Читать книгу The Struggle for Sovereignty - Группа авторов - Страница 39

Henry Ferne, an Anglican divine, was born in York and educated at Cambridge University. He first came to Charles’s attention when he preached before the king at Leicester in July 1642. Charles was so pleased with Ferne he made him his chaplain extraordinary, no ordinary chaplaincy then being vacant. That autumn Ferne’s first pamphlet, “The Resolving of Conscience upon This Question,” one of the first tracts openly on the king’s side, was published. In it Ferne wrestled with the no longer theoretical dilemma of whether there was a right for a subject to resist a king and “whether that case be now?” The tract was published at Cambridge, York, and London in four further printings. It so incensed members of the Commons that Ferne was cited that Christmas Eve to answer for it. Instead he abandoned his living in Medbourne and took refuge with the royal party at Oxford where a “second edition” of the offending tract was published in 1643.

“The Resolving of Conscience” provoked a number of impressive replies. One by Charles Herle is reprinted below. Ferne attempted to address these, and in particular Herle’s, on 18 April 1643, with a rebuttal, “Conscience Satisfied,” far longer than his original essay. Other works followed earning for their author a reputation as the leading royalist writer of the period. In 1644 Ferne was one of five clergymen sent to defend Anglican church government in a debate with parliamentary clergy. After the surrender of the king in 1646 Ferne retired to Yorkshire. There he remained until summoned to the Isle of Wight in 1648 by Charles, where, on 28 November, he preached the last sermon the king would hear before his trial.

Ferne lived quietly in Yorkshire writing religious treatises until the Restoration when he was rewarded with the mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge. During the eighteen months he held this post he twice served as vice-chancellor of the university. He was created bishop of Chester in 1662 but died five weeks later.