Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Egerton, Stephen
EGERTON, STEPHEN (1555?–1621?), puritan divine, was born in London about 1555. He became a member of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, and earned so great a reputation for learning that a fellowship was only denied him on account of the poverty of his college. He took the M.A. degree in 1579, and on 9 July 1583 was incorporated at Oxford. He had already taken orders and attached himself to the puritan party, being one of the leaders in the formation of the presbytery at Wandsworth, Surrey, which has been described as the first presbyterian church in England. In 1584 he was suspended for refusing to subscribe to Whitgift's articles, but he does not appear to have remained long under censure, for shortly afterwards he was active in promoting the 'Book of Discipline,' and was one of those nominated by the puritan synod to superintend the proper performance of its articles. During the imprisonment of Barrow and Greenwood in 1590 Egerton was sent by the Bishop of London to confer with them, and several letters passed between him and them; but later in the same year he himself was summoned, together with several other ministers, before the high commission, and was committed to the Fleet prison, where he remained about three years. In 1598 he became minister of St. Anne's, Blackfriars, London. He was one of those chosen to present the millenary petition for the further reform of the church in 1603, and in May of the following year he introduced a petition to the lower house of convocation for the reformation of the prayer-book. He remained in his cure at Blackfriars till his death, which took place about 1621, being assisted in his latter years by William Googe, who succeeded him. He was described by Dr. Nowell, in a letter, as a 'man of great learning and godliness.'
Egerton published several sermons, few of which remain. Chief among those of his works still extant are 'A Brief Method of Catechising,' first issued in 1594, which in 1644 reached a forty-fourth edition; and a translation from the French of Matthew Virel entitled 'A Learned and Excellent Treatise containing all principal Grounds of the Christian Religion, ' the earliest edition of which now remaining is the fourth, published in 1597, and the latest the fourteenth in 1635. Egerton's preface to this book contains some well-chosen and sensible remarks on the choice of reading. In addition to his own books he wrote introductions for several publications by his fellow-puritans, including Rogers, Pricke, Baine, and Byfield.