at court (Granger, iii. 233).
He was the author of the dedicatory epistle prefixed to the ‘Gentleman's Calling,’ and was one of the many to whom ‘The Whole Duty of Man’ was ascribed. He also wrote the Latin epitaph for the monument of Dr. Henry Hammond (d. 1660) [q. v.] in the church of Hampton-by-Westwood, Worcestershire. Among the Harleian MSS. are forty-two autograph letters from him to Sancroft, many of them relating to the proposed repairs and alterations at Old St. Paul's.
Henchman married, in 1630, Ellen, daughter of Bishop Townson, niece of Bishop Davenant, first cousin to Thomas Fuller, the church historian, and to the wife of Archbishop Lamplugh. Her uncle, Bishop Davenant, bequeathed her ‘a bedstead with curtains of yellow and black say and a silver college pot, &c.,’ and to Henchman ‘a good serviceable gelding, a great concordance of the New Testament, and Dionysius the Areopagite.’ In his last will Henchman mentions by name three sons, Thomas, Humphrey, and Charles, and a daughter Mary, married to John Heath. The mention of another son-in-law, Thomas Cooke, points to a second daughter at that time deceased. Among other bequests, he left 100l. towards the rebuilding of Clare Hall, lamenting that his large gifts to the rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral prevented his doing more. Several portraits of Henchman exist; one is in the library at Fulham, another is at the Charterhouse, the best by Lely is in the Clarendon Gallery at Grove Park, Watford, and has been engraved.
[Wood's Athenæ, iii. 499, 717, iv. 198, 337, 514, 832, 835, 855; Wood's Fasti, ii. 377; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, ii. 62; Clarendon's Rebellion, bk. iii. p. 331; Boscobel Tracts, pp. 80, 175, 277, 278; Kennett's Reg. pp. 37, 771, 818, &c.; Evelyn's Diary, ii. 109, 199; Baxter's Life, pp. 363 sq.; Cassan's Lives, ii. 10 sq.; Lansdowne MSS. 986, p. 122; Cole MSS. xxx. 48, 52; Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. 130.]