Sunday, February 23, 2014

William Tooker

It seems that Paul has no end of 16th century English churchmen (see also Cranmer Family).

William Tooker (sometimes spelled Tucker) was born in Exeter about 1566 and passed in Salisbury on the 19th of March 1620/21.  He is interred in the Salisbury Cathedral.

Tooker attended school at Oxford where he completed his master's degree in 1583.  In 1585 he became the Archdeacon of Barnstaple in Devonshire. 

During that time, he wrote a book dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I (see Tudor Monarchs and the Church) defending the power of kings to cure diseases, particularly Scrofula.  As a result, Elizabeth I appointed him as a chaplain, a role he continued under her successor, James I.  It is this monarch for whom the King James translation of the Bible is named.

Tooker achieved his Doctor of Divinity degree in 1594.  he was widely recognized as an excellent Greek and Latin Scholar.

In 1604 he published a treatise called Of the Fabrique of the Church and Churchmens Livings, dedicated to James I, in which he attacked the tendency of puritanism towards ecclesiastical democracy because it paved the way for spiritual anarchy.

William Tooker's son Robert (1595-1687) was also a churchman, becoming the rector of Vange in Essex in 1625.

William's grandson Henry Tucker (1619-1694) came to the Massachusetts Colony before 1651, going first to Sandwich on Cape Cod.  Henry was a member of the Society of Friends (a Quaker).  He eventually moved to Dartmouth to avoid persecution by the Puritans.

William Tooker was Paul's 11th great grandfather, Henry Tucker Paul's 9th great grandfather.

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