John London (priest)

John London, DCL (c. 1486 – 1543) was Warden of New College, Oxford, and a prominent figure in the dissolution of the monasteries during the reign of Henry VIII of England.

London was born in Hambleden, Buckinghamshire, son of an Oxfordshire tenant farmer. His background is not known, but his sisters married into mercantile families with strong links to Calais. London was educated as a scholar at Winchester College from 1497, and at New College, Oxford from 1503. In 1505 he became a fellow of New College, and became a Doctor of Civil Law (DCL) in 1519.

London also held a range of administrative roles within the church during this period: he became prebendary of York in 1519, and Treasurer of Lincoln Cathedral in 1522. He was also Domestic Chaplain to Archbishop Warham about this time, and many of the relationships he formed in Warham's service remained influential throughout his career.

He returned to Oxford as Warden of New College in 1526, and held the post until 1542. His time as Warden was marked by religious turbulence and lack of discipline, and frequent complaints by and clashes with fellows of the college.

The 17th century historian and biographer John Strype described London as "a great dignitary, and a great champion for the Pope"; London's near-contemporary Archbishop Matthew Parker was less flattering in describing him as "a stout and filthy prebendary".

London began to play a role as a persecutor of Oxford evangelicals and Lutherans in the late 1520s. Those who came to his attentions included members of New College. One of these men, Quinby, was kept imprisoned in the college and died there, weakened by hunger and cold. He appears to have taken a more lenient approach with members of his own family: his nephew Edward Planckney (also a member of New College) confessed in 1534:

States that on reading the treatise of articles devised by the King he had been convinced that the supremacy of the bishop of Rome was without foundation, and had written a little declamation. For this he was suspected, his papers searched and delivered to Dr. London, who sent for him at 5 a.m. and kept him in his garden till 10. "Edward," he said, "you be my nephew.... I have now sent for you only to give you counsel, that if God has endued you with any grace you may return to grace again." He then charged the deponent with writing many detestable heresies against the bishop of Rome, which made him so pensive, that he knew not what to say for the deponent's shame or for his poor mother. And further, at his last being with the bishop of Winchester at his visitation, the Bishop did rejoice "that this our university was so clear from all these new fashions and heresies." But now he would hear that it was infected by one of his own college. He urged that their ancestors could not have erred so many hundred years, and that this world could not continue long; for though the King has now conceived a little malice against the bishop of Rome because he would not agree unto this marriage, "I trust," he said, "that the blessed King will wear harness on his own back to fight against such heretics as thou art."

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