# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chaderton, William

​CHADERTON, CHADDERTON, or CHATTERTON, WILLIAM, D.D. (1540?–1608), successively bishop of Chester and Lincoln, was born about 1540 at Nuthurst, a hamlet of Moston in the ancient parish of Manchester. He was the younger son of Edmund Chadderton, by his wife, Margaret Cliffe of Cheshire. The Chaddertons were an ancient family, descended from Geoffrey de Trafford, the younger son of Richard de Trafford, who about 1200 received from his father the manor of Chadderton. Chadderton was educated at the Manchester grammar school, and afterwards successively at Magdalene and Pembroke Colleges, Cambridge. He matriculated as a pensioner of Pembroke in November 1553. He took his degree of B.A. in 1558, and in the same year was chosen fellow of Christ's College. He became M.A. in 1561, B.D. in 1566, and D.D. in 1568. On the visit of Queen Elizabeth to Cambridge in 1564 he was appointed, with Thomas Cartwright (1535–1603) [q. v.] and others, to take part in the philosophy act kept before her majesty in Great St. Mary's on 7 Aug. to her great satisfaction. Chadderton's speech is printed by Nichols (Progresses of Elizabeth, iii. 68, ed. 1805). Perhaps it was on this occasion that he ingratiated himself with Cecil as well as with the Earl of Leicester, whose chaplain he afterwards became. He was chosen to succeed Whitgift as Lady Margaret professor of divinity in 1567. The next year, on the death of John Stokes, the influence of Sir William Cecil and the court procured his election as president of Queens' College, 7 May 1568. He returned thanks to his patron in a servile Latin letter. Stokes had also been archdeacon of York, and on the 31st of the same month, by the same influence, the new president was appointed his successor. Soon after his election to the presidentship, being minded to marry, he applied for leave to his other powerful patron Dudley, earl of Leicester. The earl's reply is printed by Peck (Desiderata Curiosa, bk. iii. No. 3), who finds much to divert him in Leicester's gravity in ‘writing like a saint.’ The earl's permission having been granted, Chadderton married Katherine, daughter of John Revell of London, by whom he had an only daughter, Joan. Chadderton took a leading part at this time in university affairs. The town was out of favour with the Duke of Norfolk, then high steward of the town, on account of some municipal squabbles, and Chadderton was despatched to Cecil, then the chancellor, by the vice-chancellor and heads, 7 Aug. 1569, to influence the duke against the town. Chadderton succeeded Whitgift as regius professor of divinity at the close of 1569. His place as Lady Margaret professor was filled by Thomas Cartwright, who at once began to attack the existing form of church government. We find Chadderton speedily calling upon Cecil (11 June 1570) to use his authority as chancellor to repress this ‘pernicious teaching, not tolerable for a christian commonwealth’ (State Papers, Dom. Eliz., lxxi. 11). In the bitter controversies between the puritans and the moderate Anglicans Chadderton actively sided with the latter, and was charged by Dering with being ‘an enemy of God's gospel’ with ‘small constancy either in his life or his religion’ (Strype, Parker, App. No. 78). He was, one of Whitgift's assessors when Cartwright was brought to trial before him, and fully concurred in his removal from his professorship, 11 Dec. 1570. Chadderton delivered the Lady Margaret lectures in Cartwright's place, and when, in the following September, Cartwright was deprived of his fellowship, he was one of the heads who wrote to Cecil entreating him to support Whitgift in this exercise of authority (Strype, Whitgift, bk. i. ch. 5. N.B.—Strype's date, 1572, is erroneous). In 1572 Chadderton made an unsuccessful application to Cecil for the deanery of Winchester, which would deliver him from the slavery of public lectures (Baker MS. iv. 190; Searle, Hist. of Queens' College, p. 308). On 16 Feb. 1574 he received the prebendal stall of Fenton in York Minster, to which on 5 Nov. 1576 was added a prebend of Westminster. He resigned the archdeaconry of York in 1575. A letter printed by Peck (Desid. Cur. bk. iii. No. 7; STRYPE, Annals, vol. ii. bk. ii. ch. 13), addressed to Chadderton by some leading person about the court, shows that he had given offence by political sermons. A disagreeable story is preserved by Strype (Parker, bk. iv. ch. 40) about a sermon preached by Chadderton at Paul's Cross, reflecting on Dr. Cox, then bishop of Ely, and even on Parker himself, for remissness in enforcing conformity, with the view, it was said, of getting Cox's bishopric. It is more pleasant to learn that during his residence at Cambridge he joined with Dr. Lancelot Andrewes, Dr. Knewstubbs, and others in weekly conferences on holy scripture. Sir John Harington (State of the Church of England) describes Chadderton, whom he remembered well at Cambridge, ​as ‘a learned and grave doctor, able to lay aside his gravity, even in the pulpit; well beloved by scholars for not affecting any sour or austere fashion, either in teaching or governing.’ His mastership, however, was far from being a quiet one. Chadderton's chief opponents among his fellows were W. Middleton, whom he removed from his fellowship in 1575 for sowing discord among the fellows, and Edmund Rockrey, a popular puritan preacher, who refused to attend the holy communion or conform to the ceremonies, for which he was expelled the university, but was afterwards restored to his fellowship by Burghley's interposition (Searle, u.s. pp. 324–45).
In 1579 Chadderton was appointed, through Leicester's influence, to the bishopric of Chester. He was consecrated in the church of St. Gregory by St. Paul's 8 Nov. by Archbishop Sandys. He had already resigned the presidentship of Queens' in the preceding June, and he gave up the regius professorship of divinity the following year, and was appointed to the wardenship of Manchester 5 June 1580, which he held in commendam with the bishopric of Chester. He also held at the same time the rectory of Bangor. He repaid his patron, Leicester, for his elevation by granting him the nomination to the archdeaconry of Chester at the next vacancy. He was at once appointed one of the ecclesiastical commissioners for the discovery and conviction of popish recusants. He took up his residence in Manchester as better suited for the execution of his commission, and remained there until ‘the too frequent jarrings between his servants and the inhabitants of the town’ caused him to remove to Chester (Lansd. MS. 983, f. 129). While resident at Manchester the children of many of the leading families of the diocese were placed under his charge, with the view of guarding them from the seductions of papists. The diocese of Chester included the whole of Lancashire and the north-western portion of Yorkshire, a district still strongly wedded to the old faith, and containing more than a quarter of all the English recusants. We have a very extensive collection of letters written by Lord Burghley, Sir F. Walsingham, Sir Christopher Hatton, and other leading statesmen, during his tenure of the bishopric of Chester, 1581–5, in Peck's ‘Desiderata Curiosa,’ vol. i. bks. iii. iv., chiefly concerning the mode of dealing with the popish recusants, who were to be proceeded roundly with by fine and imprisonment, commending him for the care and pains he had manifested to purge his diocese of the ‘dangerous infection of popery,’ by which it was fondly hoped that taint would ‘in a short time be wholly driven away.’ For his diligent attention to this work he was excused attendance in parliament in 1580. The bishop was not allowed to relax his vigilance for a single moment without a reminder from the privy council or from the primate Sandys (Strype, Annals, iii. bk. i. c. 15, Parker Society; Sandys, Sermons, pp. 435–42). ‘Prophesyings or Exercises’ having grown up without any authority, Chadderton issued instructions to regulate them, which are given by Strype (Annals, iii. App. Nos. 38, 39). These exercises were distasteful to the queen, who ordered their suppression. This order was communicated to Chadderton by his metropolitan, Archbishop Sandys, 2 May 1581, with a direct censure for ‘ yielding too much to general fastings, and all-the-day preaching and praying, which the wisest and best could not like, nor could her majesty permit it’ (Peck, bk. iii. No. 29, p. 102). In 1584, when the puritans were once more in favour at court, we find Chadderton censured by the privy council for the scantiness of the religious exercises in his diocese, which he was recommended to use more frequently (ib. bk. iv. No. 41, p. 149). It appears from the registers of the diocese that he was strict in enforcing the use of the cap and the surplice, and suspended some of his clergy for refusing to conform (Cooper, Annals, ii. 482). He is described as ‘a learned man and liberal, given to hospitality, and a more frequent preacher and baptiser than other bishops of his time’ (Hollingworth, Mancuniensis, p. 89).
On 5 April 1595 Chadderton was elected bishop of Lincoln, on the translation of Bishop Wickham to Winchester. The election was confirmed on 24 May, and he was enthroned by proxy on 6 June and in person on 23 July. His Lincoln episcopate was uneventful. On Easter day 1603, when James I was making his progress from Scotland to London on his accession, Chadderton preached before the king and court at Burleigh. He continued in his new diocese his endeavours to reduce popish recusants to conformity, and apparently with better success. The registers for 1606–7 contain frequent entries of lay recusants, who had been indicted for not attending their parish church, appearing before him in his episcopal chapel at Buckden and taking the oath of conformity. He complained on his accession that the revenues of the see were in such an impoverished state through the leases granted by his predecessor that he was hard put to it to restore one of his episcopal houses, maintain his household, and keep hospitality. More than 1,000l. was due for dilapidations, of which he could get nothing (Cal. of State Papers, 19 June 1595). ​He never resided at Buckden, but made his home at Southoe, about a mile away, where he had purchased an estate, on which, when Sir John Harington wrote, he was ‘living in good state,’ allowing the episcopal palace to fall into decay. He died suddenly at Southoe on 11 April 1608, and was buried the next day in the chancel of the parish church. No monument was ever erected to his memory, and the engraved slab placed over his grave has been removed. He had only one child, Joan, born on 20 Feb. 1574, while he was still president of Queens', who married Sir Richard Brooke, in the county of Chester, from whom she was soon separated. Her only daughter, Elizabeth, born in 1595, married to Torel Joceline in 1616, was the author of ‘The Mother's Legacy to her Unborn Child,’ first published in 1624, and died in childbed on 12 Oct. 1622. Chadderton's portrait has been engraved by Woolnoth, from an original portrait, for Hibbert and Ware's ‘Manchester.’ The only printed works he left are: 1. A copy of twenty-two Latin elegiac verses prefixed to Barnaby Googe's translation of the first six books of the ‘Zodiake of Life,’ by Marcellus Palingenius, 1561. 2. ‘Oratio in Disputatione Philosophiæ coram Regia Majestate, 7 Aug. 1564,’ printed in Nichols's ‘Progr. Eliz.’ iii. 68. 3. ‘The Direction of the Ecclesiastical Exercise in the Diocese of Chester,’ in Strype's ‘Ann.’ vol. ii. bk. i. App. Nos. 38, 39. 4. ‘Interpretation of the Statutes of King's College,’ 5 April 1604, in Heywood and Wright's ‘Laws of King's and Eton Colleges,’ pp. 276–83. 5. ‘Letter of thanks to Cecil on his appointment to the Presidentship of Queens' College,’ in Searle's ‘Hist. of Queens' Coll.’ p. 305.
[Le Neve's Fasti; Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. i. bks. iii. iv.; Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. ii. 482–4; Annals of Camb. ii. 196, 239, 251, 262, 309, 313, 367; Hibbert and Ware's Manchester, i. 101; Wardens of Manchester (Chetham Soc.); Nichols's Progr. Eliz. i. 186, ii. 298, 434, 453; Progr. James I, i. 96, 594; Strype's Annals; Lives of Parker, Grindal, Whitgift (indexes); Searle's Hist. of Queens' College (Camb. Antiq. Soc.); Mullinger's University of Cambridge, ii. 190, 214, 226.]
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