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Pe(a)cock, Reginald (or Reynald)

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Pe(a)Cock, Reginald (Or Reynald),

a learned and worthy English prelate, was born in Wales about 1390, and was educated at Oxford, where he became fellow of Oriel College. He took holy orders, and, after filling minor appointments, became successively bishop of St. Asaph and Chichester, by the favor of Humphrey, the good duke of Gloucester. He labored most earnestly for the conversion of the Lollards, by the use of candid arguments; but his moderation turned the Romanists against him, and he was deposed for resisting the papal authority and denying transubstantiation, with other articles of the Roman Catholic faith. He was obliged to recant his notions, and his books were publicly burned; after which he was confined in Thorney Abbey, where he died in 1460. He was the author of a number of works, of which those not destroyed remain in MS., except his Treatise of Faith, which was published by Wharton in 1688; and Repressor of overmuch Blaming of the Clergy (1860), which may be compared to Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity. It is an appeal to reason, but is not open to the charge of Deism. His life was written by the Rev. John Lewis (1744), and it is a sequel to the life of Wickliffe. "It forms a fitting introduction to the history of the English Reformation." See Hardwick, Church History of the Middle Ages, p. 395, 396; Farrar, Crit. Hist. of Free Thought, lect. iii; Hallam, Lit. Hist. of Europe; Lond. Athen. 1860, 1:878; Hook, Eccles. Biog. vol. 8:s.v. Pecock; Lewis, Life of R. Peacock (1744).