Stockton.
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Robert Cawdray, the author of _A Treasurie or Store-house of Similes_, was
a Nonconformist divine of learning and piety. Having entered into the
sacred function about 1566, he was presented by Secretary Cecil to the
rectory of South Luffenham in Rutlandshire. After he had been employed in
the ministry about twenty years, he was cited before Bishop Aylmer and
other high commissioners, and charged with having omitted parts of the Book
of Common Prayer in public worship, {500} and with having preached against
certain things contained in the book. Having refused, according to Strype,
to take the oath to answer all such articles as the commissioners should
propose, he was deprived of his ministerial office. Mr. Brook, however, in
his _Lives of the Puritans_, states that though he might at first have
refused the oath, yet that he afterwards complied, and gave answers to the
various articles which he proceeds to detail at length. He was cited again
on two subsequent occasions; and, on his third appearance, being required
to subscribe, and to wear the surplice, he refused, and was imprisoned, and
ultimately deprived. He applied to Lord Burleigh to intercede on his
behalf, and his lordship warmly espoused his cause, and engaged Attorney
Morrice to undertake his defence, but his arguments proved ineffectual. Mr.
Cawdray, refusing to submit, was brought before Archbishop Whitgift, and
other high commissioners, May 14, 1590, and was degraded and deposed from
the ministry and made a mere layman. The above account is abridged from
Brook's _Lives of the Puritans_, London, 1813, pp. 430-43.
[Greek: Halieus].
Dublin.
P. S. Besides the _Treasurie of Similies_, I find the following work under
his name in the Bodleian Catalogue:
"A Table Alphabeticall; conteyning and teaching the True Writing and
Vnderstanding of hard vsuall English Wordes, borrowed from the Hebrew,
Greeke, Latine, or French, &c. London. 8vo. 1604."
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