Daniel Featley

Daniel Featley, also called Fairclough and sometimes called Richard Fairclough/Featley (15 March 1582 – 17 April 1645), was an English theologian and controversialist. A leading Calvinist disputant of the 1620s, he fell into difficulties with Parliament due to his loyalty to Charles I in the 1640s, and he was harshly treated and imprisoned at the end of his life.

Featley was born at Charlton-upon-Otmoor, Oxfordshire, on 15 March 1582, the second son of John Fairclough. by his wife Marian Thrift. His father was cook to Laurence Humphrey, President of Magdalen College, Oxford, and afterwards to Corpus Christi College in the same university. Featley was the first of his family to adopt the surname.

He was educated as a chorister of Magdalen College. John Rainolds, President of Corpus, was his godfather and benefactor, and Featley is noted as a protégé of Rainolds, a leading Puritan spokesman. He was admitted scholar of Corpus Christi College 13 December 1594, and probationer fellow 20 September 1602, having taken his BA degree on 13 February 1601. He proceeded MA on 17 April 1606, and became noted as a disputant and preacher. In 1607 he delivered an oration at Rainolds' funeral.

In 1610 and for the two following years he was chaplain to Sir Thomas Edmondes, the English ambassador at Paris, and was noticed for his attacks on Catholic doctrine and his disputations with Jesuits. Twenty-one of the sermons preached by him in the ambassador's chapel are printed. Featley commenced BD on 8 July 1613, and was the preacher at the act of that year. He seems to have given offence by his plain speaking, even in consecration sermons.

Featley was domestic chaplain to George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury. For the benefit of Marc Anthony de Dominis and at Abbot's request, Featley in 1617 kept his exercise for the degree of DD under John Prideaux; Prideaux lost his temper, and Abbot had some difficulty in effecting a reconciliation. De Dominis, soon after appointed master of the Savoy, gave Featley a brother's place in that hospital. In 1610 he had preached the rehearsal sermon at Oxford, and by the Bishop of London's appointment he discharged the same duty at St. Paul's Cross in 1618.

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