Not the son of John Aylmer & Frances Aylmer

John Aylmer (Ælmer or Elmer; 1521 - 3 June 1594) was an English bishop, constitutionalist and a Greek scholar.

Summary

Bishop John Aylmer (1521–1594) was an English clergyman and scholar who became the Bishop of London during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. He was known for his strong support of the Elizabethan religious settlement, which aimed to establish a Protestant Church of England while avoiding the extremes of both Catholicism and Puritanism.

As Bishop of London (from 1577), he was a strict enforcer of conformity to the Church of England, cracking down on Puritans and nonconformists. Despite being a humanist and well-educated, his authoritarian approach made him unpopular with more radical Protestants.

Details of his Life

He appears in the family tree of his son,Theophilus Elmer, as the son of John Of Norfolk. Visitation of Hertfordshire - https://archive.org/details/lincolnshirepedi01madd/page/n137/mode/2...

The earliest writing about John Aylmer was by John Strype, an English clergyman, historian, and biographer, writing in 1701 - Historical collections of the life and acts of John Aylmer, Lord Bishop of London, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 1821 -

'He received his first breath in the county of Norfolk about the year 1521. For in 1581 I read him in one of his letters calling himself homo sexa genarius ie a man of threescore years of age. Born according to Dr Fuller at Aylmer Hall in the parish of Tilsley as he saith the Bishop's nearest relation informed him mistaken I suppose for Tilney in the same county for as for Tilsley there is scarce such a town in England In the neighbouring county of Suffolk within four miles of Ipswich there is a very fair house called Claidon Hall now or late in the possession of the Aylmers His elder brother was Sir Robert Aylmer of Aylmer Hall aforesaid whose ancestor was High Sheriff of that county of Norfolk in the time of Edward II. Aylmer though he took his degrees of divinity in Oxford had his first education at Cambridge but when admitted and under what tutor and in what society I am to learn whether in Bene t or Gonvil hall where the Norfolk youth commonly studied or Trinity hall entered there by the fame that Bilney formerly of that house bore who much conversed and carried a great stroke among the people of Norfolk But these things are uncertain. Grey Marquis of Dorset afterwards Duke of Suffolk took a liking to him from a child going to school and entertained him as his scholar and exhibited to him when transplanted to the University.

More recent sources suggest that his birthplace was not Tilney. The Cambridge Alumni Database, states his birth place as “Aylmer Hall, Tivetshall, Norfolk”. He was born 1521 of an ancient family long resident at their ancestral seat of Aylmer Hall, in the parish of Tivetshall St. Mary, Norfolk, about 50 miles south of Tilney. The presently-named Walk Farm was until the early twentieth century known as Aylmer’s Hall, and had been since it was built in the late fifteenth century.

Shortly after taking orders, about 1541, he was installed by his patron the Duke of Suffolk as his private chaplain and tutor to his children at Bradgate in Leicestershire. In his latter capacity he became the instructor of Lady Jane Grey, whose testimony to his merits as one who taught 'gently,' 'pleasantly,' and 'with such fair allurements to learning,' is preserved in the well-known story told by Ascham (Scholemaster, ed. Mayor, pp. 33-34).

(Roger Ascham (1515 - 1568 was an English scholar famous, amongst other things, for his theories of education. He had been Prin cess Elizabeth's tutor in Greek and Latin between 1548 and 1550.)

John Aylmer's first preferment was to the Archdeaconry of Stow, in the diocese of Lincoln, In 1543 he was appointed to the Prebendary of Wells, Somerset, and during this time, before 1547, he married Judith King of Suffolk. His opposition in convocation to the doctrine of transubstantiation led to his deprivation and to his flight into Switzerland, in1553 at the beginning of the reign of Mary I. While there he wrote a reply to John Knox's famous Blast against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, under the title of An Harborowe for Faithfull and Trewe Subjects, &c., and assisted John Foxe in translating the Acts of the Martyrs into Latin.

He returned to England after Elizabeth I’s accession, resuming his position as Archdeacon of Stow (1559–1562) before becoming Archdeacon of Lincoln. In 1576, He was named Bishop of London by Queen Elizabeth I and he was consecrated in 1568, serving until his death in 1594. His tenure was marked by strict treatment of Puritans and Catholics alike, earning him criticism in the Marprelate Tracts and Edmund Spenser’s Shepheard’s Calendar.

Writing in 1559, he described himself as a proud Englishman, “Oh if thou knewest thou Englishmen in what wealth thou livest, and in how plentiful a country: Thou woldst VII times a day fall flat on they face before God and give him thanks that thou ws born an Englishman, and not an Italian, nor German.” (Quoted in Asa Briggs’s “A Social History of England”)

He preached – allegedly before Queen Elizabeth herself – that women were:

“of two sorts, some of them wiser, better learned, discreeter, and more constant than a number of men; but another and worse sort, and the most part fond, foolish, wanton flibbergibs, tatlers, triflers, wavering, witless, without council, feeble, careless, rash, proud, dainty, nice, talebearers, eavesdroppers, rumour-raisers, evil-tongued, worse-minded, and in every way doltified with the dregs of the devil’s dunghill.”

The fault was not in his intellectual capabilities: he was a talented linguist and a formidable logician, and when challenged as misappropriating church funds he marshalled all the books in perfect order to defeat the argument. As the Dictionary of National Bibliography admits, John “deserves to be commended for his attachment to learning and for his discerning patronage of scholars”.

The fault was in his nature. Bishop John used judicial process to keep both Puritans and Catholics at heel, sought to strangle the newly-reborn Cambridge University Press – the publishing house of his own alma mater – and ostentatiously played bowls on the Sabbath. The DNB minces no words:
“[his] arbitrary and unconciliatory disposition comes frequently into unpleasing prominence … Both from his views and temperament, Aylmer was ill-qualified to fill the episcopal office in the trying times in which he lived.”

"Aylmer, like John Ponet and Stephen Gardiner before him, is an important figure in the story of the reception of classical mixed government in Tudor England." [4] John Aylmer wrote his work An harborowe for faithful and trewe subiectes (1559), to defend the female monarchy of Elizabeth I associating "the rule of boyes and women, or effeminate persons" and on another basis; "that cytie is at pits brinks, wherein magistrate ruleth lawes, and not the lawes the magistrate: What could any kyng in Israell do in that common wealth, besides the pollycie appointed by Moyses?". His effort to familiarize his fellow countrymen with the "strange and alluring vocabulary of politics", introducing them to the classical forms and terminology, must be viewed as secondary to this primary goal. Aylmer nevertheless described England as not "a mere monarchy, as some for lack of consideration think, nor a mere oligarchy, nor democracy, but a rule mixed of all these." 1 He goes on to say that in the mixed state, "each one of these have or should have like authority." He argued that in the king-in-Parliament, or, in Elizabeth's case, the queen-in-Parliament, was not the "image" of a mixed state "but the thing in deed." It was in Parliament that one found the three estates: "the king or queen, which representeth the monarchy; the noble men which be the aristocracy; and the burgesses and knights the democracy." As he says, "In like manner, if the Parliament use their privileges: the king can ordain nothing without them." Parliamentary restraint of a queen's feminine vices would, according to Aylmer, ameliorate the disadvantages of female monarchy. His work, particularly his characterisation of England as a mixed monarchy, would be important to later English constitutionalists.

Despite his harsh reputation as a bishop, Aylmer’s work contributed to the constitutional discourse of Tudor England.He was a member of the famous convocation of 1562, which reformed and settled the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England. He argued for England as a mixed monarchy, balancing royal authority with parliamentary power. His scholarly pursuits, particularly in Greek, were notable, though his ecclesiastical policies remain a point of contention.

As one of the commission that examined whether England should adopt the Gregorian calendar, as had the rest of Europe, he was influential in ensuring that it would not do so for another two centuries – apparently, because English Protestant theologians could not countenance adopting a measure approved by a papal bull.

He seems to have recognised that his personality was overstretched, and tried to escape to the quieter sees of Ely, Winchester, and Worcester (the latter at Elizabeth’s personal request), but to no avail, and he died in 1594, and wasinterred in Saint Paul's Cathedral London. The grey marble which marked the place of his internment is no longer there.The inscription, which was altogether free from fulsome eulogy, read:
'Ter senos annos Præsul; semel Exul, et idem
Bis Pugil in causa religionis erat.'
Translates as:
"For three times six years a bishop; once an exile, and likewise twice a champion in the cause of religion."

Sources

Text from volume 44, Sir William Musgrave, A General Nomenclature and Obituary, page 74: Aylmer, John, of Aylmer Hall, Norfolk, Archdese. of Stow and Linc.. 82 Bp. London. 1594, æt 73. (Engl. Worth. 516 ; (Carter's Camb. 387.)
Stephen, Sir Leslie, Dictionary of National Biography, 1921–1922, 22 volumes London,
(Cooper, II. 168; D.N.B.)https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_18...
Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Ed. Vol III. Cambridge University Press, 1910. http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/aylmer.htm John Aylmer, Bishop of London]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aylmer_(bishop)_
http://genforum.genealogy.com/elmore/messages/225.html

Footnotes

Note by TPD 5/2/24 - He was related probably by marriage to Bishop Richard Vaughan, his protege, and also a later Bishop of London, who is mentioned in his will as an executor and his cousin (not to be taken literally as 1st cousin, in that period, could be any close relationship. Also, aAccording to Alumni Cantabrigienses. Bishop Richard Vaughan was his nephew. The relationship was probably through marriage. Aylmer's second wife, whom he married before 1547 was Judith, daughter of William King, of Audley End, Essex, (he seems to have been the last Abbot of Walden Abbey, Essex, before the Dissolution, then known as Robert Barynton, his wife, was a daughter of a Robert de Bures and probably a nun at the monastery, while Vaughan's wife was a Jane Bewers, also of Essex, and it is possible that her maiden name, Bewers, was a variant spelling of Bures.

- ,VAUGHAN, RICHARD. Matric. sizar from ST JOHN'S, Michs. 1569. 2nd s. of Thomas. B. c. 1550, at Nyffryn, Carnarvon. Β.Α. 1573-4; Μ.A. 1577; D.D. 1588-9. Incorp. at Oxford, 1584. Chaplain to the Queen and to Dr Aylmer, Bishop of London (his uncle). R. of Chipping Ongar, Essex, 1578-81, and of Little Canfield, 1580-91. Preb. of St Paul's, 1583-95-Archdeacon of Middlesex, 1588-96. R. of Moreton, Essex, 1591. V. of Gt Dunmow,
see e.g. http://www.wargs.com/family/vaughan.html

Also stated as a relation (Baker, Hist. of St. John's College, Cambridge, 255)

- 'Post felices apud nos bonarum literarum et studiorum progressus venit in familiam Jo Aylmer episcopi Lond ei vel affinitate vel sanguine conjunctus donatus ab eodem canonicatu in ecclesia Paulina Nov 18 1583 fit deinde'

Translates as - After the happy progress of good literature and studies with us, he came into the family of Jo Aylmer, bishop of London, and was given to him either by affinity or by blood.

John Aylmer's will (TNA PROB 11/391) Nov 1594 names him as his cousin, and a beneficiary, and executor.

TPD 17/5/24