Francis Mason (archdeacon)

Francis Mason (c.1566–1621) was an English churchman, archdeacon of Norfolk and author of Of the Consecration of the Bishops in the Church of England (1613), a defence of the Church of England and the first serious rebuttal of the Nag's Head Fable put about as denigration of Matthew Parker and Anglican orders.

The son of poor parents, and brother, according to John Walker, of Henry Mason, he was born in county Durham about 1566. He matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford, on 10 May 1583, and already noted for his learning, was elected probationer fellow of Merton College towards the end of 1586. He proceeded B.A. from Brasenose College on 27 January 1587, M.A. from Merton College on 4 July 1590, and B.D. on 7 July 1597.

He incurred the displeasure of William James, dean of Christ Church, Oxford and the vice-chancellor of the university, in 1591, for having said unseemly words against Thomas Aubrey, who had recently made his supplication for the degree of B.D. Mason was deprived of the liberties of the university for a year; but regarding his sentence as an unwarrantable precedent, he appealed to congregation, and a difference of opinion arose between the pro-vice-chancellor Thomas Glasier and the proctors, who were willing to admit the appeal. On 23 November 1599 he was presented to the rectory of Sudbourn, with the chapel of Orford in Suffolk.

In 1613 he was chaplain to George Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury, according to Charles Dodd. Mason was installed archdeacon of Norfolk on 18 December 1619. He appears to have had the archdeaconry bestowed on him at an earlier date (probably 1614), for his defence of the Church of England, but his right was contested. A petition from Mason's wife for the archdeaconry was backed by Abbot and John Williams, bishop of Lincoln.

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