John Bowle d.1637

John BOWLE d.1637

Biographical Note

Born in Lancashire, son of Richard Bowle, auditor to the Earl of Bedford. BA Trinity College, Cambridge 1598, MA 1601, BD 1608, DD 1613. Chaplain to Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury; rector of St Michael-le-Querne, London 1609, and of Upminster, Essex 1609; during the following years he acquired other benefices. Dean of Salisbury 1620, Bishop of Rochester 1630. He was noted as a disciplinarian with puritan sympathies, though his later years were affected by illness, or possibly a reluctance to engage.

Books

Bowle directed, in his will, that his brother in law Robert Coppin should receive “my Bible with the name of Richard Bowle stamped and guilded on the corners which I commonly used in the pulpit at Bradfield”, and that “all my written paper bookes and writings that conteyne my observations collections and practise in divinitie” should go to his friend John Mountford, prebendary of St Paul’s. The rest of his books were to be sold, with the proceeds used by his executors to pay his funeral costs, “and buy such blacke as I shall direct to be given to my kindred friends and servants”. The size of his library is not known.

Characteristic Markings

None of Bowle’s books have been traced.

Sources

• Will of John Bowle, The National Archives PROB 11/175/149.
• Knighton, C. S. '"Bowle, John (d. 1637), bishop of Rochester."' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• Pearson, D., The libraries of English bishops 1600-1640, The Library 6th ser 14 (1992), 221-257.