Thomas Bailey or Bayly (died c. 1657) was a seventeenth-century English religious controversialist, a Royalist Church of England clergyman who converted to Catholicism.
Biography
editBailey's father was Lewis Bayly, Bishop of Bangor, and a brother was the scholar and clergyman John Bayly (1595/6–1633). Bailey was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge.[1] He began as a priest within his father's diocese; in 1634 he became Rector of Holgate, Shropshire, and in 1638 the sub-dean of Wells. He served as a commissioned officer in defence of Raglan Castle in 1646, and was briefly imprisoned in Newgate gaol for writing against the Commonwealth after Charles I was executed in 1649.
In that year he also defended Charles against allegations that he had been a Catholic. In Certamen Religiosum he reported on religious discussions from 1646 between Charles and Henry Somerset, 1st Marquess of Worcester, at Raglan Castle. Bailey attended the Marquess, as his chaplain.[2] The work proved controversial, and was attacked by Hamon L'Estrange,[3] Christopher Cartwright, and Peter Heylyn.
However, Bailey then made his way to Europe, and had himself converted to Catholicism by the time of his 1654 End to Controversy. A Life of John Fisher was issued under Bailey's name in 1655, though it was in fact a re-publication of a much earlier text which Richard Hall (died 1604) had translated into Latin.[4]
Works
edit- The royal charter granted unto kings, by God himself, 1649
- Certamen religiosum, 1649
- An End to Controversy between the Roman Catholique and the Protestant Religions Justified, 1654
References
edit- ^ "Bayly, Thomas (BLY627T)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ "Some Rag 1450". biography.wales.
- ^ An answer to the Marques of Worcester's last paper; to the late King. [electronic resource] : Representing in their true posture, and discussing briefly, the main controversies between the English and the Romish Church. Together with some considerations, upon Dr Bayly's parenthetical interlocution; relating to the Churches power in deciding controversies. To these is annext, Smectymnuo-Mastix : or, short animadversions upon Smectymnuus in the point of lyturgie (1651)
- ^ John J. LaRocca, ‘Hall, Richard (c.1537–1604)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 20 Dec 2007
External links
edit- Catholic Encyclopedia article
- Thompson Cooper, ‘Bayly, Thomas (d. c.1657)’, rev. Stephen Wright, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 20 Dec 2007
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