Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pilkington, Richard
PILKINGTON, RICHARD (1568?–1631), protestant controversialist, born about 1568, was probably a nephew of James Pilkington [q. v.], bishop of Durham (see Wills, old ser. Chetham Soc. i. 82, iii. 122). He was educated at Rivington school, Lancashire, entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in April 1585, and proceeded M.A. in 1593. He was incorporated M.A. at Oxford on 31 Oct. 1599, where he proceeded B.D. on 27 June 1600, and D.D. in July 1607 as of Queen's College (Wood, Fasti, pp. 285, 322). From 27 May 1596 till his death he was rector of Hambleden, Buckinghamshire; from 1597 to 1599 rector of Salkeld, Cumberland, and of Little Kimble, Buckinghamshire, from 1620 till his death. On 13 Dec. 1609 he received the king's license to hold Hambleden rectory along with ‘another’ benefice (State Papers, Dom. James I, vol. 1., Docquet). From 1597 till 1600 he was archdeacon of Carlisle, treasurer of Lichfield Cathedral from 1625 till 1628, and from 1625 till his death archdeacon of Leicester.
He died in September 1631, and was buried in the chancel of Hambleden church. His wife was Anne, daughter of John May [q. v.], bishop of Carlisle.
In reply to the ‘Manual of Controversies’ (1614) by Anthony Champney [q. v.], Pilkington wrote ‘Parallela, or the grounds of the new Roman Catholic and of the ancient Christian Religion out of the holy Scriptures compared together,’ London, 1618, 4to. Champney answered Pilkington in 1620, and, in a prefatory epistle to Archbishop Abbot, spoke of Pilkington as ‘a minion of yours,’ who had been induced by Abbot to begin the controversy.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ii. 513, and Fasti, i. 284–5, 322; Lipscomb's Buckinghamshire, ii. 353, iii. 573; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib.; Le Neve's Fasti; Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 409; Pilkington's Hist. of the Pilkington Family, 1894, p. 64; information from Mr. E. S. Shuckburgh of Emmanuel Coll. Cambr.]