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Pilkington, James

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Pilkington, Matthew

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a noted Anglican prelate, who flourished in the great Reformation period of the 16th century, was born of an ancient gentleman's family at Rivington, in Lancashire, in 1520. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, and after graduation took holy orders. Under the reign of king Edward he distinguished himself as one of the disputants against transubstantiation, but under the reign of bloody Mary he was obliged to leave the country, as he was very decided in his Protestant proclivities. He lived for a while at Zurich, and then at Basle. When suffered to return, in 1558, after the accession of Elizabeth, he was made master of his alma mater. He interested himself in educational affairs generally throughout the kingdom, and in his native place established a free-school, which he himself endowed. In 1561 he was elevated to the bishopric of Durham, and became noted for his tolerant views. Thus, in 1564, he advocated indulgence to Nonconformists, and to all who scrupled to observe practices or assume obligations having any appearance of popish tendency. Bishop Pilkington died in 1575. He published, Exposition of the Prophet Haggeus (Lond. 1560, 8vo): — and on Obadiah (1560), Nehemiah (Camb. 1585, 4to), Ecclesiastes, Epistle of Peter, and of Paul to the Galatians: — Def of the Engl. Service; and, besides, many sermons. His Works were edited, with biographical notices, for the Parker Society, by the Rev. James Scholefield, regius professor of Greek, Cambridge (Camb. 1842, 8vo). See Strype's Cranmer, Parker, and Grindal; Hardwick, Hist. of the Ref. p. 219 et al.; Soames, Elizabethan Ch. History, p. 22, 49, 605; Burnet, Hist. of the Ref.; Hook, Eccles. Biog. 8, 92. (J. H. W.)