John Boys (dean)

John Boys (1571 – 1625) was Dean of Canterbury from 1619 to 1625.

He was descended from an old Kentish family who boasted that their ancestor came into England with William the Conqueror, and who at the beginning of the seventeenth century had no less than eight branches, each with its capital mansion, in the county of Kent. The dean was the son of Thomas Boys of Eythorn, by Christian, daughter and coheiress of John Searles of Wye. He was born at Eythorn in 1571, and probably was educated at the King's School, Canterbury, for in 1586 he entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where Archbishop Matthew Parker had founded some scholarships appropriated to scholars of that school. He took his M.A. degree in the usual course, but migrated to Clare Hall in 1593, apparently on his failing to succeed to a Kentish fellowship vacated by the resignation of Mr. Coldwell, and which was filled up by the election of Dr. Willan, a Norfolk man.

Boys was forthwith chosen fellow of Clare Hall. His first preferment was the small rectory of Betteshanger in his native county, which he tells us was procured for him by his uncle Sir John Boys of Canterbury, whom he calls 'my best patron in Cambridge.' He appears to have resided upon this benefice and to have at once begun to cultivate the art of preaching. Archbishop John Whitgift gave him the mastership of the Eastbridge Hospital in Canterbury, and soon afterwards the vicarage of Tilmanstone, but the aggregate value of these preferments was quite inconsiderable, and when he married Angela Bargrave of Bridge, near Canterbury, in 1599, he must have had other means of subsistence than his clerical income.

The dearth of competent preachers to supply the London pulpits appears to have been severely felt about this time, and in January 1593 Whitgift had written to the vice-chancellor and heads of the university of Cambridge complaining of the refusal of the Cambridge divines to take their part in this duty. The same year that the primate appointed Boys to Tilmanstone we find him preaching at St. Paul's Cross, though he was then only twenty-seven years of age. Two years after he was called upon to preach at the Cross again, and it was actually while he was in the pulpit that Robert, earl of Essex, made his mad attempt at rebellion (8 Feb. 1600-1).

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