Home | What's New | Photos | Histories | Sources | Reports | Calendar | Cemeteries | Headstones | Statistics | Surnames
Print Bookmark
Henry Compton

Henry Compton

Male 1631 - 1713  (82 years)

Generations:      Standard    |    Compact    |    Vertical    |    Text    |    Register    |    Tables    |    PDF

Less detail
Generation: 1

  1. 1.  Henry ComptonHenry Compton was born in 1631 in London, Middlesex, England; died in 1713 in England.

    Notes:

    NOTE: Some records show Henry as the father to John C rather than a brother. So temporarily he has been attached as a brother since the dates do not support that he was his father.

    (From Sarah Browder)
    Henry COMPTON, Lord Bishop It is thought by some that he was father of John the Immigrant but it is my thinking they had to be brothers if KIN. They seem to have similar lifespans and times-rather contemporaries than father/son. He was supposedly born London 1631 and d England 1713. His wife was thought to be Margaret b ca 1740 and dying after 1763. No proof that I have ever found of any connection.

    -----
    Wikipedia:
    Life
    He was the sixth and youngest son of the second earl of Northampton.

    He was educated at The Queen's College, Oxford, and then travelled in Europe. After the restoration of Charles II he became cornet in a regiment of horse, but soon quit the army for the church. After a further period of study at Cambridge and again at Oxford, he held various livings.[1]

    He was made Bishop of Oxford in 1674, and in the following year was translated to the see of London. He was also appointed a member of the Privy Council, and entrusted with the education of the two princesses?Mary and Anne. He showed a liberality most unusual at the time to Protestant dissenters, whom he wished to reunite with the established church. He held several conferences on the subject with the clergy of his diocese; and in the hope of influencing candid minds by means of the opinions of unbiassed foreigners, he obtained letters treating of the question (since printed at the end of Stillingfleet's Unreasonableness of Separation) from Le Moyne, professor of divinity at Leiden, and the famous French Protestant divine, Jean Claude.

    In contrast to his liberality about Protestant dissent, Compton was strongly opposed to Roman Catholicism. On the accession of James II he consequently lost his seat in the council and his deanery in the Chapel Royal; and for his firmness in refusing to suspend John Sharp, rector of St Giles's-in-the-Fields, whose anti-papal writings had rendered him obnoxious to the king, he was himself suspended.

    At the Revolution Compton embraced the cause of William and Mary, being one of the Immortal Seven who invited William to invade England; he performed the ceremony of their coronation; his old position was restored to him; and among other appointments, he was chosen as one of the commissioners for revising the liturgy. During the reign of Anne he remained a member of the privy council, and was one of the commissioners appointed to arrange the terms of the union of England and Scotland; but, to his bitter disappointment, his claims to the primacy were twice passed over. He died at Fulham on 7 July 1713. Sent his son, John Compton to Maryland where Henry had been given a land grant. From a far, Henry helped set up the Anglican Church in Maryland.

    He had conspicuous defects both in spirit and intellect, but was benevolent and philanthropic.

    Works
    He was a successful botanist. He published, besides several theological works, A Translation from the Italian of the Life of Donna Olympia Maladichini, who governed the Church during the time of Pope Innocent X, which was from the year 1644 to 1655 (1667) (see Olimpia Maidalchini), and A Translation from the French of the Jesuits' Intrigues (1669).

    References
    1.^ Henry Compton in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922?1958.
    This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopędia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press.